It ain’t always pretty…

I woke up on the wrong side of the easel today.

Maybe I am just in a bit of a funk about turning 48 tomorrow.

I know, I know.

48 is great, especially considering the alternatives to growing older.

Hardi-har-har.

Whatever the cause, I was crabby.

So I took Crabby Me into the studio to lose myself in music and paint.

Acrylic paint play on an already stenciled page in my moleskine journal.

Letting the paint blobs bring the doodles out using Faber Castell pens…

Isn’t this looking promising?

Promising ?

Or too pretty?

Need to add an edge to represent what I am feeling today?

Suddenly, before I really knew what was happening

burnt sienna ink covered the page.

And not in a good way.

I started frenetically scribbling over the whole thing with a sketching pencil.

Then came out came these messy words…

This kind of left me feeling defeated.

No magically beautiful page was waiting at the end of this time in the studio!

But then how many times have I said to other journalers and to myself,

that art journaling isn’t about the end product.

That it is about the process.

About letting yourself just be,

in that space, in that moment.

After sitting with the page like this for a few moments,

I added these words…

And that is the truth, isn’t it ?

So this less than perfect,

way less than pretty, page is remaining like this in my journal.

And while some of the crabby is lingering,

I am left remembering

that no matter how ugly life may get,

to keep on looking for those sweet spots.

Happy Tuesday, Beautiful Ones !

Love hard and Make Art.

Your Weird is showing…

Want to create some weird art ?

Here’s the technique.

Take some spray ink in whatever color you want – in my case, it was pink and purple.

Spray the ink into a blob on a blank page of your journal.

Let dry.

Go back a few minutes, days, weeks later and look into the blob.

This works best when you are suffering from a little PMS or feeling funky because of the endless grey skies, or how messy life can be in general…

Make sure to put some moody tunes on the jukebox for added funk-a-tude.

Take a black charcoal pencil and trace out whatever shapes you see in the blobs…

Maybe it will be flowers and pretty girls with flying hearts…

Or maybe it will be bizarre snake-like monsters

and sad looking girls, with mascara running, who seem to be falling…

Or feeling a little empty inside…

After your “shapes” are defined with the charcoal, fill in the rest of the page with watercolor in a loose, watery, blendy way, drying often in between with a blow dryer, to create a lovely background of colored chaos.

Then, let loose with the black paint, pencils and pens,

outlining, creating new shapes, journaling whatever emotion evoked from the stuff spilling onto the page…

in this case in handwriting that no one can really read…

A white gel pen used in the loosest of ways to outline and add some details can be a way to go too…

Then, stop every thing.

Back up for a second…

Or go check your Facebook or blog for the hundredth time today…

And when you are ready…

Take a deep breath

and look at what you have created…

Look at it for a while.

Does it kind of blow you away that this came out of you ?

Can you believe that you let go enough to just let it flow and morph however it wanted to ?

Can you give it a name or title ?

Mine is called “Empty.”

What descriptors can you give it ?

“Pretty.” ? No.

“Powerful.” ? Yes.

“Beautiful” ? Yes, in the eyes of its maker anyway.

“Art”? Oh, yes.

“Weird.” Yup. Pretty weird. But in a “let go and let all hang out” kind of way.

All of this done, you can choose whether you want to share your weird art or not.

Maybe it is just for you, an expression of one moment in your life, one facet of what makes you tick, and the only one who needs to see it is you.

Or maybe you will feel that if you share it, you will allow some other Artist to feel freer to just go there…

to allow themselves to make weird art and know that it is all okay.

“The world today doesn't make sense,

so why should I paint pictures that do?”

– Pablo Picasso

Give yourself permission to make that weird art if that is where your Artist Soul wants to go.

Who knows what you will discover along the way…

Big Love to you, Beautiful Artist Ones.

SP Wednesday - Ugly Beautiful

It is easy to love butterflies. It is easy to love babies. It is easy to love flowers, and puppies, and birdies, and pretty things...

(Sing like no one is listening - 2001)

It is so easy in fact that most people do love those things. A lot even.

But what about the less lovable things in life.

What about the warty, scary, scarred, ugly parts of life ?

Of people who we know ?

Of ourselves ?

Do those parts need less love ?

I think not ! I think that they in fact need more love

than the pretty, shiny, sweet parts.

Without love, those parts get uglier,

wart-ier, more scarred and scary.

But then, how do you really learn to love the UNLovable ?

(art journal page "Unlovable" - May 19, 2009)

I think you need to go slow.

Maybe you need to love one icky wart or deep, painful scar at a time...

After all, that ugliness, those scars, those warts, didn't appear all in one day.

And maybe, just maybe,

with a little more love and a little more time,

those scars, those warts, those scary, scared parts of life,

of people we know,

of ourselves,

can become ugly beautiful instead.

Kiss a warty toad part of yourself today ! Happy SP Wednesday, my Ugly Beauties !

This post was partly inspired by Life is a Verb by Patti Digh, p.134, "Love Unlovable People". Patti is coming to Deerfield, NH on June 2nd to read from her amazing, inspiring, lovely book and I will be there with bells on !

It is also inspired by Sheri Gaynor's Creative Awakenings, p.114 - The Toad Committee. Sheri encourages us to listen carefully to what the venomous toad parts of ourselves are yelling at us - their message may just be something we need to hear !)