I haven’t had a lot of time for creating finished pieces recently – life got in the way. I always find time to create though, even if it’s just a bit of colour mixing and things like making backgrounds. I’m using the Sarah Renae Clark Color Cube 2 for inspiration.
I was excited to get a couple of Stillman & Birn Delta journals on sale – they’re expensive here in New Zealand so had high hopes. I chose 7×7” Delta because they have heavy weight 270gsm which the website says is ‘ideal for wet and dry media, including watercolour and ink’.
I taped every second page because I like a clean border, but also enjoy a more organic edge sometimes. I want to love my new journals, but don’t. The paper pills easily when you use water, so washes have spots in them. Even with heating the tape prior to pulling it, the paper tears easily. They’re just not great for the way I work, and at that weight I expect the paper to be more robust.
Putting that aside, I visited Ethel Anne Antiques in Hāwera today. They’re running a pop-up shop with 60% off. I picked up four music score books for just $12. I’ll be going back to find maps, more music and maybe an old textbook or two. The owner is lovely, and was happy to chat about what I’d be doing with the music. Like me, she loves seeing old things given new life, rather than ending up in the rubbish.
I came home and gelli printed on a few pages to get started, then grabbed one of my collage landscape journals. New papers inspired me and I completed about 8 pages in a row. I can see some themes emerging, as is often the case when I work in a hurry.
I’ve talked about this before, but didn’t get any forward momentum … until now.
My art journals were always a combination of the ‘craft’ side of art journaling that grew out of scrapbooking, and a place to learn about materials and develop ideas. For lots of reasons, they became almost solely product-based; Tim Holtz, Dyan Reaveley and Dina Wakley.
I miss the part of art journaling that’s internally driven, and know the habit was good for my art practice. Projects such as the tiny squares help, but the scale is limiting.
I started following Denise Love on YT recently. I like what she creates but I *love* her art practice. After a few weeks of watching, I had an aha moment (no one can accuse me of being a quick thinker!). I ordered a Color Cube from Sarah Renae Clark – I’ve been seeing a lot of artists use them and knew it would help.
I’ve started two new art journals, both my fav small Dylusions ones, and am doing seperate but connected projects. I’ve set an additional rule that, aside from setting up the colour swatch pages, I can only use my neglected StencilGirl or other stencils. No reaching for my Dina Wakley or Dylusions ones as they’ll take me back to my usual post-scrapbook style again.
In the first I pick a card then choose two of the colours and swatch them onto pages I’ve prepared with Dylusions stencils or Dina Wakley Stamps so there’s a framework to work in. On the right hand page I do a small piece using just those colours.
In the second journal I choose a card, and record the six colours on the left hand side then do a small on the right.
My aim? More practice with colour mixing, developing my mark making, exploring my interests in shapes and composition, and hopefully working looser.
I love doing small collages in my art journals. As I’ve said before, it’s a great way to uncover my current interests and reinforce the things that make my art mine.
My favourite journal for small collage is the Hahnemühle D&S sketch – it’s 14x14cm, 140gsm and there’s 160 pages. I stock up whenever they’re on sale!
I’ve completed a journal tonight and stated another. I have a small container of hand painted papers and gelli prints, scissors and glue on a tv dinner table in the lounge. I collage while Alan and I watch TV. Below are the last few I’ve done – night shots on my phone so not 100% accurate.
Sometimes I see people online asking what the point of collage is if you’re “not going to do anything with it”.
For many creatives the joy is in creating, rather than the final result. Moving our hands, and quieting our brains, is good for us and even more important when the world feels difficult.
I believe the hand of the artist always shows. Creating collages without too much thinking helps uncover developing interests, common threads, new directions and shapes that are calling to us.
I made four small collages this afternoon – I think the journal is 6×6”. When I look at them it’s obvious to me one was overly influenced by some printed tissue paper that was lying around. The hand painted papers feel right by the composition doesn’t sit comfortably for me.
The other three sit together, and show the hand of the artist. There are consistent shapes which regularly show up in my work, mixed with a shape that’s still emerging, and some colour schemes I’ve been exploring.
Will I do anything with this information? In a formal sense, no. But it’ll sit in the back of my mind and over time some of it may become part of my new art language. We’ll see…
Cath Sheard Art 