JUST DO IT!

Just do it....probably one of the best advertising slogans ever.  This morning I got up and made my coffee and went right into my art room.  

I started a new art journal last weekend.  What I'm using as the journal is a book I made out of manila file folders that I covered with gesso and then used stencils and spray inks...I made this journal/book months ago. I also included other types of paper in the book.  I bought a journal at the Mall last year, mainly because I love the cover of it which is a printed fabric of someone's art work.  The journal inside of the cover is useless, however, because you can't open the pages enough to lay flat for art work or even writing in it...so it's all about the cover.  So...I basically bought a cover!  Here it is:

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This book I plan on adding art work to, but also words about the "gifts" in my life that I am grateful for.  Here is the inside of the cover:

The left page is still the fabric cover and the right side is the 1st page of the manila folder book which I stenciled.

This is the 2-page spread.  If you only knew how many changes I went through with the art on the left.  At one point, I wanted to rip it right out of the book, but I have lots of words written on the other side of it, so I just couldn't do that.  You know how many times you work on a piece and think...this is just never going to amount to anything?  Well that was clearly going on with this page.  It was a disaster.  There are layers of stuff here that I ended up covering.  In the end...I'm happy with it and glad I stuck it out.  The right hand page is a very simple painting.  It reflects, as it says, joy in the morning, quiet moments, cup of coffee, etc.  

Back to this particular page.  What I learned is not to give up.  The background was in blues and yellows before I changed it to black.  It didn't pop with the blues and yellows, even though I had done shading and everything.  As soon as I added the black, it made a big difference.  This page is done on a very thin piece of paper,  like computer paper.  It was a bit of a challenge with the wet mediums, but gesso always comes through to hold it all together.  I didn't know this page would end up being a vase with flowers. The close-up gives you a better sense of the flowers.  Sometimes the scary part as you are going through the process is, will this end up looking like something? You hope that ideas will start to trickle in and it will come together.  Phew on this one.  You just have to sit down and start...just do it! (thank you, Nike)