Holding onto Inspiration

Life has it’s ways of twisting & turning you around. This year will bring plenty for me because we will eventually be moving so my goals are set to wind in and out of the multitude of changes I am facing much like a curly ribbon. Let me say I am actually thrilled about this move, but it will surely impact my blog posts, as well as my artwork. Today I decided to share what my plans are for the year and hope my blogging friends can enjoy the journey with me.

I’ve chosen a word for the year FORWARD; this was suggested in a blog by Jane La Fazio, I’m not sure exactly why I did this (hehe) but it sounded good at the time. I’m thinking along the lines of taking this time to feed my ‘continuous learning’ habit on a more personal level and setting aside my love of teaching workshops to others because I won’t be able to set a strict schedule for anything. I’ll be continuing my focus on ‘a study of faces’, and starting a ‘moving to New Mexico Journal’ to share with everyone along the way.

If you noticed I’ve changed my photo in the header; this is our new property. It is a beautiful place and I’m so looking forward to building a new home WITH A STUDIO! Over the next several months the only thing I can promise is this is really going to be a trip. I’ll be sharing some tiny tutorials along with a lot of crazy sketches & journaling with no rhyme or reason to them, but they will reflect the curly ribbon of my life as it moves FORWARD. 

So for today you’ve got the low down on what I’m up against, and here’s a few more faces I created a couple of days ago. Have a wonderful day, and hold on to the inspiration. I’m gonna need it!

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Travel Journaling: Reno or ‘bust!

Just completed a short trip into Reno, NV! I of course reverted to my standard ‘dairy style’ of journaling the tid-bits of the day on the fly. I love documenting the daily minutia, and thus started out with a 2 page spread with a hand drawn map to fill in as we drove along.

Page 1 of map

Page 2 of map spread

During our stay at the Grand Sierra Casino & Resort, I did several sketches in the early morning hours near the Starbucks 🙂 of course, while I sipped on my morning latte and listened to the great background music! I had fun sketching folks, but often they catch on and try to cover their faces….so, I gave up on the folks and just did sketches of the immediate area. I painted them in watercolor after we returned home.

Casino Sketch

AM walk for latte 🙂

I was thrilled to stop in Boomtown on the way back. I actually recouped my previous losses. Then, on the way back home a bit of sketching in the van while Norm drove. We really had a great trip, nice & relaxing and by the way if you ever make a trip there make sure you do the National Automobile Museum. It’s awesome!

Have a great day, and keep sketching my friends!

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ART Journaling or Travel Journaling ‘what’s the difference’?

Over the past week I’ve been busy working on my background ‘faces’ project and began thinking about how the differences in process are directly connected to ‘my personal journey’. As I observed  the changes in my habits (ha) first I realized that ANY change can be just the boost you need to rekindle the fire in your journaling. In this case fire is good, and I believe these changes have helped me become more creative. Although now, instead of 1 journal with everything in it, I have again slipped back into separate journals. It seems to be something I do periodically, really don’t have a clue as to why.

A background page ‘face’ painted & ready to go!

I Am Thankful for Life! EDM#42

A journal page complete!

One journal now is more or less just for writing, and it’s not really up to date.  It’s just there in case I decide to write more extensively, and at the moment I have 3 different ART  journals going with mixes of the Everyday Matters Challenges, Illustration Friday works, and many, many faces all in various degrees of completion to use  for backgrounds.  I’m thinking, ah, this craziness must be because we haven’t taken a road trip in a while, I’ll know soon because we’re getting ready for one.  So, I now recognize that for me the difference truly is in the process I use and preparing backgrounds to journal INTO for me is ART JOURNALING, and doing illustrative journaling ‘on the go’, as it happens or where I am at the time seems to enable me to document my life and thoughts more along the TRAVEL JOURNALING path. Well at least I think I have it isolated in my mine anyway.

I hope you enjoy, and maybe try making some for yourself.  It’s the little sparks that start the fire.  I’m looking forward to this upcoming road trip because I think it will validate my current thoughts, and of course my TRAVEL JOURNAL will become fodder for an upcoming entry.

Keep playing, it’s good for your soul.

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