Art Journaling – Observations

Hi my friends.

It has felt so strange not to be posting every day.  I did force myself to take a short break from the blog.  I felt I needed it after the intensity of the thirty paintings and postings in September.

I’ve been focusing more on my art journal over the past few days and most of what I have done has been just for me and not to share with the world.

Observations Journal Page by Tori Beveridge CU1

 
One of the things I had been wanting to do was to follow along with Connie Hozvicka of Dirty Footprints Studio in her Art Journal Wisdom.  I really loved Day 3, ‘Get It Out, Get It Down’, which you can find HERE.  I really enjoyed this mini workshop.  I watched the videos and followed her suggestions.

Observations Journal Page by Tori Beveridge CU2

I am not the best at writing things down in a journal, mostly because, well, I don’t want anyone reading my private thoughts.  Her suggestion to rip up what you write down and use it collaged into the background to paint over, to me seemed to be the perfect solution to my phobia against writing ‘stuff’ down.  Wow.  It worked.  As I wrote, more thoughts came out and I actually found answers and observations about why I don’t write things down and wrote them down!  As Connie suggested, I tore it all up, and using gel medium, collaged the pieces into the journal and then started to paint.

Observations Journal Page by Tori Beveridge CU3

As you can see in the close up details, some of the writing peeks through the background.  My favorite part is the word, journaling, which you can just make out on the girl’s forehead.  That was a happy surprise I found when I was finished.

Observations Journal Page by Tori Beveridge

I was very proud of myself with this journal page, not because it is a great and beautiful work of art, a few weeks ago the old me would have gessoed over this face and all the green (my vision when I started was blues) and repainted it to make it “pretty”.  I’ve realized that making art pretty just because I think it will appeal more to other people is not being true to myself, or what I am feeling or to my reason for having an art journal to begin with.