#AtoZChallenge, K is for Kid-Lit

Today's post celebrates Kid-Lit, all the wonderful children's books in the world and what a fantastic subject they make for art journaling. Besides the hundreds of fairy tales I read as a child: The Blue Fairy Tale Book, The Red Fairy Tale Book and on and on through the entire rainbow, some of my favorite titles were:

• Lona
• The Diamond in the Window
• The Door in the Wall
• Little Bear
• Little Women

Authors:

• Zilpha Keatley Snyder
• Edgar Eager
• Lloyd Alexander
• Laura Ingalls Wilder

Characters:

• Trixie Belden
• Donna Parker
• Madeline
• Babar

Of course there are hundreds more, far too many to list here, but I'm convinced that my early reading and love of picture books is what led me to become a writer, and what then later encouraged my deep interest in art. How about you? What were some of your favorites, and how did they help you become who you are today? Drop a line!

Tip of the Day: For today's journal page I started with a doodle of a frog, as in The Princess and the Frog. I'm a little rushed at the moment so I had to leave out the princess, as well as the kissing part, but it made me think how neat it would be to create an art journal based solely on fairy tales, myths, legends, or perhaps a children's story of your own. Who knows, it might even turn into a publishable picture book!

#AtoZChallenge, Just Show Up!

So much of creativity is really all about just showing up. You don't have to know what you're going to do once you get there, but you do need to get there: to your desk, your studio, your kitchen table. No big deal.

But just in case you do think it's such a big deal you'd rather clean your base-boards and check all your clothes for loose buttons rather than face your journal, here are my favorite tips for showing up with a free and easy attitude:

• Assemble what you need ahead of time. Give yourself as long as you need to find and collect collage and other papers, paints, pencils, stickers, etc. Set up a small but usable work-space that makes you want to go there to play.
• Having everything in place, including hand-wipes and other clean-up materials will help keep you in place without constantly having to get up and find yet another missing piece.
• Start a weekly or daily habit of going through magazines in search of images and word-prompts. Collating images when you don't have the energy or will to write or draw in your journal is a strong part of the process and will help ease you into a creative frame of mind.
• If the idea of an actual real-life journal is too intimidating at first, take time to play with the basics: some newsprint or old printed-out pages (back or front) from your printer you no longer need, and crayons or felt-tip markers. Just scribble, doodle, have fun and toss if you don't want to keep any of it.
• Another alternative to a journal is to start out with one of the thousands of adult coloring books currently available. Color in the designs then add your own words or other embellishments later on.
• Buy a "how-to" book on collage, art journaling, or other technique and follow along with the lessons. Choose one day a week to make your "class time" and don't be late!
• Sit down at your workspace and set a timer. It's amazing what you can achieve in 15-20 minutes. (I bet you stay long after the bell has rung!)
• Join or start an art journal group. There's nothing more motivating, or fun, than group creativity at a set time and a set place.

Tip of the Day: If you find that even after trying these methods you're still resisting showing up to work in your art journal, you might want to find out what's really stopping you. Dialogue with yourself, or perhaps with your journal. Ask what's going on. I know that when I first started out with art I could find dozens of other things to do other than finally sitting down to work. Looking back into my past, way back, I realized it all stemmed from kindergarten (seriously!) and being afraid of getting paint on my dress. I was terrified of that dripping paintbrush. Now I wear jeans and fling that paint like there's no tomorrow! (And if there is, I'll see you there with the letter K!)

#AtoZChallenge, I is for Inspiration

They say you can't wait around for inspiration to strike before you start writing or creating, but one of my big problems is trying to get away from inspiration. Maybe it's living in Albuquerque, or I read too much, or have too many creative friends, but sometimes it's all I can do to not have any new ideas.

A while back I wrote a post listing my main literary influences and inspirations. The list still holds true today and I enjoyed going over it before writing today. Making a list of your own in your art journal could include:

• Spiritual mentors.
• Authors.
• Artists.
• Teachers.
• Blogs you enjoy reading.
• Heroic historical figures.
• Colors.
• Places.
• Friends and family.

Besides listing your primary movers-and-shakers, you might like to explore questions about how you work with inspiration, for instance, when you're feeling down and defeated, how do you bring yourself back up? What kinds of activities or happenings actually un-inspire you? How can you detach yourself from their toxicity?

Tip of the Day: I'm a big fan of altars, especially the small, unassuming sort you make at home without really trying, such as a windowsill where you keep, say, a collection of stones and shells from a favorite beach, or a shelf filled with childhood memorabilia. Even the way you set up your art and journaling supplies can be considered a kind of altar to your creativity. 

In that spirit, why not set aside a few art journal pages to create a visual altar, a place where you can visit whenever the well seems a bit dry. Design and color it in a way that makes you want to return again and again for further inspiration!

#AtoZChallenge, H is for Hot (and Cold)

Happy Saturday! I've been at the zoo all day with Urban Sketchers, hence this very late post. When we first got there, it was freezing, but now, 5.30 PM, it's hotter than a New Mexico chili pepper, good weather for today's topic: Hot and Cold.

What I'm talking about here are hot and cold colors, or in other words, the backgrounds to your journal designs. When I sit down to create a collage or mixed media piece, I often don't know what will be in it, or what colors I'll choose. Sometimes I just let my hand wander over my supplies until I find something that feels right. 

For today's piece, I seemed to have needed hot, bright red, orange and yellow. Immediately the idea of "heat in the kitchen" came to mind, meaning, I think, "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen." I may have sub-consciously been thinking about the A-Z Challenge, i.e., if you can't handle blogging every day, out you go, LOL. 

But on a more serious level, I started to think about my grandmother's infamous goulash, so hot it quite literally brought tears to the eyes. And she made it all the time! In retrospect, I know I would probably enjoy it much better today than I did as a child, but back then, it was pure torture to eat. All the same, I loved watching her prepare the dish: getting out the big Dutch oven; tying up the spices and peppercorns in cheesecloth bags; the deep red of the gravy once it had simmered all day. I remember having a special fondness for the bay leaves, not quite believing that you could actually use real leaves to cook with.

Today's art page is rather simple, but the kitchen and cooking theme is one I could go on about forever. If the weather today had been a little warmer, I might have gone for a "cold" page of icy blue, leading me back to those long-ago summers when my best friend and I would ride our bikes to the closest 7-11 for electric-blue Slurpees. Or the time I experimented with blue food coloring for the frosting on a batch of cupcakes, and kind of overdid the color.

There is so much you can do in an art journal based on food, so much that I sometimes think it's one of my favorite themes! For instance:

• Beloved (and secret) family recipes.
• Special occasion and holiday meals.
• "Dream" meals and baked good you'd love to try making.
• Recalling when you learned (or didn't learn!) to cook or bake.
• Ethnic foods from various cultures.
• Our relationships to food; the good, the bad, the hopelessly tempting.
• Trying a new and healthier lifestyle: making better choices and celebrating the changes.
• Must-have ingredients, and why you rely upon them.
• 
  

The combination of food, art, and writing has always been special to me, starting with a workshop I took on the poetry of food, led by the poet and food diva extraordinaire, Denise Brennan Watson. Her book, The Undertow of Hunger showed me how eloquent, necessary, and astonishing food can be, from a simple clove of garlic to the satisfying feel of a warm eggplant held in one's hand. Which reminds me--I have to go make dinner! See you on Monday.

Tip of the Day: Art journals aren't always for ourselves. An illustrated journal based solely on recipes and kitchen memories makes a beautiful gift, especially for a younger friend, or  member of the family just starting out and learning there's more to life than the microwave. Bon appetit!

#AtoZChallenge, G is for Grow

It's a rainy day in Albuquerque, just right for spring planting and today's topic of GROW: 

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? 

Looking at the page I've created for today, I guess my garden is full of kittens (and one lone puppy). I'm not sure why, but I do remember how much I enjoyed watching my cats grow from little balls of fluff to grand masters of stealth and grace.

Using your art journal to record and examine your own personal growth can be a very helpful and encouraging exercise. Some questions you might want to ask yourself along the way could include: 

• In what areas of life would you like to grow stronger, wiser, more informed, more forgiving, etc.?
• What actions can you take to get there?
• What's been stopping your growth now or in the past?
• What new projects would you like to plant the seeds for?
• How can you best take stock of, and celebrate, the growth you've already achieved?

Besides examining your own personal growth, you might like to use your journal to record and express:

• Your children's growth and achievements.
• Pets, too!
• An actual garden journal, with notes on planting dates, successes (and failures--my own gardening disasters could fill a whole book. . . ), and wish-lists for future gardens.

As I write this post, sitting under lamplight while the skies remain dark and cloudy and the whole world seems muffled in fog, I'm reminded of elementary school and that constant question: What do you want to be when you grow up? 

For me it was always an archaeologist. That is, until I learned archaeologists had to dig ditches in hot climates and get all dusty and dirty. Yuk! Looking back I think what I really meant was I wanted to work in a beautiful museum, hushed and scholarly, and where the only "dirt" was the collection of rock and gem specimens behind glass. But it makes an interesting study, to see where I came from and where I landed, and where I'm still growing (other than my waistline. . .). So how about you?

Tip of the Day: What did you want to be when you "grew up"? Did you achieve your goal, or did life show you an entirely different path you followed instead? And what about now, any plans for the future? Write, collage, draw and get them down on paper--make that garden grow.

#AtoZChallenge, F is for Focus

It's ironic that today's theme is FOCUS when I'm running late writing this post, while at the same time trying to cram in all my day-job duties, and trying to eat my lunch. To make matters worse, I was so rushed this morning I left my To-Do list at home, and it was a long one. Now I'm trying to figure out what was on it other than "Write Blog Post" scrawled at the very top. Grrr!

So, about focusing . . . what on earth is that??

As I'm typing this, I can hear my co-workers eating their lunch, talking at the top of their voices, and playing the radio full blast (I think it's rap). I just had to get up and shut my door. Not very friendly, but I had to do something to cut out the chaos.

Which is how I view my art journal when things get wild; making it a little sacred space of concentration, just for me. It's where I can go to rest and to play with color, design, and words in ways that feed my spirit and soul more than anything else I know.

Some of the ways I've learned to focus on my journal rather than the noise on the other side of the door are:

• Schedule in the time. For today that meant: get up early, and write before I even got dressed.
• Finish what I start. It's so important to me, I wrote it on today's page! It's fun to start various projects, and I, like most writers and artists, have several awaiting completion. But I do, and will, complete them before they become unmanageable. In fact, that's what I've been doing this year, focusing on one project at a time so I can have a clean slate by 2017.
• Still, despite my best intentions, I'm constantly tempted to begin yet another new project. To maintain some kind of order, I keep a special file for ideas, and pictures I want to use "one day," but not now. Once the idea or image is in the file, I don't have to think about it again until later. Much later.
• Too many art supplies can be a big distraction: which one to use first? A good way to solve this is to work your way through them without buying anything new. For instance, use two, and only two, items until you use them up, e.g. charcoal pencils and watercolors only. If you find you really are resisting using them, give them away, and choose two more until you find your true medium.
• The same applies to collage papers and other decorative items. Work your way through what you have. Even if you dislike a certain color or texture--use it anyway, taking each piece from the top of the pile. Afterwards, step back from the page--you may be very surprised at how things have worked out, and well.
• Prepare your art journal supplies in advance. The night before your scheduled session, gather and arrange the items you'll be using and place them on your desk or table. Having your glue stick, water, paints and brushes, cut-out pictures, and even some clean-up wipes all set in place for when you sit down, is both inviting and time-saving.

Tip of the Day: Create a journal section--or perhaps an entire journal--on the theme of focusing. You might want to include things such as inspiring quotes; peaceful scenes of nature; pictures of candles, altars or other spiritual images; short "recipes" for rituals to follow before you begin working. Enjoy the process, enjoy the quiet.

#AtoZChallenge, E is for Endings

Endings come in all shapes and sizes: from "happily ever after," to "Gosh, am I ever glad that's over." Your art journal is the perfect place to explore, record, and re-imagine a wide variety of endings in your life.

Some of the questions and topics surrounding the theme of "endings" can include:

• Taking a good, long look at endings you've never quite been able to accept: the sudden and unexpected end of a job or relationship; moving from a much-loved home or city; losing a loved one.
• Endings that need closure so you can move on to enjoy and more fully appreciate your current situation.
• Areas in your life that need to end in order to keep your health and sanity, for instance a toxic friendship; a dead-end, low-paying job; an organization that requires far too much of your time with little return or appreciation.

On a lighter note, endings, can also be something to celebrate, especially when the end of one chapter opens the door to a new and brighter future. For instance:

• Graduations.
• Retirement.
• Getting out of a thankless situation.
• Selling a home or business.
• Leaving a job to become self-employed.
• Significant birthdays.
• Moving.

All of these experiences make good fodder for collage, artwork, poetry; creative work that goes a long way toward accepting and even thanking the endings in our lives.

Tip of the Day: If the idea of working with real-life endings sounds too painful right now, or you're just not ready to go there, try this: Consider all the fictional endings you've either enjoyed,or have been disappointed in. What are your favorite book endings? What movies left you saying, "Huh? What just happened there?" How would you change them to create a more satisfying conclusion? And don't forget about all those non-conclusive fairy tale endings. What if Snow White and Cinderella decide they don't want to marry princes after all, or Little Red Riding Hood is really the wolf's accomplice and it's all just a big set-up? Have fun!