Progress and Some Theories

 

My first layers "hot mess"

 

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.”

― Pablo Picasso

 

So encouraging to run across this. It definitely describes my creative process. And it particularly seems to be true about my art journaling. I've been mulling over an idea for a page in the altered book I've been working in, collecting a few images and words, wanting to try something for the background layer and then topping it all with a translucent napkin layer like was taught in my Handmade Book Club recently. It's kind of a negative theme, a group of things that I think I want to buy, would look good in, an opportunity to travel. And then I realized, none of this is going to happen so I might as well be realistic about it. A case of who am I kidding. Thought I'd use this for my retreat art journaling page. But wait, Laly wants us to dream, dream big, bring light to our pages and maybe surprise ourselves when the dream comes true. Ugh. Not the mood I'm in at the moment, but I resolve to play her game. I think about being able to get out on the trails again, and even to travel a bit now that I've had some work done on my back. Spring is not here yet so I still have time to heal more, hoping I can indeed do some of these things I did all the time before the pain stopped me.

Example of painted and stamped papers, only willing to spatter with ink

But as you can see, even following her bright and supportive and inspirational guidance, I ended up with the same dark overall appearance that shows up in a lot of my work instead of a more light and airy look. (She kept saying not to worry at this stage - if it looked like a hot mess, then you were where you were supposed to be!) And as I progressed through the videos I realized I'd been adding steps before they were presented, an overlapping of instructions. And both made everything else about working on this page harder. For instance, my chosen collage papers made a lovely little vignette across the lower half of the page when I was supposed to be choosing strips and bits to create "texture" and then paint and draw over them. I do not want to paint over these nor add much over them. (A big thanks to Kathy Loomis for her comment on the last post mirroring my own feelings about this practice of "disappearing" beautiful papers and images.)  Her own page was so different from others I've seen her do and I didn't care for it much, but I still let her get into my head, influenced by the composition she was developing even though she kept saying not to copy her exactly. My original idea envisioned multiple images clipped from magazines scattered over the page; she only required we use a single focal image pretty much centered. Ah me. So it was a frustrating week that at times left me totally undone and the page is still not totally finished.

A saving grace: in her wrap up video, she showed a time lapse of another page she'd just done and it was exactly what I thought she was going to teach but hadn't (perhaps she felt that technique would be too complicated for many of the students trying out art journaling for the first time?), and I picked up a few ideas of how I can improve the things about my spread that are still bothering me. And she has this thing about wings representing your creativity taking flight, so her last little ritual was having us close our eyes, focus on our shoulder blades, and feel our wings. "Are they starting to flutter a bit, open up?" she asked. Ironic smile from me. I didn't want to make her feel bad by responding that my wings felt a bit crumpled, maybe even with a few holes in them. ;-) But learning has happened, sparks and epiphanies emerged seemingly from nowhere, soaked up her positivity and encouragement, and I'll be showing the results soon.

Before I ran across the Picasso quotation, I'd been over on Austin Kleon's tumblr where he posted an "In Conversation" video you might find interesting and talked about The Centre For The Less Good Idea, pulling this quotation off its website:

"Often, you start with a good idea, It might seem crystal clear at first, but when you take it off the proverbial drawing board, cracks and fissures emerge in its surface, and they cannot be ignored. It is in following the secondary ideas, those less good ideas coined to address the first idea’s cracks, that the Centre nurtures, arguing that in the act of playing with an idea, you can recognise those things you didn’t know in advance but knew somewhere inside of you."

 

And yeah, this has always happened to me and I used to fight it, determined to make that good idea work even when I could see it wasn't. A longer version of what Picasso said. And I am hoping this is what's happening with my journal page and the others that are already brewing in the back of my mind.

 

I also found interesting because it happens to me all the time, his post about "We all have three voices." How often does the voice inside your head (the thinking voice) compose a perfect few sentences but when you go to write them (your writing voice) or speak them (your speaking voice, you can't capture those exact thoughts in those words again? I can definitely see how this relates to the difference between your good idea for a work of art and what actually tumbles out into reality. Funny things, our brains.