TabascoCat Art

I started an art journal in 2011.  It then languished for a few months and then in 2012 I picked it up again.  I am still working in that same art journal.

It has gone through a lot of iterations as I haven’t been really sure what I wanted/needed from my art journal.

I did try to use it for everything art related on a couple of different occasions – including taking notes.  All that did in my mind was create some really boring pages…

I decided that what I wanted my journal to be when it grew up was a visual, inspirational feast for me.  This wasn’t an easy decision to get at and may be still “in process,” but I feel I am getting closer.

Just like there are picture books for children, I want my own personal picture book.  I want the pages to be interesting visually and have some sort of finished look to them.  They need to be able to inspire me later when inspiration stubbornly won’t come.

If I want to doodle or do thumbnails or take notes…there may be journals for these things as well, but not what I am defining as my version of an art journal.

This meant that there were quite a few pages that I didn’t like – how could I fix those boring pages?  My first inclination was to abandon the current journal and start a new one.  However, the journal wasn’t ready to be relegated to some dark and dusty shelf (yep – this journal seems to have a mind of its own).

I bought an intriguing book that I thought would loosen me up creatively called, Inkblot: Drip, Splat and Squish Your Way to Creativity by Margaret Peot.

I decided to take the plunge and use this technique to try to enliven some pages in my journal.  I had a couple of pages where I had torn quotes on creativity (the post talking about those quotes and creativity is here) out of another journal and taped them into my art journal over pages with yet other notes (remember that note taking phase I talked about?).  I added acrylic ink in “blot form” and then started picking out all the animals/birds I could find in the blots and adding the details to them with pen and ink.

And here’s what happened…

And…

I love all the little creatures that made themselves known on these pages and I may even use some of them in my art in the future.

The second page really intrigues me because I went back over the words that I could clearly read and the essence of creativity popped out of the text!  Sort of like an art journal Ouija board.  Now this is inspiration and worth keeping in my art journal.

Do you have an abandoned art journal that needs your help growing up?  What are you waiting for?

Next post I will talk about when the ink blots didn’t work out so well!