From my art journal

I continue to create daily art journal pages.  It has become a valuable and rewarding practice. 

I took some photos of Remy - they were a little underexposed and there were extraneous objects in the frame - but not to worry.  I wanted some references for a couple of quick sketches for my art journal.

First one:

Remy often looks at me like this, head tilted with a little grin <3

The second:

He's listening...

And then some word art doodling:

Ink and oil pastels.

A MOO can be a MOOdle :-)

A MOO that is somehow different from a regular MOO is a MOOdle.  I don't know, it just came to me :-)

And today's MOOdle...

Beginnings -

This is the page from my art journal where I first sketched the idea:

A quick little sketch.

Giving it some more thought, I'm pretty sure this little dog drawing -

I blogged about this swirly little guy here.

must have been floating around in my head while I was doodling (he's from the sketchbook I always carry with me):

Fun stuff!

From my sketchbook - a new MOO

I had this fleeting MOO thought a couple of weeks ago and happily it circled back around to my brain today :-)

A page straight out of my sketchbook.

It's a reminder that I can maintain a healthy perspective without negativity.

The Inconstant Journaler

Yes, I was an inconstant art journaler; days or even weeks might pass without a new entry in my officially designated art journal.  However, an idea from Year of the Spark plus a recent online class have changed my ways :-)

The first influence I attribute to an art journal page layout that Carla Sonheim shared in a Year of the Spark lesson.  The page looks like this:

Draw it new every day.

Creating the boxes and printing a set group of words is a nice ritual to get my hand moving.  I like the categories for the boxes – I find them to be very useful.  Also, the sketchbook is a plain wire bound one (so it isn’t precious in any way) and it is a larger format – a Strathmore 400 Series 9” X 12”.

The second influence is from an online class I recently completed – “Making Art a Practice” – which was taught by Cat Bennett.  Cat emphasized enjoying the creative process and doing it daily.  She generally sticks to simple tools and media e.g. a few brushes, colored pencil, opaque watercolor, and NeoColor II.  Cat’s approach is relaxing and playful :-)

These are some randomly chosen pages from my art journal – specifically of the Draw and Misc boxes:

Remy in ink.

Colored pencil, ink.

Pitt brush pens, ink

Sharpie pens, ink, Pigma Micron pen, randomly created “stamps”

The content is pretty much what I see around me or doodle or imagine - probably why my red coffee mug appears so often :-)  The "10 Ideas" box is great for capturing thoughts or projects which come to mind first thing in the morning.  I like capturing all of it in one place.