Art Journal 2013

I have taken the BIG step. Art journal 2013 has seen the light. After contemplating making an Art journal for ages, I have decided this time it is going to happen. This decision plunged me immediately into a creative crisis. After looking at many art journals, I felt that my style was not really represented and I was not prepared to "copy" other artists. So what to do.... Or not to do....
I was amazed to see the beautiful work of other artists as I googled away. All these examples of fab artwork in the form of journals can only inspire me to produce something that was going to be me. I don't really like the scrapbooking style, as I want to draw images myself and not want to copy or print images.
I also discovered Pinterest - what an eye opener. If you are reading this and don't know anything about Pinterest, look it up right now and start following..... Really amazing that you can find similar pages all pinned together. So download it (it's free) and start pinning.

The last two weeks haves been unbearably hot and I have moved out of the house onto the veranda with all my art stuff. I can now take a dip in to pool ( which I do several time a day) and go straight back to doing art in dripping togs... And the dogs are happy because they can find the breezy spots while still being close to me.

So back to the journal - I have done the front page yesterday. I decided that I wanted to make a book or rather a collection of pages instead of using a normal art journal or exercise book. So I had to find a cover for the front and back ( I wanted something thicker than the pages - watercolour paper - that I was going to use for the journal). Over the weekend I was looking at the photo album of our eldest son, Gian, now 23 and realized that the cover of the album was in a rather poor condition ( remember it lasted 23 years). I took all the photographs out to put into a new album and threw out the old album.
As I was pondering the start of the journal on Monday, I suddenly remember the photo album  - at this stage is was in the trash..... I retrieved it, cut the spine off and had two perfect hard covers for the prospective art journal. I think it is rather fitting that I use his album as it will give the project sentimental value. So armed with glue paper and pencils, I made the front cover of the journal.
Here it is......

Front cover of the Art Journal

I have also decided to divided the journal into monthly pages. Double spread for each month, divided into days. Big plans!!

With my holiday soon to come to an end and the prospect of going back to work is pushing me along to get the project to a point where I can draw / comment / doodle on a regular basis, at least. Regular basis is the operative word here..... I would like to do something each day but I know that it would be impossible once I'm back at school. So instead of punishing myself, I hope to do a drawing once week, but to make at least a comment every day.

So that is it.... The challenge is set! 352 days to go.
Today I have made the inside page of the cover. I had really fun doing it and think that it represents me. I had an old art book on the shelf and I took the introduction page out and started working on it. I looked for possible words that I can use and blocked the rest out. This is the result.

First page

The next step will be dividing the pages into months and the months into days.....
And then I am set and ready to go. Keep watching this space.
Peace