the completed journal page

Last year I did something on the spur of the moment that I knew next to nothing about, and it transformed what I feel capable of doing and how I approach my art-making–I signed up for LifeBook 2013, run by Tamara LaPorte.  She and her guest artists showed me how to do things–most particularly drawing–that I would have never believed in ten million years that I would be able to do.  The styles are not so much mine–more on the whimsical side–but the techniques are fascinating.

This is my favorite corner of the page–love the organic way the Neocolor IIs bleed into each other and combine

Back in November I enrolled for LifeBook 2014 without having to think about it very hard at all.  If nothing else, having a lesson come each Monday is a great way to keep doing something new, playing with materials, and stretching myself with help, which is different than what my daily journaling does.

this is about halfway completed at this point

Of course I am already a little behind since I was on a family vacation the first four days of January, but I intend to be caught up by the end of this week.  (That is not counting the unfinished lessons from LB2013, which are about 20 of them!)

This was done with a triadic color scheme so that the colors would harmonize without any further effort on my part. The writing is with a Molotow paint marker.

The page I am showing here is the warm-up exercise from Week 1 (I have yet to do the official lesson!), and it was definitely fun to play.

Absolutely love the look of brayered gesso across the page!

I can tell I have more confidence than I did last year, not following quite so slavishly and more able to step back, look at the page, and say, “what do *I* think?  is it done?  does it need something more somewhere?”, and then take action even if it’s not something Tam did in the video.

I like the way the Shin-Han marker along the page edge ties everything together

Note for myself re materials used: Neocolor IIs (yellow, canary yellow, carmine, purplish red, ice blue, sapphire blue), Golden High Flow Phthalo Blue (Green Shade), Golden Fluid Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Molotow Paint Pen in Signal Black, Shin-Han Cobalt Blue marker, Galeria white gesso primer).