a girl and her journal

{ make a change without a reason }

For some reason, I woke up the other day with a page idea in my head; beige and red, with some columnar paper I found when cleaning. I knew my current journal wouldn't be able to handle the size I had in my head, so I grabbed a 9 x 12 watercolor book I'd picked up on a whim last summer at Michael's since it was 50% off...how could I pass that up?!

Anyway, I took a trip to Hobby Lobby to grab some spray paint and a wall decor stencil. My spray paint had been depleted from last summer's spray paint adventures (not to mention being thrown unceremoniously in my trunk) and the stencils...well, I don't take the best care of my stencils or stamps, so they get caked with paint and such...and warp...but yeah! I wanted something new! The stencils I had from last summer can't work now -- I was a different person, then, as we all are after any passage of time.

I forgot the fun of spray paint, not to mention the immediacy...you can cover an entire page in a minute! And it covers awesomely, and there's just something about the way it LOOKS on the page....I love it so much! It's certainly different than stenciling with paint or whatever. I meant to do it earlier today, but I ended up getting my hair cut, then seeing WALL-E (AMAZING CUTE!), so I didn't get out there until the sun went down. But I set up my little station and started playing...now I'm just working on embellishing while watching 'Animal Cops' with the puppies.

So yeah! Now I'm working in a BIG journal. I've never worked in this size before, so I'm excited to see what happens. Sometimes, you just have to change things up to see what happens!

Do YOU have any questions about spraying or what you see? Ask! I want to start giving little tips, but I need to know what you're curious about.

A Copic Love Affair

MAN! I am SO FRUSTRATED! I started this post days ago, but didn't post it because I wanted to find my camera to take pictures for it. A few days later and the camera is STILL missing!!! I had to scan everything, and the settings are all messed up so everything came out like CRAP but it's all I've got and I've other stuff to work on (like the 'zine and the workshop) and can't really rescan everything right now...*grumbles* My laptop's running slow and this new interface for TypePad is SLOW....there's a HUGE delay when I type and things take FOREVER to format.

We're up to 58 "students" in the workshop! I thought MAYBE 10 people would sign up -- you all make me so happy and humble and give me great confidence in myself. Which is also why I want to post more!

Here's the post I wrote a few days ago, complete with the bad scans. Forgive me!

Whoah! You ever work with something and just BAM! You want to curl up with it and use it on EVERYTHING? That happened to me this week.

I had an idea for a page, one inspired by a few pages in Lynda Barry's What It Is (an amazing, awesome, TOTALLY COOL book. The only copy Borders had was DAMAGED and I STILL bought it!), and knew I didn't have the supply needed to do what I wanted to do. So, while out to grab some eye candy (a window-shop through Hobby Lobby), I decided to see if they had any single-sale markers in the light, light shade of purple I needed.

While I hoped I could find it as a Prismacolor, I could only get it as a Copic...the price difference is $2! But I sucked it up and got one...as well as a pretty pink in a light shade. I rushed home to create the page in my head before it flew away, and oh my! It was love at first use!

They gave the EXACT shade I wanted....and let me tell you -- writing with the brush end is awesome! I absolutely love writing with a close shade on my entries. Yes, that means less gets on the page, but -- OH! I just thought of this: I could write an entry in my usual pen over the larger brush handwriting! I've gotta go try this!

At $6 each or $60 for a 12 marker set, I had to go a bit cheap and get the Copic Ciao set -- they are thinner and a bit smaller than the Copic Sketch markers, but the colors and brush end are the same. They're recommended for beginner users since they cost less...I just felt the set had all the colors I'd really need! A few years ago, I started collecting the Fabre-Castell artist pens, and now have just about ever color....and now, I realize I don't need every color of the rainbow -- well, except for my watercolor crayons! *laughs*

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Writing with a Pitt Artist Pen (above).

 

Writing with the Copic. See the difference? Isn't it just thick and JUICY?

tiny green buds where before there were none

This is my Spring.

Last week, I got my Spirit Cards read. A little-known fact: I am 1/8th Siksika (Blackfoot), and find myself drawn to nature and the tales of Native Americans. It feels...right. Anyway, these Spirit Cards are Native American and were read by a friend who's part Native, too, and has been reading these cards for about twenty years. A lot of what she said brought images to mind, one of which was that, "This is your springtime...you're getting ready to bloom." One thing I've noticed since I began healing myself, other than my heath improving so much that people are really noticing, is that things are aligning for me in the universe. Since this journal is where I am beginning to see the tiny green shoots poking through dark soil, I felt part of my friend's words should be on the cover.

It's made from felt and fabric. I embroidered the words in some unbleached muslin; it took the longest! I'm not very good at embroidery...I'm totally self taught...so much so I "invented" my stitches. It still was a blast to made, though! And the eyelets in the corners... *giggles* I'm just tickled pink!

Left: Me, mid-embroidery.

 

Mad-Dash Journaling.

I haven't been journaling lately....who knows why? Sometimes, you just need to go with the flow and accept that NOT doing an activity is just as valuable as doing it. This might sound odd, but it's true. You see, when I'm NOT journaling, I'm taking photos, reading, walking in the woods, playing with the dogs. All these activities feed my soul and become part of me. We are ever-changing creatures, and every experience we have changes us -- I am not the same person I was 10 minutes ago, and in an hour, I'll be different than I am now. My break allowed me to soak in inspiration, open my mind to changes in who and what I am.

If you've been reading, you know I've been going through some sort of spiritual journey. It's opened the world up to me, allowing me to see things differently. All of this input has been rattling around in my head until yesterday, it just had to get out. 

I didn't do much, and went out only to grab some new paint markers, fabric, and felt. The rest of the day was spent with my nose in my journal. Doodling and drawing and making dots -- I kept working on the yellow page here well past the point I'd usually stop....More and more and more and MORE!!! I colored and added more color and kept going and lines and omg, can you see how I just was charged, just couldn't help myself? *laughs* After I finish this entry, I'm going to go back to work....on my pages!!! Sorry that I'm only showing a bit...but near 'zine time, I like to save my pages for that...that way, the newest stuff's in the 'zine and reflects the most-current me. ;)

One of the things I've noticed is that I'm doing two things:

A. Moving around a lot,

That means, I'll doodle somewhere, and then flip the page and doodle elsewhere. Or draw. Or write. Or glue something down. Or paint. Well, I haven't really painted much as I pre-painted a bunch of pages....which reminds me, I have to do that again so I've got more places to play! But yeah. Unlike life, my journal is not linear.

B. Working piece by piece.

My pages are coming together after several small sittings. The page on the right down there (sorry you can't see all of it...it's still in progress!) started with paint. Then the drawing in pencil. Then the writing. Then the coloring of the girl. And it's FAR from done. On the left, there was the background, then the bird, then the cut out in the middle, then waves. Swirls. And the words ALSO came in seperate sittings. I mean that I don't sit down and work start to finish in one sitting. I'm LIVING in between. I might sit and doodle, but then I'm making lunch or playing fetch or napping or writing. Even going to work! I've found things are more unpredictable and easier to push the envelope, so to speak, than working through it at once.

Kira Workshop.

I'll be "teaching" a workshop this June through my mailing list, JournalGirl. I'm so excited to be doing this, and might start sooner....I'm creating, lesson by lesson, a journal for you all that will hopefully be useful to you after the class is over. I've wanted to teach for awhile, now, and figure if I can't do it in person, I'll do it online! Sometimes, you've got to just go out there and DO it. And, if I want to teach workshops in person, I'll have something together already -- as SARK says, make it REAL, and the rest will follow.

And Finally....New Amy Butler & K&Co. Stuff!!

OMG! Look!!! There's a new collection for K&Co. by Amy Butler. I wish I could have bought it all. Not only is it ROCKING AWESOME, but it's eco-friendly; the packaging is recycled and can be recycled! This picture only shows you a bit of the 88 die-cut pieces in this collection. They're all awesome, beautiful, and I'm giddy just thinking of all the stuff I'll get to use. It was only $5 for this whole thing. There's also beautiful fabric tags, alphabets, brads.....awwwwww......Run, don't walk, to your local Michael's and check it out!!

Baaaaaaa -- like the new duds? Read on!

Why yes, I AM a complete skitzo when it comes to blog layouts!

*G* Tried to clean things up a bit; I'm taking a cue from Lia and working on better-organizing things around here to gear-up for my mailing list re-launch tomorrow. New content, hopefully daily, that I'll be compiling for more-frequent posts.

I'll also be posting a vid this week that will correspond with some new items in my etsy shop.

But first, I must tell you about my new love affair with Apple Barrel Gloss paints.

I *heart* them.

I've been eeeehhhh about background lately, wanting more transparent colors over items...you know, a nice glaze of color. And while I get the general effect from my watercolor crayons, I can't mix those, which means I have to either settle or try layering colors....have you tried that? Yeah...it doesn't work very well!

When over at Red's, I tried one of hers, and yeah, liked it, but didn't think about it again until the other day, when I was feeling horribly fat, down, and ucky and had a bit of extra money to burn a hole in my pocket. I was wandering around Michael's (which was probably ill-advised), grabbing things off the shelf in that oh-that's-cool anti-climatic kind of way...totally emo and such, and was looking at all the paints and BAM -- a row of gloss paints in these awesome bright colors and WHEEE -- I had to grab a bucket from a nearby display to carry 'em all.

Upon getting home, I had to spill my paint and mmmmmm make some journal pages! It'd been awhile, and my meal break at work is JUST loooooong enough to eat and pen a journal entry or doodle some, so I've been journaling more (that, and I keep forgetting my book!). I had a TON of fun and you can see all my pretty pages below.

I've settled into a new style I'm LOVING. A mix of hand-drawn characters (whee!) and magazine people (and now at a discount!) with my new funking handwriting and lots of fun colors. And they don't take a TON of supplies or time to make, which is a plus since I have a lot on my plate! In fact, all my supplies fit in a nice big tote I got from work that's next to my chair right now. My room's freeeeeeezing....I snuggle under blankets to sleep and read but won't be sitting up there to journal. BRRRR! I need to clean it so I can move my space heater in.

OH! New thing! I've decided to give y'all a peek into my journal as I work in it -- I'll be taking shots every time I work in it so you can see how pages progress, as I don't do 'em all at once or in order or anything. So, I hope this helps some of you who are stuck or don't know how things get made. I've got captions on the photos thus-far to help explain things. It's all in a photo album here; I won't be posting pages until they're "done" on flickr. So it's a Kira-blog exclusive!!

GO! Journal In-Progress Gallery