Working on the Computer

I have been playing around on the computer all week. Scanning in photos of my daughter that I took of her a few years ago. She loves to wear vintage clothes and posing for the camera. After scanning the negatives I had to do some touch ups. It is hard to have a clean environment when one has animals and kids in the house. No matter how hard I tried there was always dust spots on the photos. However, we live in a time where photo programs have a cloning tool. I love the cloning tool. All the photos turned out pretty great and what matters is that my daughter is happy with them.

My other computer project was to create more kaleidoscope pictures with my tulip photos. These are the photos that were taken last year because the tulips in our yard have just budded out and will be blooming soon. I will be out there taking their little photos. Not sure if I will do anymore kaleidoscopes because I created over thirteen this week. They did turn out really well and were quite fun to do. Many of them contained hearts which was strange or perhaps part of the kaleidoscope effect. I uploaded them to Walmart Photo 1hr and then pasted them in my journal.

My journal has gone through another phase. It now contains more than just drawing. To be honest I am secretly trying to fill it up so that I can say that I filled an art journal and then it will be okay for me to order a new fancy Moleskine or a Hand*Book journal. Anyway, I pasted the photos of my kaleidoscopes and copies of work I have done outside of the journal. After pasting it all in then I go back and explain what is going on in the photos plus my feelings about them. During the week when I journal I will write in the leftover areas of the page. I will have to scan a page or two so that you can see what I am talking about.

I made this page for an Artist Date challenge on Milliande's ning page. The page was also made it as a 'Photo of the Day', which was a nice surprise.

That is pretty much what I have been doing lately instead of drawing in my journal I am working/playing on the computer.

Journal Title Pages and That Annoying Critic

On the EDM email list we had a discussion about beginning a new journal and how hard that was. Is it the blank page that scares us or is it our inner critic that is nagging us? I think it is that nagging critic telling us that we are not good enough to fill those beautiful empty pages. It is very difficult to quiet that critic and nearly all artists have one. Some artists are good at keeping that critic quiet and some cannot. At times my critic is yelling at me telling me that I am not good at all and that I should just give it up. I am getting better at letting my Muse help me to shut that critic up.

The first thing I do with a new journal is to create a title page. At times the title pages are very involved and at other times it is just simple writing. Some journals have two or more title pages. One at the beginning and then another in the middle. This happens when I change my mind or add a new direction of the journal. The top two middle layouts above are in one journal. I like doing fancy layouts using different media to create the page.

It is still difficult at times to start a new journal and I know that as soon as I buy my Moleskine (may have spelled that wrong;-) that critic is going to be yelling at me and telling me that I am no good and to leave that pretty new journal alone. I am going to yell back and just start drawing and writing in my Moly! Because by then I will have filled a drawing journal and my Muse will be helping me.