Heart Investigation 1.2: {Torn}

Hey everyone! I'm here with you guys again today; sorry that I wasn't able to share anything with you guys yesterday. I wanted to, but my brothers had some friends over, and we were playing Call of Duty. I was distracted. And I didn't do any are at all.

So today I wanted to make up for that, and do yet another Heart Investigation page. I've really been enjoying this, and my 2013 journal in and of itself actually looks really cool. It's a bit more cohesive than my journals have been in the past, which I really enjoy. 

Today I was working with a daisyyellow prompt; the very first Prompt6ix prompt. There are quite a few more that I have to catch up with, but I was inspired to attempt this one. And I personally quite enjoy the result.

Quite a few of these pages still need journaling added to them, and I will eventually get to that. One day, when I'm really in the mood to get some of my emotions out, I'll get my typewriter out, and just type a bunch of journaling segments based on page titles. 

In this photo, you can see some of the heart pencil doodles I did in the background of this page. I only had a couple of layers down when I decided to add them in. I thought it would look cool, and would just add that much more depth to the idea for the page. And I think that it accomplished what I wanted it to. I personally quite enjoy it.

That's something that I've noticed myself saying quite a bit more as of late. And I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing. It's good that I'm confident in myself. That I enjoy my own work. Of course I love looking at other artist's work. Much more than I enjoy looking at my own. But when I can look at my own personal piece of art and smile, I feel a sense of accomplishment. That's always a good thing.

Finally, I'll talk about the heart itself that I was working on. After all, this is HEART Investigation. The idea for the page came from the prompt on daisyyellow, one of which was "decision". I can never make tough decisions. And it's a horrible feeling for me personally. So I'm always extremely torn internally. So I took a heart, and I tore it in half. Meaning on multiple levels. That's also something that I enjoy in artwork, or in any type of media, including books or movies. And that is a meaning. A good concept. It draws you in, and interests you. That's what I'm trying to accomplish with my art. An intrigue. A pull. Something that makes people want to look.

Anyways. I thank you guys for checking me out, and I'll talk to you guys later!

Linking to Creative Every Day, Prompt6ix, Sneak Peek Friday, and Show and Tell Saturday.

Power: 52 Sparks Page

Hey guys! What's happening?

I'm back with you guys again today, with yet another art journal page. Personally, I've really been enjoying the daily art journal pages I've been doing, and it seems that every time I create something, yet another idea pops up into my brain. I just love it so much.

 Today's page is just a bit different than what I've done in the past. Today's page is composed of a ton of layers. I'm not exactly sure what got me to that point, to be completely honest, but I did what I was feeling. And apparently I had a lot of pent up emotions stuck inside of me. Every time I would add a layer, I would love it just that much more. I started with a layer of collage, then the layers of paint, ink, tape, stenciling, and other things followed soon afterwards. 

The 52 Sparks prompt was this: How do you feel when you are alone?

I didn't exactly know how to answer this question, but I decided to give it my best shot. For now, I decided to just put down power. However, I think I may add some letters later on to make it say "Empowered." I feel like that might be a little bit closer to the truth. However, at the same time, I also will feel very frustrated if I am by myself for too long. I think that might have part to do with my personality, and part to do with the fact that I'm a teenager. Not quite sure.

Anyways. Yes. That's what I have for you guys today. I'm so glad that I'm back into art journaling daily now; it just makes me feel so good. I don't even know how to explain it. One of the things that I love the most about it however, would have to be when I'm working on a page and remember something that I used to use all of the time, but have forgotten about. That's what happened with this page and the flower stencil. I forgot I even had it. Then, when I was working on background, I remembered it. And then I went to seek it out.

Overall, I had a lot of fun working on this page. Make sure you check out Dale Anne Potter's 52 Sparks, and I'll talk at you guys later!

Peace - Art Journal Page

Okay guys. I am here with you guys again today, though I really doubted I was going to be. I had a ton of homework in Anatomy and Algebra II, and, from that, I wasn't even sure if I was even going to have time to do any art at all. 

I ended up finishing all of my work around 9, then sat down to make something. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I decided to go with it anyways. I took my journal that I used for the In the Sun prompts this last summer, and flipped to the next available page.

It was painted yellow, and there were quite a few layers underneath of it.

That's part of what I love about this kind of journal. Since the pages are already half-way done, they go together super quickly. So I can actually make something that looks respectable on a day like this. When I literally have no time. But still want to create art.

Then, I added the collage. The piece of chevron type paper was actually made for my first 52 Sparks page. If you look in the background of the page, you'll see what I'm talking about. It's under a ton of layers, but it's still there. This piece was left over from collaging that. I saw it on my desk, and felt it went nicely with the background. So down it went. The heart, which was also lying on my desk, followed soon after. 

I grunged up the background a bit with some RoseArt crayons and chalk pastels, then added a title and some journaling. Then I was done.

Going back to the concept of stopping when it's finished. Even though there weren't many layers on this page, as there are with the majority of my work, I liked the way it turned out. I didn't want to force it to be something that it wasn't. I would have ended up ruining it, though I'm perfectly satisfied with it right now. I like letting art develop on it's own. To me, that's what makes it special.

So that would be that! As a side note however, it is highly unlikely that there will be a post either tomorrow or Saturday. I had meant to get some posts stocked up to post on those days, but I was so busy, I didn't have time to. I'm going to a sports tournament type thing, and I'll be gone until 9 P.M. on Saturday night. I'll be so focused on sports, I probably won't even think about art. I might bring a couple of things to mess around with, but I probably won't be posting. Just a comment. 

Anyways. Thanks for visiting! And I'll see you guys next time!

{{Face Your Fears}} - Art Journal Spread

Hey all! Jordan here. 

I've got a couple of pages to share with you today. Or rather, just a spread. I guess it could technically be considered a couple of pages if I wanted it to be. Personal preference. That's what I'm going with.

With this page, I would like to make a quick note. I actually started this page a couple of days ago, during a live stream I did. This was on Monday. I loved doing the stream, and I think I was on for about three and half hours. I did quite a bit during this stream, and I got fairly far into this page. However, until today, I hadn't touched it since.

Then today, I walked into my room and saw it sitting on my desk. And I knew that I had to finish it up. It was staring at me, and was calling my attention to it. The only problem came when I didn't know how to continue on with it.

However, after a bit of experimenting, and flipping through magazines, I finally decided to glue an image down, throw a wash over it, and add a title and some journaling. Then I would call it done. And I really like the way it turned out.

Here's a close up of some of the detail on the left page, where the title is located. This is one of my favorite parts. I love the ironic quality it has to it, even though it was completely unintentional. I put the "face" part of the title over the face of the girl.

I'm not really sure how that came into being, but I'm not complaining. I'm really loving it.

Also, here's just a bit more detail on the journaling. Again, I did it on my typewriter, except here I took one of the words and stamped it out. I love the way that turned out as well.

Overall, I am very satisfied with this page. Very satisfied. Quite frankly, I love it. There's a possibility that it's my favorite page since I've started up art again. However, that's arguably happened to me every time I've sat down to create a page. 

Anyways. I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you tomorrow!

Color Challenge #3 Reveal!

Hey guys! I'm back with you guys again today, and this time I have a color challenge reveal for you guys! This was the date that Barbara, Mavis and I had decided upon to do for the reveal, and I finally get to share with you guys all of the fun art that I've been working on this past 10 days!! And I'm excited to do so! First, let's reveal the colors. Although you probably already saw the photo that I put above, I'll tell you the colors anyways. And they are pale blue, vermillion and purple. ALSO. As I said when I first revealed that I was going to be doing another challenge with Barbara (and I'm glad I did; she was a pleasure to work with as always) I mentioned that there was going to be a twist for this challenge. And that was the use of word prompts in the work. 

Barbara and I came up with the colors and words; she crowd sourced two colors (vermillion and purple), and then added the word prompt life. I added the pale blue color and the words energy and passion. We decided that we somehow needed to incorporate these words into our work, and I found this a wonderful challenge to try in comparison to some of the things that I've been doing lately. All three of the projects that I did for this challenge were art journal pages of one kind or another, but I'll focus more on what journal they were done in when I get to them.

The first page that I would like to share with you guys today is this art journal page that I decided to do in my 5,000 Question Survey journal. In case you aren't really a follower of my blog, the 5,000 Question Survey is a survey that was put together for people who were looking for journaling prompts to work on in private or in public; it really depended purely on the person. Well, I saw those prompts, and I saw art journals. Art journals all the way. And from there, this journal was born. I've probably done about 20 pages, give or take 2 or 3. The question was kind of a deep one, in comparison to some of the others. It prompted me to answer the question; "What is the truest thing that you know?"

Well. That one took a lot of thought, let me tell you. At first, it didn't make sense at all, since my brain, which so yearns for accuracy kept telling me that one thing cannot be any more true than another. Of course, I believe now that I was over thinking the whole question, but, after some time, I realized that one of the word prompts; life; actually went very well with this question. Though I still don't believe that life is the "truest" thing that I know, it is true, never the less.

Life is one thing in this world that cannot be denied, no matter how hard one might try. It is something that is always here, but people very rarely take the time to appreciate it. I know that I don't. Not as often as I should. But maybe, after working through these thoughts on this journal page, I will now.

The next page that I want to share with you is actually the facing page to the previous one that I shared with you. I love the way that this page turned out. It seems that every time I do a girl in one of my journals, in this way, I always like it. Always. I haven't done one yet that I didn't like. And, as I've said before, this is so much more my style than a lot of other ones that I've done in the past. As soon as I knew that I was going to be doing another color challenge, I knew that I wanted to do another girl. I've been doing so many of these lately, that it's starting to get ridiculous. But I love them so much that I find it difficult to resist. Honestly. Soon, my journals are going to be filled with these girls, and there's not going to be a thing that I can do about it. 

I love everything about this girl though. She's just too cool for words. In my opinion at least. I love her hair; the brightness of it is amazing. I think I'm going to have to do this color of hair again sometime. 

And her eyes. Purple eyes aren't something that I would have originally done; this challenge was destined to push me beyond my limits. Maybe sometime I'll try making one of these girls with her hands at her side; not hiding them behind her back, since I don't know how to make them. ;)

And then, just before I move on, I would like to share with you a picture of the two pages side by side in my journal. I love how they match/coordinate without being too matchy. That's the main thing I was worrying about when I made these two pages side by side. But I like the way that it turned out.

Now, the last page that I have to share with you guys today is actually the first page in the envelope journal that I shared with you guys the other day. I had been working in this in little bits for a while now; it seems to me that this little journal has sort of been soaking up the excess bits of my journal making endeavors for the past week or so. I always have a bunch of paint left over when working on art journal pages, and always want to do stuff with them. So far, these pages have all been created with these created leftovers. There are more, but that's for another day. Plus, this is the only one that's honestly finished so far.

Here's a bit of a close up of the title. I've been thinking about carving some letter stamps as of late, but I've been putting it off. These stamps were foam stamps that I've had for a while now, and I love to use them on my pages. So that's that.

My color challenge reveal.

Thanks so much for visiting me today, and make sure to visit Barbara and Mavis to check out their color challenge reveals as well! Also, Beth participated with us. Check her post out as well!

In the Sun Class Pages

Hello all of my artsy friends! Hope you guys all had a fun, art filled day. I know I did. Today I would like to share with you guys some pages from my In the Sun art journal class. I've been having a lot of fun with these pages, though I have been falling a bit behind lately. Today I just took some time to catch up. I'm not completely caught up yet, but that's okay. I've also been skipping around with them lately. Doing the pages that I'm inspired to do right then and there. And it's really been turning out nicely. Today I have three pages to share with you guys. And I'll probably work some more on this journal tomorrow.

The first page though, that I would like to share with you guys is a page about my favorite snack for the summer. Now this, for me, is almost impossible to decided upon, since I do have such a passionate love for food. It's ridiculous. But I have a tie between watermelon and ice cream. Since I was sure that a lot of people would say ice cream (not that it matters; if it's my favorite, it's my favorite), I decided to go with the watermelon. Plus, I just wanted to play around with the colors and see what became of it.

The next page that I would like to share with you guys is this fireworks page. This is an extremely simple page, in comparison to some of the pages that I have done in this journal in the past. I took the painted paper background, which in and of itself was fairly simple (just white crayon and watercolors), and then added splatters of paint in two colors. That was the prompt. To make splatters of paint to represent fireworks. Then I added the title.

And, of course, added a border around the page with a marker. And that was that. It was finished. I love the way this page turned out though. I think, as simple as it is, it really represents me. Although it might be in a different way than I would normally expect.

The third and final page that I would like to share with you guys today is this one; the prompt was to  create a journal page about your greatest weakness. This was difficult for me, as I do not generally like to put my fears or weaknesses on paper where I can see them. I like to confront them in private, and work through them. But I don't generally like to talk about them.

Also, the background was part of the prompt. I drew the diamonds with a sharpie onto the background, and filled in the spaces with paint. I REALLY like the way that this page turned out. As simple as it is. It is one of my favorite pages in this whole journal. The more I look at it, the more I like it. I just think that the colors really work well together, and that was nice to see, since I really just picked random colors of paint off of my desk. 

I would like to say one more thing however. I had a thought last night, as I was trying to get to sleep. I know that the Olympics are coming extremely quickly (they start on July 27th; I'm SO excited!), and was wondering if any of you guys would be interested in an Olympics oriented challenge. I know that is extremely confined in the overall idea, but if there is interest, I will start to develop the idea. There would probably be a prompt a day, as well as some art journal pages that were inspired by it. And maybe something where you can link up your pages. I would totally love to do something like that. Let me know! Yes or no? It would be greatly appreciated.

Well. That's what I have for you guys today. Tomorrow I think that I would like to share with you guys a 31 Hearts post, even though I'm not quite so sure about that yet. Anyways. I'll talk to you guys then. And I hope you guys have a good rest of the day, and a good day tomorrow!

"Time" and ICAD #4: Doodle Your Name

Hey everybody! I'm back with another art journal page for you guys today. :) Today I was working from yet ANOTHER prompt (I love the way these have been working for me - tons of inspiration) from the 5,000 Question Survey. Today's prompt was "Does time really heal all wounds?"

After the base layer of writing on this art journal page, I came to the conclusion that I don't think that this is so. Sure, I think that time can heal SOME wounds; some physical wounds and smaller emotion wounds, but I think that the biggest problem does come from the larger emotional scars that we develop throughout our lives.

Something that I have really enjoyed about using these prompts is the way that I've almost turned it into a process. When I start out a page, I start out with the base layer of journaling, then add the art on top. From there, I look for a key word that I used in the journaling. For this page, I realized that it was "time". It just seemed to be a good title. And then, I take that word and use that as a prompt for my journaling.

Single word prompts seem to inspire me a bit more than questions, and I really enjoy the way that my journaling turns out. It gives me a good base to work off of, and gives me some different ideas to work with.

As you can see, I tried another way of doing the title today; I was going to use the cut out letters, but I decided to use stamps instead. A foam stamp set. I love the way that these look, and it always seems to work out with any style of art page.

I decided to use some warmer colors for this page instead of the cool colors that I normally use, and I love. Seriously. I do. Even though my favorite colors are blue and green, I do like to use some other colors on occasion. And I normally am pretty pleased with the outcome.

I also love the way that the photo that I collaged onto this page near the beginning really blended into the background. I just like the effect that it gave. I just did a bunch of layers, one after another on the page, and that was the result that I got. Pretty interesting in my opinion. But, of course, I'm biased.

The last thing that I have to share with you guys today is my daily index card for ICAD2. I love the way these prompts are as well, and I seem to be doing good in keeping up with this project. Let's just hope that I keep it up. Today's prompt was "Doodle Your Name". And so that's just what I did. I used a bunch of different Crayola markers and just wrote my name over and over again on the lined side of this index card. I just have to say, after you've written your name this many times, it does start to look kind of weird.

Hopefully I'll be back with you guys tomorrow; today was the first day of a sports camp that I went to, plus I went to Starbucks with one of my good friends. So I had kind of a busy day. And yet, I was still able to make it on here. So I think it'll probably be safe to say I'll be back tomorrow! See you then!