daily art journal: march

this month, the details are on flickr, so click each picture below if you want to know more.

1. daily art journal for march, 2. march 1-2, 3. curiosity bird detail, 4. march 3-4, 5. march 5-6, 6. march 7-8, 7. march 9-10, 8. march 11-12, 9. march 13-14, 10. march 15-16, 11. march 17-18, 12. march 19-20, 13. march 21-22, 14. detail - march 22, 15. march 23-24, 16. march 25-26, 17. march 27-28, 18. march 29-30, 19. march 31, 20. daily art journal for march

i'll admit the project grew more difficult in march and i fell behind, sometimes by a week at a time. i could definitely feel the effects of house- and job-hunting this month. it ended up both good and bad. good in that i had room for more two-page spreads, which i felt gave me greater flexibility on some of the pieces and some of the thinking it helped me do. bad in that i didn't get the daily creative practice that i embarked on this project to have. but april is a another month and i'm back on track. well. almost anyway. but i blame husband because he said yesterday was only the 2nd and it was actually the 3rd.

recurring themes - maps and eyes continue to crop up again and again. i'm beginning to see that come out when i look back at previous months. in any case, it's an interesting project and i'm starting to see a glimmer of where it's taking me.

reflections on the february daily art journal

click on this mosaic to see the whole set on flickr.

here it is, my mosaic of all of the pages of my february art journal calendar. this is such an interesting process. here in february, i've been less religious about sitting down and doing a page every single day, so there are many which stretch across two pages, because i didn't do them until the second day, thereby giving myself more space. i'm finding that works a bit better for me.

here are the close-ups of the second half of february. the first half is here.

february 15 - doodlings on a heavily embroidered dress seen in jean-paul gaultier's haute couture show

february 16 - sketch of the inkle loom that we bought  for sabin to weave ribbon on at our beloved randbøldal museum.

 february 17 18 - experimenting with monoprinting

i scribbled a thick layer of pastels on an ordinary sheet of paper and then laid it against the page and drew on it. it was fun!

 february 19 - cutting up one of those free postcards

february 20 - more monoprinting, this time a spillover from the soujournal project

february 21 - 22 a doodle a bit inspired by these, seen on flickr,

but with my own motifs. 

this was the first time when i sat down with the calendar and didn't know what to do.

and i think that shows.

as you can see, the past few days, after elizabeth (aka my zen master) sent me a link to a wonderful artist named shannon rankin, i played with some maps and really found my groove. expect more map stuff in the near future. it was well-timed, because husband had just cut up a map to aid him in our property search and so i had some extra bits of map at my disposal. sometimes cutting into such things is hard for me, but since it had already been cut, i had no inhibitions.

february 23 - 24 thinking about redrawing maps

these are places that have been important to me.

but i shuffled them at will. that was liberating.

february 25 - 26  driving around, looking at 8 farm places had me spending a lot of time with maps over two days. i found myself wondering which road would lead to our new home.

february 27-28 - fragments of a topography

maps in general interest me - topographies and mapping and drawing and tracing the topography of a life. that's what we're going to do in moving, we're going to redraw our internal maps. i got a bit of a start on it here at the end of february.

i still don't have a clear idea where this project is taking me. but combined with the soujournal project, i'm doing a lot of art journaling this year and that seems like a good thing. in fact, it seems so good, i've been pondering ways of sharing it.

so i'm putting together an online art journaling course. at first it was only in my mind, but now it's spilled onto the page a bit and i've even begun to make up packets of pretty papers for it. i'm still at the planning stage, but i'd love to know if you'd be interested in taking an online art journaling course and coming to explore this medium with me? please email me with any ideas you have about this - what you'd like to do in such a course, how you'd like to interact with the other participants, thoughts on materials and the like.

and don't forget to check out my fabulous new orange coat below. it was totally worth breaking the year of not buying things. :-)

february art journal calendar

i'm hopeless on my soujournal project at the moment. i have to send mine on to polly, but the last page i imagine before sending on to her is still stuck in my brain and will not come out on the page. i've even assembled some things that go with it and they're RIGHT THERE at hand and it still won't come out. what's up with that anyway?

however, it's going well with my daily art journaling in the moleskine calendars. i have fallen behind on sharing, but i'm only a teency tiny bit behind on the actual journal. here's what's i've done so far in february:

feb. 1 - totally me, if there's one thing i do, it's sketch plant-y things.

feb. 2 - tried to do something inspired by this. totally didn't work for me.

too cold and impersonal, i think. and too self-centered.

feb. 3 - been seeing mugs everywhere, so i drew a couple of my favorites. and a little plate of cake.

feb. 4 - back to the natural stuff + watercolor. much more me.

feb. 5 - we worked on a 3000-piece puzzle all day.

feb. 6 - a flea market find - a book on the vikings.

feb. 7-8 houses inspired by these.

i think these might eventually manifest as a quilt.

feb. 9 - dreaming of spring. and a vespa. (scooters courtesy of kim smith scrapbook paper acquired ages ago from the now defunct red velvet kit club)

feb. 10 - obsessed with plain spoken quilts, so i even painted one, but had to stitch it too.

feb. 11 - scraps of fabric, sewn together, to remind me how much i've been sewing of late.

feb. 12 - one heart for every year we've been married. and a switch to pastels.

feb. 13-14 - watched a marvelous show where joanna lumley chased the northern lights.

played with pastels again. not sure they're really me.

and again, one must be careful putting on hand lotion.

i continue to obsessively note where i am and when as i do each page, even when i'm a bit behind. it began as something i did on my travels years ago, noting where i was as i wrote and it has just continued, to the point of near obsessive-compulsive behavior. but, i'm going with it, because it doesn't really hurt anything. and it might be nice to remember at some point.

i'm not sure yet where these are taking me, but it's interesting (for me at least) to track the journey. and i think in time, when there's a critical mass of them, i'll know where it's going. and at least i've begun actually doing something with all that inspiration i've been gathering on flickr.

here's wishing you a weekend full of inspiration and creativity...

january art journal: complete

my january moleskine art journal calendar is complete. i didn't always do the page on the actual day, but i wasn't far off. i worked mostly with stædtler fineliners and watercolors. and here's a closer look at the pages since i last posted:

january 19 - reflects the weaving warps i'm setting up at weaving lessons

january 20 - was the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

january 21 - 22 i was inspired by the colors and shapes of this crocheted blanket on flickr.

january 23 - stitching design for my 9-patch diary cloth.

january 24 - ideas on upcycling a georg jensen blanket husband got as his work christmas present.

january 25 - a monocule in honor of sabin's birthday

january 26 - inspired by this painting on flickr

january 27 - more inspiration from flickr.

january 28 - still more inspiration from flickr, but also from a children's show called "smarteenies" that used to be on BBC Prime.

january 29 - clarity birds on the brain again.

january 30 - the trees have eyes. a doodle pondering kantha embroidery.

january 31 - more doodles pondering kantha embroidery.

february is a short month, but i've already gotten started.

undiagnosed OCD

picking up where we left off with the daily art journal - i didn't have time to post it on the weekend as intended due to the fabulousness of blog camp 3.0. and if i'm honest, i wasn't fully caught up on it 'til last night anyway. but i am caught up again now, so here we go:

january 9 - 10

on the 9th, i was inspired by this art journal seen on flickr.

on the 10th, the beautiful story fragment i bought from jude hill.

and i learned not to put on lotion before working with watercolors.

january 11 - 12
on the 11th, we got an offer on the house.
on the 12th, i started my weaving lessons.
this is a great way to help remember these things!

january 13 - 14
i actually did the 13th page on the 16th during the art journaling fest at blog camp.
january 14 was done during my art journal catch-up evening on the 18th.
it's a drawing of the wonderful petra art doll by sophie callaghan that spudballoo gave me at blog camp.
thank you spud (and sophie)!
i know, my stædler fineliners were a little garish, but they write like a dream.

january 15 - 16

january 15 - elizabeth's moment of clarity symbol.
january 16 - clarity birds based on elizabeth's symbol.
they just popped into my head as i was drawing elizabeth's symbol.

january 17 - 18
watching the fountain with hugh jackman.
quite a thought-provoking movie about the tree of life.
i found myself writing down quotes.
and drawing the tattoos he had on his arm.
tho' i did spend a lot of the movie expecting hoping he'd turn into wolverine.

when she came to blog camp, elizabeth looked around the house and suggested that the reason i obsessively write down where i am when i do a page was evident in the maps hanging on the walls (and the ceiling) in our house. i have a need to orient myself in time and space. knowing where i am so i can look towards where i'm going. i really quite like that thought. much better than a mild case of OCD...

week 1: art journal calendar

the sunny side - 4th attempt at free-form embroidery on my sewing machine! i'm loving it!!

it's week one of daily working in my little moleskine art journal calendar and i made it through with motivation intact. in fact, most days, i had to restrain myself from doing more than one page and thus far, i have done that, because part of the exercise was to develop a daily practice of drawing or painting or other artsy endeavors in the same place. to work ahead would be to let myself off the hook another day and while i'm not saying that i may not eventually do that, i'm not ready to do so yet.

so i hereby give you what i've got so far:

january 1-2, 2010

january 3 - 4, 2010

january 5 - 6, 2010

the swedish stamp was from a package i got from kristina that day.

it's a ski jump (i think), so i painted it a little mountain.

january 7 - 8, 2010

the little viking ship stamp i carved myself from an eraser.

and the robot is one of my first attempts at free-form embroidery with my sewing machine.

close up of the robot.
i just glued him onto the page.

i've noticed a few things as i'm doing this:

: : the lines aren't bothering me like i was afraid they would.

: : i feel an obsessive need to date each one, despite the fact that it goes on a page with the date on it.

: : and i want to write where i was when i did the page. i guess that's something i've done in my written journals for years as well, even down to recording hotel room numbers in hotels around the world. i wonder why i feel a need to do that?

: : watercolors are my medium of choice at the moment.

: : i am LOVING the free-form embroidery, even if the little owl i did first looks like it was vomited up by a cat.

the vomit owl

thanks spud for that name. :-)