On Art Journaling

"When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college-that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"                                                                                                  ~ Howard Ikemoto

Hello, Friends,

Welcome to a wet August! It's been raining here for a couple of days, but you won't hear me complaining about that. Just about every summer around this area, there's a prolonged dry spell and the news media starts screaming "drought!" My friend Tom calls them the Weather Nazis. They're the same people who declare every blizzard the "Storm of the Century."

Anyway...I'm still working on my ICADs every day, and finding an interest in drawing/sketching some of them, such as Owl and Linen. I've been drawing on and off all my life (see the above quote), and did quite a few sketches in my teens of various rock stars and other celebrities. As time went by, I abandoned my sketchbook for the written word (I've always kept a written diary) and eventually, art journaling.

But sometimes I missed drawing.

I don't feel that I draw very well. About 5 years ago, I tried doing Danny Gregory's Everyday Matters challenges.  Alas, I didn't stick with it for very long.  ICAD is the first art daily art challenge I've been keeping up with, even though it has been difficult lately.

Now, I'm thinking of keeping a sketchbook journal again.  I've started to draw every now and then, and am seriously considering some online classes in sketchbook journaling.  In a way, however, it feels strangely like a betrayal to collage and mixed-media.  I can't quite figure out why. 

Do you keep a journal?  If so, is it a written one, an art journal, a sketchbook, or a combination of all three?


Here are some artists I find inspiring.  Give them a visit--and if you know of anyone else whose work I should check out, please let me know.  I love finding inspiration out there, whether in Bloglandia or in real life.

• Laure Ferlita offers "Imaginary Trips" to places like Italy, Paris and NOLA, plus basic art journaling classes.  
• Jane LaFazio's next class starts on August 11!
• Visit Watercolor Journaling for all kinds of fun.  These two ladies also offer a DVD for purchase if you're not in their region for a live class. 
• I like Gwen Diehn's books, "The Decorated Journal" and "The Decorated Page," but sometimes I feel she looks down on the kind of mixed-media art I enjoy doing.  In one of her books, she talks about purchasing images of, say, Victorian children, and how one should avoid those types of packaged ephemera because they are not original and are somewhat meaningless in our lives and art.  I tend to disagree, because if it were not for my love of vintage photos, I probably would not have become a mixed-media artist. Maybe this is what is contributing to my above-expressed feelings.

Till next time--