SURRENDER

Every Monday Effy  issues a challenge of a word, a concept, or a technique to those of us participating in the BOOK OF DAYS project. Just as an aside ... the best part about the BOD project is that it is  free so hurry over and sign up now for a wonderful year of glittery love and goodness in the art journaling world.

Our challenge this week was the word "surrender." Sometimes an image or an idea will pop into my head immediate with these kinds of challenges, and then other times the concept has to mutter around in the back of my mind stirring around in my subconcious for several days before a page or spread begins to surface. I've learned over time to not rush the process. It will come in its own time. And that is how it happened with the challenge for this week.

I went on about my business exploring a new ezine calle Sprout from Amanda at Persitent Green. What a beautiful little publication filled with poetry, images, photography, and inspiration. Well done, Amanda. As I read the articles in the themed issued on Abundance my percolating ideas and visions began to take shape. I began to jot notes down on scraps of paper - words and phrases. I began to look at images with a new purpose and direction in mind.

The next step, unplanned and not even a clue as to the coming connection occured after watching Jeanette in her Creative POP video for January share her exploration of charcoal drawing while working on a image of a face inspired by a magazine photography. Faces seem to crop up a lot on art journaling spreads. I'm not sure why. It may be that using an image of a human being gives life and verbal power to the journaling message. It may be that using an image of a human being could invoke empathy for the emotions shared on the page. I'm not sure and this is pure speculation. I've played around with including people on my pages and sometimes it works and sometimes it feels contrived. However I do believe what better place to explore and experiment than in your daily art journal. I've never really thought of myself as having much ability for drawing realistic images, but I think this goes to show with practice, one does find their skills improving over time.

Well, the rest is history. You can see my "work-in-progress" as I integrated all of these prompts as they came together in one spread. I started by preparing the base pages with gesso and then used sketching and charcoal pencils to create a light sketch as an idea for the page. When I had everything the way I liked it I started firming everything up more permanently with my Pitt pens. What is next? I think I'll be playing with my Inktense pencils and color blocks and, of course, finishing out the lettering and text with my Pitt pens. I think, the way I'm using these pens every day, I'd best be looking for a bulk supplier. These pens are the best for working over mixed media like acrylics, watercolor, inks, and pages that have been coated with Fixatif or sealed with a matt medium.