' Life Art Journal ' for Scrappingville

Hello dear friends,

To end the year and early celebration of the new year, my friends and I at Scrappingville are embarking on a new artsy journey :). We are soon to introduce a new class dearly called, 'Life Art Journal'.

It's an ongoing journal class where students purchase a hard-bound journal and work together with ourselves on different sessions, filling the book with lots of LOVE and beautiful thoughts. Think of it like your personal diary, where you write your thoughts, feelings, reminders, wishes, and splash in some paints, mediums, and colors in between!. Ahh, it is so liberating. Just the thought of doing anything you want with the journal. Anything goes :). We are here to inspire you to journal from the heart, speak through art, challenge the mind to speak the mind, to draw, to sketch, to mix-media, to paint, to collage and to anything :). Be bold to decorate the covers to your hearts' content :). 

I'm so excited for this new journey. I'm sharing here what I have done in my 'Life Art Journal' so far. Hope you'd be inspired to keep a journal. Start with something small, if you prefer :).

Front cover.

Back cover.

The original journal covers were in black. I would spoiled them with light-color paints anyway [I'm messy when work with paint, LOL]. So I decided to make them look aged, by giving a good distressing job. I stenciled with texture paste both the covers and mod-podged crumpled tissue papers to create the vine-looking texture all over the covers. When dried, painted with taffy acrylic. Then distressed them with Brown Stazon.

Heavy texture on the cover.

I decided to fill up the journal with mostly watercolors, sketches & doodles in pen. Something different from my usual art journal entries. I wrote lots of things in it too, like places to visit, things that make me happy, my strength and my weaknesses and how to work things out. 

I added a pocket to hold random thoughts and aspirations. Little notes to remind me how lucky I am, to be living in these times of infinite opportunities. Thoughts on how to continue making me a better person, artist and friend.

I'm going to use lots of pens, sharpies and watercolors. Maybe a bit less of thick mediums and heavy collage. Here are some pages to show what I meant;

I wrote in-between-entries some notes to self (just like a diary). Only thing I'm sharing them with my students and everyone here :). Don't worry about filling them with grand artwork. Just know that everyone is an artist. If you bake, or you cook, you are an artist. If you can draw lines, you are an artist too. If you sing your kids to sleep and read them storybooks, you are an artist. This, I BELIEVE.

If I had somehow make you pick up that pen, I have done good. Hope you'll enjoy this journey with me as much as I'm enjoying myself. 

Have a great week!. HUGS.