We are about to leave for our last summer hurrah vacation. Of course, this means I have to make a new journal. That means, in the last couple weeks of being home, I hadn't done it yet. But, the house is clean(ish), I'm mostly packed(ish) and I know exactly why I haven't done it yet. This will become clear.
This time I thought I'd document the process that I am going through.
To begin with, as I have been cleaning up my art space (yes, I do clean it up although it's kinda hard to tell), I found a journal I made two years ago when we went to the same beach house.
This must be one of the first journals I'd ever made. I'd seen a tutorial by Diana Trout, and it worked perfectly for me. The cover is just some thick bristol paper that I think had actually been under something I'd been working on and I started cleaning my brush on it. I ended up liking it and sort of paint doodled and bit and then it went into my "stash". A stash is something tucked away, and there is very little tucked in my room. It's sort of spilling out/over/under everything. Anyway, I threw this together last minute too, so this was what I had handy. I covered the entire front and back in clear packing tape, because I thought there was a good chance of sea spray or rain sprinkles trying to sneak in.
This was my portrait of the house we're staying in. There are actually other houses nearby, but if you squint a little and shade your eyes,... it seems we are alone on a deserted dune.
I was very proud of this. Wobbly lines and all.
I spent a lot of time realizing that painting the sea is a whole thing unto itself. The light, the reflections, the translucent waves, the shifting clouds. Wet sand, dry sand, birds. But of course, the point is, I had to look very carefully to notice these things, and what a good exercise that was, even if I didn't end up knowing what to do.
I was also doing a lot of one line drawings, which was a hoot. I haven't done that in a while, so maybe that's a good idea.
We went to a nature preserve and I tried to sketch the birds.
My daughter found a claw that was gorgeous.
I napped in this.
I doodled some palmetto trees while I sat in the car waiting on someone.
This was a little bit on the edge of one paper, and probably my favorite sketch I did.
Anyway, looking through this made me realize how much better I remember this week because of these sketches, as simple as they are. Looking at the journal also made me aware of what worked for me. I liked the scrap nature of it - I didn't feel like the pages were too precious to mess around on. I also liked the size. My kids drew in it, and I love those as much as anything about it. So that helped me decide what I wanted to use.
This was going to be a single post, but I'm going to break it up over the couple days, since I'll be gone anyway and not posting and I am such a blabber mouth (typist?) that I am including way more than is necessary.
Just in case you want to see the process I go through making a journal.
