Okay, so I think anyone who has spent any time with me, virtual or real, knows I love WORDS ! I read signs everywhere, I spell words with license plate letters (in Canada, esp.), I am a whiz at word games of all kinds and I love to use words in my art work. In fact, I think it is hard to find a piece of mine without words in it in some form.
So when Michelle gave us the challenge to USE Our WORDS in the 30th GPP Street Team Crusade, I was really gung ho ! I started looking back at some of my favorite "Wordy" pieces from a few years ago right up to the present. That was when I realized how easily words come to me, from all different sources, and find their way into my art journal.
Sometimes I use the words as the "paintstrokes" (click on any of the images to enlarge) :
Art Journal piece - Words as Paint, 2007
Or as accents, like here around the spirals :
Art Journal piece - "Don't Box Me IN !" - 2007
Sometimes, I print them out ont the computer in a font that connects to the page somehow :
Art Journal page - "Gross Gordon", digitally altered, 2008
Sometimes, I hand-write a favorite quote, trying to make my handwriting look good by doodling it up a little :
Art Journal page - "Breaking the Shell", 2008
Or I just cut out words from an old book and see what "poetry" happens :
Detail of Art Journal page - "Love Paths" 2009
There are times when a single word is the focus :
Art Journal Page - "Courage" - digitally altered, 2008
Or an entire phrase :
Art Journal Page - "I Got The Power." - April, 2009
Often, the words of others will get mixed in with my own :
Art Journal Page - "I'm Sorry", April 2009
I know there are those who think that Visual Journals, or Art Journals should rely more on images than words. I guess that is one way to think. Some may think I use too many words in my art pieces. Whatever ! This is how I like things right now, though this experiment in visiting the "wordiness" of my pieces made me think about trying out some non-verbal pieces and see what happens.
The best thing about Art Journals for me has always been that there are no rules ! I get to do it MY WAY ! Wordy, yes, but I love it too !
Now leave a comment if you are so inclined ( I always love to hear from my Blogland Pals !) and then go visit the GPP Street Team Crusaders and check out their Wordy Fun ! Such a bunch of talented peeps !
So lately I have been doing little else in the studio but play in my art journals. I think this is part of my healing stuff and part of that oh so long hibernation period that I seem to be slowly emerging from. Anyway, the prompts and themes offered up by some of my favorite Blogland artists have been great jumping off points for this healing play.
The Creative Every Day Challenge that the marvelous Leah organizes now has an optional theme for each month. The theme for February is "Words" ! Yay, my favorite !!! I don't know if you are aware of my other title, Kim, Queen of Words, but you can ask the hubby about it ! I see words everywhere and often read them aloud much to my husband's annoyance ! I am a champion at games like "Bookworm", "Scrabble" and "Balderdash", etc because besides art, words are my thing, baby !
I found a new way to play with words in my art journal which I really like. It is a mix of writing, kind of stream on consciousness stuff and art journaling. Here's a little prompt you can try to add to your own word play.
First, grab a wordy magazine. Find an article in it that has "interesting" or "inspiring" words in it. Don't think too much when you do this. Just use your instinctive eye and scan the article for words that may jump out at you. This sample was an article by Martha Beck in an old Oprah mag. I think it appealed to me because of the size of the print and the words "release" "freedom" and "surrender" that jumped out when I first glanced at it :
Then, cut up your article. I sort of used instinct here again, trying not to cut words in half too much but not worrying about where I was cutting too much either. (There is no wrong way to do this !!!! Don't think - do !) It is kind of appropriate too, that the article I chose for my sample here was about "letting go" don't you think ???
Now comes the play part. Choose a piece from the article you cut. Glue it down somewhere in your journal. Grab your favorite pen or as I did here, a pen that kind of matches the font in the article. Now without too much thinking (The only hard part of this whole exercise, right ?), re-compose the text with whatever words flow out of you....
(click on the photo to enlarge if you need to)
It may make sense... it may not...that is okay ! Just play with the words. What do the words in your "piece" evoke in your inner writer ? Nonsense ? Deep profound messages ? Dr.Seuss rhymes ? Whatever ! I tend to try and make sentences that at least kind of make sense structurally. I will finish words that have been cut in half. Just see what comes to you.
Then I decorated the page a bit using some stamps and pens to go with the new "article" I composed. For me in this piece, it was more about the writing than the art but it could be different for you less "word lover" people ;-).
Here is the first page I did with this exercise. I didn't take before pictures of the article but you can see the piece I cut in the nice font beside my messy handwriting.
I love this page ! Talk about a message from my inner artist ! Where did this talk of angels come from ? Not sure but when I let go of the tight control, let the words "speak" to me and just let myself play, I definitely got a message from the universe. Will it happen every time ? Probably not... but I like to be open to the possibility.
I like to "Trust the Angels" ! ;-)
Hey, if you try out this word play exercise, let me know ! I would love to see what another player discovers !
Just to finish off this post, here is a song that plays with words and has some beautiful harmony. Reminds me of an old friend who saved my life along the way. Enjoy !
