"How difficult it is to be simple." -Vincent Van Gogh
For the past few weeks I have been painting my heart out.
Every other day I head to my studio, pick a few colors of acrylic paint that speak to me and get to work.
Some times I Mod Podge down background papers and sheet music then paint over that. I always, always add stencils and stamps to make it extra messy.
I love messy.
And I love not having any plan.
I put on my music and just let it guide me.
Lately I've been listening to the new Footloose soundtrack. Love all the country twang in there!
Van Gogh is right you know. We put so much thought into our art sometimes. What we really should be doing is listening to our hearts and just put that on paper.
I'm finding the more I do this the more I WANT to do this.
Just paint and glue and put words and images together.
What's so great about this is I now have a dozen or so pages ready for me to journal in.
Last night I worked on a few pages in bed.
I make sure and leave a bag of pens on my nightstand and a bag of extras like this.
I also have a glue stick and a pair of scissors just in case.
My daughter and I just finished a butterfly project for Lifebook. I am thrilled with my finished page...but it looks very little like what I envisioned when I started. I'm happy with myself that I let the background vines "grow" out of the border, sprout leaves, and even turn into a "tree of life" rooted on the vertical page (unlike the abstract background on a horizontal page I had envisioned.) There is indeed freedom (and whimsy!) in letting art just happen!
ReplyDeleteI sometimes just get overwhelmed with all the projects I have going on that I look at my workspace and then turn around and head for the tv or a book....that doesn't help, but it's what I do. I need to turn that around and do less tv and more paint!
ReplyDeleteoh and I received my package! Thanks so much, love it all!
Love your journal bacjkgrounds and pages! Great post = a theme we should all take to heart!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds so fun, Leslie...making all those lovely pages and then sitting in bed filling them up with thoughts and ideas and goals and dreams. I've been reading a lot about writing lately, and the advice is the same...don't think so hard...just write! The gems are there to be found.
ReplyDeleteYour work looks great as always! I am more productive when I think less, but I often get carried away with thinking things through. I should work on that. My crafty creative side is shoved in a closet somewhere. I should dig it out and do one of these smash books. :)
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