Day 1 of the 30 Days of Art Challenge

Following on from my previous blog: '30 Day Art Journal Challenge'.

Here is the empty journal I selected for my challenge. I probably should have chosen a book with thicker pages as that would have stopped anything showing through onto the next page BUT I am a sucker for pretty things and birds, so this was perfect for me.

 FIRST PAGE

1.) Take a minute to connect with your feelings. Close your eyes. Imagine. Draw or paint them.

Right I will say it now, at school I was terrible at following instructions mainly because I don't read questions properly and in art I'd actually hate having set things to do because I always wanted to do my own thing. Sooo I have tried my very very hardest to stick to the tasks but as you may see, it doesn't always go according to plan.

This is what I have so far for my first task which is not yet finished and I will put up another post when it is complete.

What might immediately jump out at you is all the colours which might lead you to believe I was feeling happy when I created this, however that wasn't quite the case. As I was starting this page, I was having very mixed emotions about what was happening in my life, on one side (left) trying to portray the dark and upsetting feelings I was having at the time and on the other side (right), relief and happiness.

The left side holds various concepts in my mind which I'm going to try to explain without revealing too many details about my life.  As you can see, I have drawn the typical cliche of mountains. This was basically to resemble how getting through certain situations can make you feel like you are climbing a mountain. Difficult, time consuming, tiring, frustrating and more often than not, lost. On the other hand, as Michael Kennedy once said "I learn something every time I go into the mountains."
Which I certainly did. Ooo isn't it all part of life's rich tapestry. Even if it does make you feel like this:

The second part of the page I would like to dicuss is that if you look closely I have infact drawn a set of scales. This is what merges the two sides together. I made the left handside of the scales lower to symbolise my lower mood and the higher side resembles hope. I put a spiky object on the lower side to represent unpredictabilty, harshness and generally something that could hurt you. Such as stepping on a sea anenome. Not that I've ever done that, but I imagine it's rather painful, not to mention you don't expect it to happen so it catches you off-guard. Then the other side of the scale, I placed a non-descript vase. Something which represents to me something which you can't tell much about. It looks plain but unoffensive. Almost endearing to me. A generally much more pleasant appeal. 




Back to the left side, surrounding what I shall call 'the sea anenome'. I have drawn spirals, much like those charity tubs where you put a coin in and it goes round and round and round and then drops in the bottom where as a child, I couldn't help thinking it was so much fun putting the coins in to see them spin but your always left with the feeling that it was short lived so you feel the need to do it again and yet end up with exactly the same feeling. I don't recall thinking oh good I've helped a charity, as opposed to 'what was the point in that?'. I'm not going to lie, I still wanted to keep putting more coins in to see it happen all over again even though I already knew exactly what was going to happen and much to my own dismay, I haven't changed much since. As well as this, the spiral pattern around 'the sea anenome' is meant to show my confusion about my feelings at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad4HEs-i_m4

Then coming to the bottom of the left side of the page, the cob webs. This is actually a Zentangle pattern called Hekzee by Linda Farmer. You can learn to draw it using this link -
http://tanglepatterns.com/2011/01/how-to-draw-hekzee.html.

 I used this to show the past, so as you go up the page on the left hand side you go from, past to present to future. (cob webs to confusion to mountains)

Moving onto the right handside, it is a lot less complicated in theory compared to the amount of time it took to do it which was a long time. Again I have used many different Zentangle patterns here, to show variety and how my thoughts were in several different places at once. Some are more complicated than others, some are very simple. I've used Bandola, Basketweave, Bateek, Baton, Beadlines, Beelight and Bowties. (Links at the bottom)
So that is my first attempt at the '30 Day Art Journal Challenge'. When this page is finished I will put it up as soon as possible!

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it in some way.

 

 

http://tanglepatterns.com/2012/02/how-to-draw-bandola.html
http://tanglepatterns.com/2011/02/how-to-draw-basketweave.html
http://tanglepatterns.com/2011/08/how-to-draw-bateek.html
http://tanglepatterns.com/2010/11/how-to-draw-baton.html
http://tanglepatterns.com/2011/06/how-to-draw-beadlines.html
http://tanglepatterns.com/2010/09/how-to-draw-beelight.html 

http://tanglepatterns.com/2010/09/how-to-draw-bowties.html

The 30 Day Art Journal

Having been inspired by my friend, I have decided I am going to do some blogging on my artwork, knitting and my modelling.

First of all, It was recently my 22nd birthday. For my birthday, this particular friend gave me, what I thought was one of the most thoughtful and creative presents I could ever be given. She is a wonderful artist and we both share a love of art but I frequently lack motivation to get myself to do it. We have both had experiences with Depression and previously she had been telling me about how calming it can be to just put your feelings onto a page and use your imagination to create new things. I believe she called it 'Art Therapy'.

Anyway, as a birthday present she made a very impressive card for me. It wasn't any ordinary card. The front is an absolute stunning piece of work she had created using Zentangle Patterns. She first introduced me to Zentangle patterns and since then I have absolutely adored them. I love the intricacy and concentration that has to go into them.
Here is a picture of the front of the card:

 

Then aside from the lovely message on the inside she had made a '30 Day Art Journal Challenge'.


Fill a page a day.

1.) Take a minute to connect with your feelings. Close your eyes. Imagine. Draw or paint them.
2.) Doodle until  you fill an entire page.
3) Pick an object in your house. While looking only at the object put your pen to paper and draw it without picking up your pen. Colour in your crazy art.
4) Find a beautiful picture in a magazine cut it out and make that the centre of your art journal page.
5) Imagine your inner critic as a monster. Draw or paint that monster.
6) Pick a quote and design an art journal page around it.
7) Write down five of your core beliefs. Pick one and illustrate it.
8) What is your favourite fairy tale? Draw or paint your favourite scene.
9) Think about someone who inspires you. Use the person's characteristics to inspire your journal page.
10) Live in the moment. Journal about whatever is on your mind.
11) Construct a Journal page around the last time that you travelled.
12) Grab some junk mail and use it as the background of your page. Colour over it.
13) Write down 10 things that you are grateful for and use them to inspire your Journal Page.
14) Pick a lyric from one of your favourite song and illustrate it.
15) Find a poem and let it inspire your Journal Page.
16) Pretend you are a goddess. Draw her.
17) Illustrate your favourite moment from the last week.
18) Write a compliment to yourself for a recent accomplishment. Centre a Journal page around it.
19) Draw yourself in a beautiful ball gown.
20) Journal about things that you think are lovely.
21) Think about something in your everday life that you take for granted and devote your art journal page to it.
22) Paint or illustrate how you feel when you're at your favourite place.
23) Draw a large heart in the middle of the page and fill it with things that make your heart smile.
24) Think back to your favourite childhood memory and use it to inspire your Journal page.
25) Journal about peace and harmony.
26) Use glue to stick book pages to your Journal page and use as a background then draw and paint on top of them.
27) Pick three colours. Draw an animal using a pen and then use only those three colours to fill it in.
28) Draw a staircase and think about your biggest dream. Draw it at the top of the staircase and then fill in each step with goals to make it reality.
29) Journal about hopes. (I totally read her writing as Herpes hahaha)
30) Journal about things that make you laugh out loud.

 Therefore, prepare to see a mixture of crap art and reasonable art with a healthy dish of criticism towards all my own work. Hmmm maybe that is defeating the point of this challenge. Well I hope you enjoy!!