The Documented Life Project: Week 7

Art Challenge: Cover up the good stuff
Journal Prompt: Going undercover

Again I have been less than inspired, and again I looked to Lorraine Bell's example page to get me going. It didn't turn out anything like hers because, a) she is an artist and I am a puddleducker; and b) things didn't work the way they did for her.

I started out, like her, writing all over the page with a waterproof pen, trying to write about the good stuff in my life. However, my pens were either way too fine, or too thick, and my handwriting is of the non-artistic messy kind. So, following her instructions, I dry brushed white gesso over the page - but somewhat more thickly than she did, so much less of the writing showed through.

Following her example again, I put drops of ink on the page, lightly brushed it, and let it run down the page before blotting with patterned paper towels. Except only the first and last steps worked - my ink or surface or both resulted in a very different look, and one that was considerably messier and less artistic!

I then diverted from her example, as I have neither water soluble crayons, nor the skill to draw with them! I sketched an umbrella shape and then cut out umbrellas from scraps of papers, some of which I had hand decorated in various ways. I pasted them on top of other papers that represent some aspects of my life, hidden and less hidden. I then drew in the handles and tops, and outlined the umbrellas.

It didn't come out the way I planned, and I am not satisfied with the background in particular, but over all it's okay. However, I am learning much about techniques and materials, which is the real point of the whole exercise for me.

The Documented Life Project: Week 6

So as the 'good' people head into week 12 of The Documented Life Project, I finally do week 6! My fingers were itching to craft but my brain wasn't thinking well. The challenge was uninspiring for me, making it a huge challenge.

Art Challenge: When Not To Stop
Journal Prompt: "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough!" (Ooh)

I didn't feel 'Ooh' at all!

Finally, after much procrastination, I realized that I just had to start. Using a brayer, I rolled some burnt sienna acrylic paint randomly over the page, and then added some raw sienna and pale gold.
I cut rough circles out of one of my first experimental gelli prints and stuck them on the page. 

Stop. Don't know what else to do. Listen to the radio. Pick up a stylized leaf stencil and pounce some black paint on. Stop. Don't know what else to do. Listen to the radio. Use the sponge to lightly pounce some spots on the page. Don't like that much. Stop. Don't know what else to do. Listen to the radio. Pick up Sharpie and, listening to a really interesting item on the radio, start doodling. Put in some words. More doodling. Whoa! Enough!

Lacking something. Hmmm. Pieces of torn and crumbled gold leaf that I bought about three years ago in a sale. Okay, enough,I'm done.

The Documented Life Project: Week 5

Art Challenge: Under Paper (paper on your work table that gets all inky while you work)
Journal Prompt: What Lies Beneath?

This one panicked me when I first read it, as I have never kept under paper. In fact I've never had much. I usually work on a plastic table cloth and wash it afterwards. Never mind - I have now learned to use it and to keep it. I bought a gelli plate a few weeks ago, and have played with it a little, with resulting under paper.

 I used both my two pieces of under paper. I cut one into strips to make a frame, using the other in the middle. I added pressed wild carrot flowers, two 'right' way up, the other down side up. I added more wild carrot flowers by way of stamping.

The writing is the text of the blog I wrote when I got my tattoo for my 60th birthday, which seemed to fit this journal challenge just right. I printed out the words, then splashed and blotted dye over it. 

I'm really happy with this page, but, sadly, it doesn't look nearly as good in the photos as it does in the 'flesh' - the 'blue' table that it's sitting on tells you that the colours aren't right - it's really a greyish cream.

The Documented Life Project: Week 4

Art Challenge:  Writing
Journal Prompt:  Words with Friends

This has been a challenge indeed: I have been thinking a lot about friendship lately. About the meaning of friendship, what it is, what makes a person a friend. I had a difficult time as a child as I had an unpleasantly fiery temper, a desperate need to be loved, and was filled with anxiety about how to behave and react - my fuse was short, and other kids were quick to learn what triggered my temper and would then get much amusement in seeing me flare up, and subsequently get into trouble with the teachers. My mother's way of teaching me not to get in a temper was to whack me with the wooden spoon or her hairbrush and send me to my room until I got over it. Which wasn't very helpful for learning strategies to deal with other kids! As I got older, my self-esteem plummeted, my anxiety and depression increased, and I had a desperate need for love and approval. My idea of a friend was someone who didn't hate me. Someone who would talk to me, at least some of the time - there were many who didn't. I thought my best friends were books, but now I realise they just fueled my unrealistic dreams of a 'bff'. 

I'm still trying to sort out my ideas of friendship, but since my mental health has improved, I am far less desperate, and willing to leave behind the 'friends' who I now realise were just using me, who didn't really care about me at all.

I'm also becoming more tolerant, accepting and forgiving of my friends' shortcomings. Last year a friend said something that I found very hurtful and nearly ended the relationship. I told her I didn't want to talk to her - indefinitely. But after a while I got to thinking that just because she didn't understand something about me, didn't mean she was mean - it just meant she didn't understand. And I got to thinking about all the fun times we'd had, and all the kind, loving things she had done, and realised that I couldn't lose this lovely woman from my life over just one single sentence.

I've come to accept that their are many kinds of friends: friends to do things with, with whom I share interests and activities; friends I can talk to about our philosophies of life, our problems and worries; friends to go swimming or walking with; womad friends. Friends who are friends through a particular phase of life, friends who share the fun, joyous times; friends who share the bad times; and those precious very few who are there for me through both good and bad.

I've come to realise that I too have let friendships slide as I no longer find myself comfortable - and that's okay, just as it's okay when others find me no longer important in their lives. It's sad - and sometimes even though I know I can't sufficiently relate to them any more, I still feel sad, missing the bond that we previously had. There are some who have let go of me, who I miss dreadfully, but I don't hold resentment, nor even a sense of betrayal, as I once did.

Getting older does bring changes: my acceptance of what is is a change for the better. An increasing acceptance of who I am has also made me less needy and less fearful about friendship.

(And I'm loving playing with my gelli plate)

The Documented Life Project: Week 3

Art Challenge:  The Color Wheel
Journal Prompt:  "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way . . . “    - Georgia O’Keeffe

I was determined not to use any words this time, other than the quote.

The Documented Life Project: Week 2

The busyness continues, but I am not giving up! I intend to keep going, and to eventually catch up, but it may not be until winter and the stay-inside weather arrives. So some weeks I have done nothing, one week I did one, another week I did two - but I'm going to keep the 'week 1' style description.

The 'January' theme was The Blank Page and How to Face It. The art challenge for the second week was: gesso. I have gesso. I have had it for longer than I can remember - I bought it for something and never used it. Well, I have now - very useful stuff.

The journal prompt was: "The beginning is always today," a quote from Mary Shelley.

I have quickly discovered that in this project, as with my writing group, and my book club, I don't follow instructions. I find the idea of the beginning being today a bit silly - we all carry our past with us, so I find the idea of building new from old both more valid and more interesting. I started with a poem I wrote a while ago:

On Building New from Old

I give to you a cracker box,

some left-over dye,

an exercise book

with words written

in indecipherable symbols,

off-cuts from another project,

ribbons from past gifts,

tail ends of threads

and the skeletal remains

of a long dead sea creature.

Even the new born babe

brings baggage

entering the world naked

but with several pairs

of well worn genes

and nine months of

private living.

As life slips by

we gather and collect

we discard and hoard

we let chances slip

through our fingers

like soft salty sand

on a hot beach day

Of those gatherings,

some are treasured -

boldly displayed or

 tucked away in red tissue.

Others seem debris

needing spring cleaning

out of existence.

But consider the bits

and pieces of your life

before you throw them

out with the rubbish

on Monday morning:

they may yet be used

for building new treasures.

 I added other quotes.

I think this is very appropriate - I am more a word person, and a book craft person, not an artist, so this page is very messy. But I am going to keep going, and eventually I hope that my pages will become more artisty. I didn't want to show these early pages to the world, but decided that doing so is part of my challenge to "expand the comfort zone."

The Documented Life Project 2015: Week 1

I have often drooled over pictures of Artists' Journals in books and on web pages, but have always 'known' that I wasn't creative or skilled enough to make one of my own. However when a Facebook friend put up a photo of the first page of hers, and mentioned The Documented Life Project, I asked about it and investigated - and then signed up. 

Of course, being summer here, it wasn't easy to start. The first challenge  was for the week starting 1 January, at which time I was spending three days paddling down the Whanganui River - not the best place to get out the paper, glue, scissors and paint.

And then we had visitors including another internet friend from America....

And the grandchildren.....

And swimming and summer and gardening and summer......

However, all the time, I was reading the challenges and planning them in my head and making notes about what I wanted to do and at last, on the 1st of February, I finally began. 

The January theme was the blank page and how to face it. I certainly needed help with that! But the project gives you that help.

The first week's Art Challenge was Book Paper. Panic! What the hell is 'book paper'? It's okay, they explain. Easy.

The first week's Journal Prompt was Be Your Own Goal Keeper. Obviously the very first thing to do was to actually have a goal. I thought about that a lot and came up with the idea of allowing adventure into my life - both of the planned and spontaneous kind. So 'adventure' became my theme / goal. Except it didn't sit quite as comfortably as it should. I knew I didn't mean huge adventures like climbing Mt Aoraki or even Mt Karioi, but small adventures both physical and of the mind. Yet still I wasn't comfortable, and procrastinated. 

Eventually it became February and I knew I just had to start.  I didn't like what I made. I didn't like my 'adventure' goal. I kept going. I added 'colour' as a goal. I didn't like that either. I nearly screwed up my paper to throw it away, but I remembered how many times I had read, just cover it up, paint over it, add, subtract, change, see what evolves.

The words had to go! But they were sprawled across the page. The water colour pencils had smudged instead of washed. What to do? I was totally out of my comfort zone - just how I had been totally out of my comfort zone when I went on that river trip, and when I had invited someone I liked but didn't know well to visit. Comfort zone. Hmmmm. Then I knew what my goal really is - it is not to move out of my comfort zone but rather, to EXPAND MY COMFORT ZONE. And part of expanding my comfort zone is to accept that everything I do it not going to be perfect; not going to be 'up to standard'. And it doesn't fucking matter!

So, here's my first page. Oh yeah, as usual, I haven't done as I was told. I didn't buy a large journal as instructed - I decided that I will do my stuff on loose pages and bind them at the end.

The colourful bit on the right is a lift up tag, under which are reminders of the different areas of my life in which I especially want to 'expand the comfort zone', and notes of ways in which I did this in January.

It's nothing like what I imagined, it's unsatisfactory in many ways - but it doesn't fucking matter! My new mantra - 'It doesn't fucking matter!' I think I need to go add that to my page in big, bold letters: IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER!