This was a Life Book art lesson by Catt Z Gellar a few months ago and the main thing I loved about it was how little pressure you feel when you are working in a book that is made up of cheapo paper, crumpled pages and already splattered with ink! It’s like my mind just goes “aaahhhh” and I don’t feel scared of messing up or not making something pretty or perfect, I just… Go! I’ve used this journal as a host for either getting my creative juices flowing as a warm up before something else, experimenting with different backgrounds or just intuitively painting/ creating.
The front cover is a photocopy of another Life Book lesson (the tree of life) with collage elements added, glitter, and a cutsie bunny character from another painting (I will try to stick these in my the gallery page!).
The back cover is a mash up of a Life Book lesson (gratitude in the now), a bear watercolour, another random painting and lots of beautiful butterflies and green grass photocopies! I bound it all together using some decorative washi tape. The back cover also features a quite I have previously mentioned on here… “My soul is not contained by the limits of my body, my body is contained by the limitlessness of my soul”, which seems very apt for what I use this journal for J
Okay, so… On to the pages! It is a bit scary putting these out there, as this is all very new for me, the techniques and the intuitive creating… But I figured I have gained so much joy from my smash book, I want to share that with the world!
Page 1 – “Saving For A Special Day”
I’ve kept this page blank until something magical inspires
me… I always get a bit nervous starting out on a first page… What if it doesn’t
look good and then I start of the book on a down? What if it all goes wrong and
I hate it? From now on, I’m never going to start a “first page” – I’m just
going to dig in, wherever in the book I am drawn to! I washi-taped a photocopy
of my very first Life Book lesson, Inner Artist Guardian – the first painted
face I had done in a LONG time. She represents kindness to myself through my
creative journey and I wanted her there as a constant reminder of how proud I felt
when I had finished her… and that no matter what that inner critic says; I CAN
create. And I LOVE it!
Page 2 – “Calm and Play”
This spread was the page I completed as part of the cosmic
smash book lesson with Catt – about exploring play. I started the page with
writing down my feelings on play, and also on feeling calm. My smash book
actually has a name – the book of calm and play. For me, as I was writing my
journal entry on this topic, I realised that I cannot feel free to “play” until
I feel calm in the moment. If my mind is caught up with other thoughts,
worries, pressures, stresses, I can’t relax into a playful state of mind. I
used watercolour crayons to cover up my words (they are secret and just for
me!) and then felt drawn to draw/ paint a calm, loosely sketched face and a serene
mermaid to represent my musings from the session and lesson. “Feel calm in yourself,
then be free and play!” I’m actually very glad I’m writing this post on this
topic, as just re-visiting this page brings me back to how I felt immediately after
finishing that lesson and what an important message this is from myself to me.
Page 3 – “Brave Intuitive Painting with Flora Bowley”
This is another Life Book lesson (man I love these classes!)
and this was all about painting intuitively without using a paintbrush! I
gathered random bits and bobs from around the house, set out a selection of
paints and inks and just went for it! It was great! I got completely covered
(and so did my carpet… whoops) and this was my first lesson that I watched and completed
at the same time, the day it came out! I was just so drawn to it. It’s funny,
when I studied art, I really didn’t get on with painting – especially more
abstract styles. I felt too much pressure to “get it right” and despite having
a degree in Creative Arts, I didn’t actually regularly practice art for the 4
years since I have been graduated from uni! I just needed a break from my own
pressure, I thought I needed a break from art but it turns out that it was just
in my head! Anyway, after this lesson I realised that I really, truly love
intuitive painting, I love the symbols you can identify afterwards and the
self-exploration you can reveal through the process. Also I learnt that I flipping
love using pasta as a painting tool!!
Page 4 – “Bunny in the Moonlight”
This spread came to me with a vision of a bunny, or a hare,
standing tall and proud in soft shimmering moonlight. You can’t pick up the
colours well as the photo is pretty bad quality, but it is a mix of soft pinks,
lilacs and silvers. All the stars and the bunny were finger painted and I created
this pretty quickly, about an hour one evening after work. I tried to create
bunny-shaped stamps out of sweet potato but that spectacularly failed!
Page 5 – “Autumn Blackberries”
I felt compelled to use the images of the blackberries on
this spread a couple of weeks ago, when the trees were starting to turn, I was
craving pies, stews and hot chocolate. The start of autumn! I wasn’t actually
feeling very well when I made this spread, and started off just painting the
pages cream, before adding the collages blackberries and then accenting it with
some lovely autumn leaves. That’s what I love about this book, just getting
stuck in even on days I’m feeling poorly as there is no pressure and I can be
gentle with myself. I also was thinking earlier today, how really only 1 or 2
of my pages I really think of as “finished” – and that is OK. In a lot of
things, I don’t feel content unless they are finished properly, for example, housework,
my day job, but with these spreads I feel pretty calm that the majority of them
are not finished. Whether one day I will return to them to finish or just leave
them mid-flight, that’s more than OK by me.
Page 6 – “Mindfulness”
Recently I have been very “in” to mindfulness. It’s
something I am keen to learn more on and try to incorporate into my life. Recently
I have felt very stressed and quite low at times. I’ve had negative things I am
too fixated on and let these cloud my mind, dwelling on the past and future as
opposed to living in the present. This calming blue I find just a beautiful
colour, really soothing and I made this page to help me feel calmer, more in
the moment, more mindful. And yes, I am aware I misspelt mindfulness! Hey-ho,
them’s the breaks! (My boyfriend kindly corrected me on this, pointing out it
was quite funny I hadn’t taken the time to check the spelling – cheeky!!)
Page 7 – “No Face”
Ooooh I was really unhappy with this page for a while!! I
created it a good couple of months ago, I think it was the 2nd one
after the original mermaid picky, I just chose a random page and started
working on it. So… There is a story behind this page, and looking at it now I actually
really like it, even though it is a little creepy looking. I really wanted to
create a very beautiful girl, with flowing blue hair that sort of morphed into
the ocean, not sure exactly, quite spiritual and symbolic… I spent a long time
mixing all the colours, layering paints and working on the hair. And then I
tried to paint the face. AND IT ALL WENT WRONG!!! I don’t know what happened,
the nose was wonky, the eyes were uneven, just everything about it I hated! I
also tried to repair the damage whilst the page was still wet, and in the
process ended up actually tearing out her nose by accident! Well, that just
sent me into a rage and I thought, half very upset half finding the whole thing
hilarious, “she has cut her nose off to spite her face… I will make it look
like it’s really cut off!” I then basically painting a really gross looking
bloody mess over the face with lots of red ink… Then kind of stopped and though
how horrible it all looked and how different it was from the original
intention. From there, I collaged some music paper over the face, with the mind-set
that I would cover up the bleeding no-face and maybe paint it back in at a
later date. All good. And then it dried… And the “blood” bled through the
paper! I was so upset I just couldn’t do anything more to it, and I was complaining
to my boyfriend, nearly in tears. He, in his sage-ness, re-assured me that I won’t
always make art I love, and that I should still share it with people as it is
all part of the learning process. This made me feel much better and actually,
looking at it now I do quite like it. I like the mystery of the image and I like
how I have overcome that initial fear and upset and “doing things wrong”.
Interestingly enough, the page I mucked up the most and (at first) hated the
most – I have written the most about! I’m so pleased I didn’t tear it out and
throw it away, which I was tempted to, as it clearly is quite an important page
to me!
Page 8 – “Pink Background”
Well after my massive description of page 7, page 8 is
pretty straightforward! I got a new shade of pink, and wanted to try it out,
haha! That’s pretty much all there is to this one – pink background. It’s quite
girly, feminine and soft. It uses my new pink (bubble gum pink by deco art),
some shimmery lilac, some darker pink and glitter! The photo is really bad so
you can’t see the different colours very well.
Page 9 – “Spiralling Thoughts”
This one has been a bit of a labour of love, and still far
from finished. I have used a fair few processes with it as well. I started with
a colour theme – pink (pink, you say? I didn’t know you liked pink? Haha!!) and
collaged over the pages. I used the girl in the corner and had the idea of lots
of different “thoughts” spiralling out from her. Maybe meditative thoughts, or –
as I was feeling – just thoughts! Too many of them! Visually pouring out of her
head! So, once the decoupage glue was dry - mod podge – very stinky!) - I
white-washed the page with very watered down white gesso to mute the bright
pink collage down. From there I decorated it with swirls, dots and blobs of
glitter glue and then began to doodle away with my trusty lilac ink pen. I’ve
put this page on hold for a while as I spent a good couple of evenings on it
and was starting to feel a bit impatient so decided it was best to walk away
and come back later.
Page 10 – “Intuitive Collage”
And we are on to the last page as of yet – intuitive collage.
This one I started the day before yesterday. I had a ton of to-dos on my to-do
list and had just got in from work. I felt so tired and worn out I thought “screw
the to-do list” and just wanted to make something. No thoughts, no “musts”,
just me, some patterned paper and some mod-podge! I went with a blue, yellow,
pink and green colour theme and selected papers fitting that and then just
collaged away in front of the tv. Love it. I think I might mute out sections,
and keep just the cupcakes and “let’s bake” as the focus.
Wow, so who knew I had so much to say! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this and I haven’t bored you to sleep – it’s been very cathartic for me to go through all my pages and write about what they represent and mean to me and has also got me itching to crack on with my latest page… Or start a new one ;-) whatever takes my mood… One thing I know for sure, is I LOVE my cosmic smash book <3 <3 <3
I’d love to hear how anyone else’s art journals are coming along and the revelations smash books have bought for you!
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