Marie WheelerIn my New Year’s Day post I mentioned that part of my stunning failure to complete the Journal 52 prompts through last year was choosing an art journal that was way too big and overwhelming. I sometimes think big and always find it’s really not in my nature. I do much better with small and attainable.
Anyway, part of the prep from the weekend was to create a new art journal to house all my Journal 52 treasures to come. I had an old, musty copy of the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath that I had previously determined would be a good art journal and had affixed my little ‘Do Art Daily’ piece to, but it seriously had a case of the musty-stinkies and was intolerable. It got worse anytime moisture came near it and I decided I would certainly get the plague if I continued to inhale that scent. Bleh.
Making My Own Art Journal
So the pages had to go, and I neatly ripped them out of the book using an Exacto knife and hid them in a stash of papers to use for decoupaging the hell of out something at a later date.
I added a sheet of scrapbook paper to the inside and adhered using Liquitex matte medium.
I then took some cheap watercolor paper and made my own pages to fit the journal and voila, new art journal! The new art journal is a neat, compact 4″ x 7″, whereas the old journal was a honking 11″ x 14″. I feel like I made a good decision here.
Week 1 Prompt: Your Word of the Year or A Strange Word
I do like the choice of having two different prompts with the new Journal 52. Despite such great choices, I still have to find a word that works and be creative enough to represent it…
And so I pondered.
Until I realized that the character of this year personally and professionally has been a full expression of vulnerability. I feel like I have grown more in the past year than in any other time, creatively and professionally.
I took a quote from my favorite shame researcher/author, Brene Brown and added it into a simple watercolor of a lone flower in a rock pile. Vulnerability is my word of 2015.
So that’s it. See you tomorrow!
