Sunday, July 17, 2011

Elements of Art Journaling: Spirit Mind Map

Here's the mind map for my final element. I'm really enjoying SimpleMind on the iPad.

Friday, July 15, 2011

More Mind Mapping for Elements of Art Journaling

Did three more mind maps for my journal. Again, I decided to work on the iPad and transfer the results. It's still messy, but less messy.

Air


Fire




Water

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Mind Mapping (Clustering) For Elements of Art Journaling

I started this mind map directly in my journal, but soon found that I was annoyed with trying to predict where the balloons should go. I know. I know. That's way too brain-centered for a heart activity like art, but... That's where I am today.

I suspect that this will be my most difficult of the elements. I just don't feel my heart sing at the word 'Earth' the way it does for 'Water' or 'Fire'. When I thought about Earth, I asked myself what was my favorite thing about the earth. That's easy. The water. Ooops! Wrong element (for now). That said, I gave it a go. And it went to some very strange places...

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Real Me


This us a page I did for a calendar swap. The theme was "diversity." Around the mermaid, it says:

I am not what you think you see...
White skin, wide hips, five foot three...
I am not my skin, my height, my weight...
My home it lies beneath the sea...
A mermaid I will always be.

lt
Typed on a touchscreen. All typos courtesy fat fingers and insane autocomplete.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Elements of Art Journaling: My Journal Cover

I'm taking The Elements of Art Journaling with Effy Wild (effywild.com/elements). I'd never altered a book before, so I decided to do that for my journal, rather than using a composition book or Moleskine Cahier. It wasn't till my drunk-on-color self had most of it done that I remembered we're going to be working with the elements as our theme for the class. It only takes a little bit of acrobatics to relate all that stuff to the elements, right?

I forget why I put down all of the collage elements with gloss gel medium instead of matte, but it made it very difficult to unify the piece with color, since so few of the many colorful media in my studio will stick to the glossy surface. I convinced a little bit of spray ink to stain, though, and that made it feel more like one composition.

Adding the 3-D stuff was the most fun. Most of my past artwork has had to be flat enough to go through Post Office machines, so getting to make something lumpy was a treat. The dragon fly has been waiting a long time (like maybe more than ten years) for the right home. I made him out of red wire using instructions from a book called Chinese Knotting. The red was too red for the layout, so I rubbed blue alcohol ink over him before gluing him down. The daisy in the upper right is a nod to my twisted sense of humor. It came with a Diva Cup. Hey, earth is an element, right? It doesn't get any earthier than that. LOL! I forget where I found the butterfly. It was too blah in its original color, so it also got a dose of alcohol ink. When all else fails, add color!

I wish I could say the images had some great meaning for me or represented the elements in some way. Drunk on color is right. While covering the book with gesso, I knew there was supposed to be a theme. But once the blue Inktense went down, I just went color crazy in that very me way I do.

Midway Through

Front

Spine



Back