I can Breathe! and Art Journals

You are probably wondering why I am posting this blue square. Why? Because it's a picture I took of the sky today! Where I live has had horrible HORRIBLE air lately with nasty inversion and mucky yucky stuff in the air making it hard to breathe and the schools haven't been allowed to let the kids out for recess due to the bad air conditions.  Needless to say, a lot of people have been getting sick and I myself have had a sinus infection which gave me a nasty awful migraine plus the kids have been really stir crazy with cabin fever. So today when I saw the glorious blue sky I was determined that we would go on a walk and spend some time breathing in the clear air. The kids were so excited to go to the playground and be outside. Here's a crazy video of me on the swing.

I also took this video of my little guy on the swing - warning it may get you a bit seasick as I was taking it while I was swinging and then while he was swinging, I think it's a fun dynamic but I had to stop swinging myself when I was done taking this video because I was getting sick.

I also had some fun with the fish eye setting on my camera - I took these really fun pictures of the trees with it and I love how they look so strange and yet they also look like they could be actually growing that way. I LOOOVE Trees so I love seeing pictures of them and taking pictures of them and yeah, you'll probably see a lot of tree stuff on the blog.

The other thing I wanted to blog about is Art Journaling. I love Art (funny tangent story, I was on the color guard in High School and when we had our first meeting to get to know each other I said that very thing "I love Art," and everyone laughed because the band instructors first name was Art - but I didn't know) anyway, I love all kinds of art, painting, drawing, sculpture, all sorts of visual art. I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. I took summer art classes. I went to college with the intent of majoring in Art and was starting to take classes but I never was able to get in to the program. This ended up being ok since I found costume design which is artistic also and I loved it but I had never known/thought of it as a major. Now I really admire art and often I'm more comfortable admiring art instead of doing it. I love to do art but there's a lot of times where what is in my head doesn't come out on the paper. Conversely with costumes/sewing in general, there have been times where I can have an idea in my head and whip something out quite well.  I do feel I have artistic talent though and lately I've been missing doing art a lot. While playing around on Pinterest I started finding a bunch of artwork that I really like and some of it is the kind/styles that I've always liked and wanted to try out but never gotten the guts to do it. Mixed media is one of the main styles I'm referring to and in looking up (and drooling over) various mixed media stuff on Pinterest I found some really cool tutorials done by Tessha Moore. I liked them A LOT and so I went to her website and I went CRAZY watching all her tutorials and I spent hours, yes hours, looking over her journal pages and stuff on her blog and I even made a journal using her directions she has on her website and at YouTube http://youtu.be/1z6qmXGRrsE

So how is it that I have done a lot with art over the years and liked a lot of mixed media and yet I don't recall ever hearing about these Art Journals?  - yes there's my whole memory issues again but still, I was simply blown away by these Art Journals that Tessha has done. Then I got a little curious, especially when Tessha mentioned other people doing this kind of thing, so I googled "Art Journal" and O MY GREAT GOLLY! Wow! This is so amazing - this is huge - this is something I need to do!!

 I mean look at these pretties:

From Miles Beyond the Moon (love that blog name)

From art-journaling.com - see! There's even a whole website about it

From jans-gonestampin.blogspot.com

From Magpie's Nest ~*~ Patty Szymkowicz

From Allen Designs

From The Tin Goat 
This one is one of my favorites - it reminds me of
James Christensen, he's one of my all time favorite artist

From Teesha Moore

Also From Teesha Moore
I had to post two of Teesha's because it was
so hard to not post 10 or more of hers

And yet I have this huge part of me holding back.

Whyyyyyyyyyy??? Why must I be afraid?? Blah blah, I feel so silly about it - but I'm afraid it would go the way my attempts at scrapbooking have gone - I get everything out, spend tons of time trying to figure out what I want to use and what should go where and I do a page or maybe even two but then I freak out, FREAK OUT, because I cut the pictures - they are marred forever and this part doesn't look just right and my handwriting is awful and should I really have done that color there and that was hours of work for one little page and there's no way ever that I'll get these boxes and boxes of stuff scrapbooked so why even try. Whew, I'm really letting a lot out here - I hope I can find time to blog other than late at night before bed, who knows what I will end up writing. wink wink :) But really, I was watching some of Teesha's videos thinking "I have this great piece of wrapping paper I've saved for just that kind of thing, but if I use it then it's gone so I should just hold on to it." But I loved how Teesha was just slapping things together, working fast and just going with the flow - I want to be able to do that - and not tear it apart the next day. It's the same thing with this blog. I'm putting a lot of energy and exertion into not going back to old post and changing things.

One way I get around that part of me that holds me back is to go about things in a different way. For example, I made my mom this huge 80 page scrapbook but I did it by scanning in the photos and doing a digital scrapbook. With that I could alter the pictures and add in all sorts of fun font captions and easily change it and save it and do multiple types of the same page and pick which one I liked best. A lot of my best sewing projects happen when I make up my own pattern and don't think about it much but just go with my gut feelings. So yes it's true that I don't have the fancy moleskin paper or expensive paints but I did have a sheet of poster board that was the same size and so I was able to make the blank book. I think I'll have to just go for it and start working on making my own Art Journal. It will take time since I don't have a ton of free time but I want to stop simply looking at these pretty things, I want to try and make them myself. And the same goes for this blog - I want to just keep going with it and it's ok if I post about a party I did last week or a couple years ago, it doesn't have to be in chronological order, it doesn't have to be just like the other blogs, it's mine and I can make it what I want.

And hey - I could blog about my art journal as I work on it - thus catching two birds with one stone kind of thing.

Yep - I'll have to do that.