Beauty. Attention. Creation.
When I first read about perfectionism, I didn’t think it applied to me. I am pretty easy going, adaptable, and generally don’t get too upset over things. In other words, I don’t need things to be perfect. It turns out, that is not what perfectionism is.
Sometimes an art journal spread takes a while, sometimes it’s just waiting there for you to find it!
The first project of the year will be a swap! The Sketchbook Project sets up these mini-projects to sign up for during the year outside of their self-titled, main project. The one I signed up for is called ‘The Ampersand Project’
Today was the Sketchbook Project meet-up day. I almost didn’t go – it was such a perfect Sunday to not do anything. Just sunny enough, just breezy enough. Did I really want to go hang out with people I didn’t know, who might not even show? But I did go and I’m glad I went!
I am part of this really cool 8 week coaching intensive program, the Live Your Dream Challenge with Jenny Fenig, success coach to savvy women-on-a-mission, and our first assignment was to create vision boards – a way of seeing what your dream looks like to better help you achieve that dream. You can use magazine images, typography, anything you want really, that will convey what you’re wanting to happen. It’s fun making time to just sit and pull out pictures that you really like. Focus on yourself!
The poem starts out “I like a certain shade of lipstick…” and goes on with references to war, cabaret and far away places covered in snow. I felt that the lighting in this catalog cover image conveyed that feeling of another time and place. And of course she is putting on that certain shade of lipstick!
In my quest for teapots and cups, I rediscovered a particular Anthropologie catalog. It had a kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme so one would assume there had to be something related to tea in there (hello mad hatter!) though not as much as I thought there would.
While I was working on it I thought – isn’t that really what framed photos are like? You frame them because the memory was great or the image is beautiful and they are confined to that little rectangle area but they are bigger than that.
This week’s art journal inspiration: Black Swan. What an intense movie. Natalie Portman did such a phenomenal job and Barbara Hershey was the perfect overbearing mother. Natalie’s character, Nina, was probably 20 or so and her mother would still undress her – even taking her earrings out! The dancers in the movie were dancing Swan Lake. It is a love story of the white swan who loves a prince but
I decided this year to keep a weekly art journal. I’ve always kept a journal – I have a storage container full of them probably from when I was 8 or 9. I tend to doodle a little bit in them but mostly it’s just writing and taped in mementos like movie tickets, funny notes, things like that. In my aim to incorporate more creative elements into my life in general I thought this might be fun, easy way to do that every week.
