back at it

Today has been marked on the calendar as my studio day all week. A full day with my attention only on creating. Things have finally settled down enough that my husband and I are trying to work out our work schedules so that I can get at least one full day in the studio. Today is probably going to be an anomaly, as I will most likely get my day on the weekend. But this week was different, and I’ll take whatever I can get! I kissed my little guy on the cheek this morning and told him I’d see him at lunch. With that I walked up the stairs to my studio and tied on my paint splattered apron that has been hanging on my easel since we moved.

It felt good.

The other week when I saw Gerri on our art day outing, I showed her my journal and how I use it for everday things, for lists, for whatever I need to get out. And also I use it to loosen up before a studio day. I’ve talked about this here before. In the past when I came to work in the studio from Monday to Friday I didn’t have to do this. Creating art, for me, is much like playing the piano. It’s a skill and a practice. When I do it everyday, it comes easier. The ideas flow. Things just happen.

When I was in college, I lived in an artsy fartsy dorm with plenty of music majors who were just amazing. I remember that whenever they practised, no matter how good they were, they began with doing the scales. Up and down the keys, over and over again. Loosen up the fingers, get in the mindset.

So now, that I don’t work in my studio everyday, I need to do my scales. It’s been so long, that my journal spread took way too long this morning! It really should be a quickie. I don’t worry about things looking ugly or dumb. I just do it.

This is my spread from this morning:

Not very pretty or “cool”. But it really did help me get going. The thing that I try to do with my visual journal exercises too is to use up stuff that I have sitting around. I created the fabric with the fern transfer……around the time I got married! I just never knew what to do with it. Now it’s in my journal sewn to a piece of torn notebook paper. I got the prompt for the notebook paper from Inspire Me Thursday. Another place I visit to get inspiration when I’m feeling a little lost.

On the left side of the spread is actually a piece of canvas glued down. You can see where the canvas ends, close to the center binding of the journal. That piece of canvas was actually a gift from the multi-talented artist Jacqueline Myers Cho. She is such a generous woman and artist and she has several times surprised me with a box in the mail filled with art and papers, and dolls, and scraps of canvas that she has painted on. I have one of her mosaic sculptures that she sent me hanging in my garden right now. And now her canvas scrap has been incorporated into my journal today. Just to note, this was not a finished canvas- I do not take people’s finished art and use it in my journals! She meant it to be used for something else. She probably wouldn’t recognize it now.

I worked on some mixed media panels. One of them I feel really good about. The other, not so much. But the important thing is that I feel more balanced with myself today. And I still have a few hours to go until dinnertime.