I started on my third weeks prompt and just kept right on going! It's so much fun to follow your heart. Now, I have to follow the housework that I've neglected, I see the trail...I'm on my way. Have a great weekend!
Thank you to all who have joined my Journal Group! It's really exciting to have a ning group just for journaling and playing! I'm in the middle of a journal page now, which will eventually be part of the weekly prompts and challenges I'm doing. I bet you can't guess what this challenge is!
I don't want to give away the secret to this page yet, so all I will say for now is that the name of this page is..."The Lion Sleeps Tonight."
Sign-ups for participation is in the upper right hand corner of my blog. Happy Creating!
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Journal Group Is Open
I just completed the inside cover of my Art Journal! The first Prompt will involve your journal cover and inside cover. The details for this first Journal Challenge will come to you next Friday night along with some helpful information that you might find handy in getting started with your journal journey.
Some participants don't have blogs to share their work, so I've decided to make a small ning group for us to share our work in. I am hoping to limit the size of the group so we can all enjoy sharing our photo's and ideas with one another in a fun and intimate place! But, please, share your work on your blogs too! You will love what you come with up with each week and I think you will be very proud of yourselves!
Feel free to use the sign up form to the right so I can contact you this Friday.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Want to come and play?
Many of us have realized how helpful art journaling is in releasing our inner creativity. I wanted to begin a very special journal journey of my own. One that would both express and explore area's of my life that I have not made memorable or have not celebrated. As mothers and family members we tend to take care of everyone but ourselves. This isn't a flaw in our DNA. Rather I think that it is a wonderful part of our make up as women. We care about others. The other wonderful facet to our power as women is that we are masterful at making connections with others. Sometimes we don't use this power and it can have devastating effects on our health and our mental well being. We have so much unexplored power within us, yet we don't always acknowledge it. So, where does that energy go? Often, it goes to waste and we become frustrated, and anxious, and even depressed.
This is how it often goes for us: We get inspired and we purchase wonderful books on how to journal and how to make journals, and where to buy the materials. We see beautiful perfect images of journal ideas, and we even read about the stories behind the lovely artwork. But, if we aren't using our own stories, if we aren't seeing into ourselves, well, then the real growth can't take place inside of us. Which is where I think it all must begin.
So, if you would like to join me page by page, I am going to make an art journal prompt each week, with a challenge involved. Some challenges will be easier for some than others. That is okay. Growing sometimes involves stretching unused muscles. All you have to do is post your work on YOUR blog. Talk about it, share it to the extent that you feel comfortable, hide parts if you want to. I bet...I bet it will change your life.
I will take the names from my mailing list and e-mail you the information you'll need to begin the journal with weekly updates about the next prompt. I AM NOT TEACHING TECHNIQUES. I am not charging for this. This is a sharing experience and it's open to all who want to join. We will no doubt learn from each other, but the point is to let your inner teacher speak to you.
To the right of my blog is the mailing list form, just fill it in and I will send you the journaling information you need to join and that is it!
About my Journal Cover:
When I was a little girl my mother made all of my clothes. She was a stay at home mom, but she also worked as the apartment manager of the building we lived in. She always made time to sew me beautiful dresses. I felt like a fairy princess in them. And, she ALWAYS curled my hair, or pulled into beautiful buns and even bouffant's. Now, in the early 70's we did not use curling irons, or round styling brushes. No, to achieve the look you see in this photo of myself at five years old, my mother had to roll my hair in curlers. Big FAT curlers. I slept in them the night before this picture was taken and even though the bobby pins pinched and even though I felt like I was sleeping on big rocks, it was alright. Because I was going to look like a princess! And, by the time my dry hair was released from those dreaded curlers, I was glorious!
For picture day, I was Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White all rolled up in one. Finally, when the pictures arrived home from my school I was so excited! And, because I was my mother's princess, I knew my picture would be perfect. She loved it of course because she loved me, and she told me I was beautiful. I proudly showed my father and when he saw it my whole world shattered. He didn't see the princess in the picture. He didn't see the pretty dress, or the beautiful curly locks that I suffered so bravely for. No, what he saw was that the little girl in the photo wrinkled her nose when she smiled, and he said to that little girl how pretty she would have looked if she didn't crunch her nose when she smiled.
Almost 40 years later this is where the cover of my journal begins. A little princess captured inside of an old light-switch. She is no longer flawed. She is perfect. And, until this "switch" in her thinking happened, she could not see the beauty in her self.
You have stories too! Good ones, sad ones, all kinds. They are wonderful stepping stones to who you are and how you will be remembered long after you leave this earth.
Sign up with me and see what we learn together. One journal page a week.
Darlene Pringle showed this to me....play it and enjoy!
Sunday, August 02, 2009
My Final Journal Entry Goes To Colette in Australia...
In doing this fabulous exchange, each time I worked in a journal something called to me, and I went with it. This is especially true for Colette.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters when compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
When my journal finally finds it's way home to me, I want to take photo's of all the beautiful works done in it for all of you to see. Exchanges are especially rewarding when the participants have their hearts in it. There is so much joy and friendship to share here, and I am so glad to have had this opportunity to give and receive so much beautiful sentiment! Surprisingly, each work expresses something so unique and special, that I have really felt invigorated and humbled by the power of sharing the intamacy of our journal works. It really is almost beyond words.
Goodie! Goodie! My friend Val of Val Zdero Art has an awesome blog Give-away! Please visit her and enter to win...Someone is going to be very lucky, I hope it's me! LOL!
