Well, Here Goes

The last little while I have been working on art journaling but I've been too chicken to share my creations.

Well, Friday was NOT a good day. Everything seemed to be going wrong. I was sad and mad and down right depressed. I came home and wrote a stream of consciousness entry in my journal and when I got done I found it to be mostly not nice things about myself. It made me mad so I took my watercolor crayons and scribbled over what I had written. Then I poured a puddle of gesso onto it and smeared it around. I ended up with WAY too much gesso so I used a plastic knife to scrape some of it off. It left a cool texture so I left it. Then I just left it alone to dry. I decided to make a trip to the bookstore after the kids went to bed. I LOVE going to the bookstore. The art books and magazines (can you say Somerset Studio?) make me happy and excited to work on something new. I had decided to buy the latest Somerset Studio, Art Journaling magazine. I'd had my eye on it for a while but it costs $15. After the day I was having, I was mad and I was buying it! When I got to the bookstore, I searched high and low for my magazine and guess what? That's right. It was gone. I was so disappointed. And I added it to things to ticked off about. I was just going to leave and go home and sulk but I decided that since I was there, I would just go look at the art books. It didn't take long for me to feel better and I was glad that I didn't just go sulk. I was just about to leave when I found this:

Journal Bliss by Violette. She's so cool, she's like Madonna or Prince. She only needs one name. She even lives in a purple house. I loved her doodles, the colors, the textures. It spoke to me and I became an owner. I came home and read the first page. She begins with telling you to put on your "magical boots" as you begin your art journal. I looked at my gessoed over ugliness and became determined to turn it into something happy. I decided to make myself some "magical boots" (pink, of course). I used watercolors, alcohol resists, acrylics, permanent ink pens, old book pages, glitter, charcoal pencil, and two kinds of Mod Podge. And I ended up feeling SO MUCH better because I turned all those ugly things I had floating around in my head into a pair of "magical boots". How often can you say that?

So there it is. My own magical boots. Shiny and glittery and pink. I love them so much. I'm not sure how often I will share my journal. It's still a little hard for me to just smear paint around and make a mess although I am getting better at it. And let's face it, messy paint is so much fun.