Journal Frenzy

So I don't know how to string these pages out so that I can write beside the one I'm referring to, so it's good they all have dates.

After Kei Chi and I did our journal pages using Suzi Blu's assignment/formula I was ready to do more. I had just gotten Holly Harrison's book Mixed-Media Collage and it contains a fairly thorough explanation of Teesha Moore's journaling process. She uses lots of things cut from magazines and calendars, so I gave myself the job of tearing up all the magazines I had gotten from the Friends of the Library sale. They were travel, scuba diving, and womens magazines and I tore out everything that appealed to me and recycled the few pages that were left. I had started file folders of found images several years ago when my magazine stash got to be too much so I sorted by those categories, added a few extra categories and after a very crazy day had a workable system.

As I was chalking up a spread in my moleskine journal in yellows pastels, I remembered that I had started an art journal a couple of years ago referencing an article I found on the internet by Teesha Moore - How I Journal. At the time I didn't much care for what I had done (January 10, 2006) so even though I had readied four pages with acrylic paints, I just put it away. Maybe some of you just grab any old paper and start journaling; I am always, always fearful of God knows what! So I found the old journal, smeared some pastels on the painted pages and like them a lot better. I sprayed all four (three old and one new) with fixative and actually started on the old aqua page first because I liked it the least. And therefore had less to ruin, I guess.

Over the next three days, I did four spreads. Maybe I will get familiar enough with the process to work faster. As of now, I am in awe of those journalers who say, "Do a page every day. Just set aside thirty minutes to work on it." I am trying to let the images I choose to juxtapose speak to me and figure out what they are saying later. It's the same procees that Kate and I were trying to use for the "soul collages," although I still prefer to think of them as "soulless collages." And although I am thoughtful of the words I add, I truly hate my penmanship skills. I much prefer all the glorious fonts I can use in digital collage.

Pam, the one with the window (December 16,2007) I couldn't find words for but realized later that it has things it in that we both enjoy.