DLP8 – It’s Worth Repeating

The Documented Life Project — Journal
(For more information or inspiration, visit the ladies at Art to the 5th)
February 21st Challenge, Week 8

Art Challenge: Repeating elements
Prompt: It’s Worth Repeating

Since I am behind with these challenges I have the benefit of seeing what others come up with first. Many people used basic shapes as their repeating element; circles, squares, etc. I saw one journal page that used cogs as the repeating element. Obviously, I loved this since I am a fan of the Steampunk look. That page inspired me to go beyond basic shapes and use something that I actually enjoy repeating…cupcakes!! Anyone who knows me, knows I love cupcakes. Hubby’s pet name for me is even “Cupcake”, lol. Anyway, cupcakes are worth repeating. I always find two are better than one! 😉

This time, I tried to seal the binding of my art journal. Paint keeps seeping through the binding onto pages that I’ve already done. I covered the binding with pink polka dot washi tape and then painted the pages with gesso. The tape appeared to have done its job. Next, I used gel medium to stick in magazine cut-outs of cupcakes. I also used a rose stencil to draw various shades of pink roses onto the page. I used Sharpies to do this. The regular Sharpies stopped working on the gesso pretty quickly. To my surprise, even the Sharpie paint markers didn’t hold up on the gesso. I switched to gel pens. They went on smoothly. I knew they were going to smudge when I went over them in paint though.

I went over the roses and magazine cupcakes in light pink craft paint. Sure enough, the gel pen roses smudged. Oh well. I did the lettering with a Signo Uniball pen on some paper cut outs I got in my stash from Creative thINKing. At this point, I put the journal away because I didn’t need it to make the paper cupcakes. Maybe that was a mistake. When I opened it again, the tape I used to seal the binding was all messed up and stuck to itself. I don’t know if that’s just what washi does when you bend it, or if the paint was still wet… any ideas?

The cupcakes were really fun to make, but they took a really long time. I used cardstock for the icing tops. I doodled two different types of icing and used them as templates to cut out all the tops. I decorated with Sharpies and gel pens. I made a template for the cupcake wrappers and used it to cut out bottoms from different patterned papers. Some of the paper was from my Creative thINKing stash and some was from my aunt’s collection. I drew lines on the cupcake wrappers that weren’t already textured. Finally I went to town with a fun little cupcake stamp I found in a $1 bin at a craft store.

DLP7 – Going Under Cover

The Documented Life Project – Journal, February 14th (week 7)
(For more inspiration or more info on this week’s project, visit Art to the 5th)

Art Challenge: Cover Up Good Stuff

Prompt: Going Under Cover

The exercise this week was about covering up the good stuff. They didn’t specify what the “good stuff” was, so I looked at some of the examples they provided. Some artists started their pages and then covered up doodles or layers that they liked with other layers while some did some journaling and then started layering over top of that. I decided my “good stuff” would be my research notes.

When I am writing a paper or something along those lines, I make notes from the research articles that I read. Writing it out in my own words helps it sink in better and I don’t have to worry about plagiarism and what not. Sometimes I draw diagrams to help explain things to other people. I also work with our lab’s data via paper and pen. I guess I am really a visual learner and it works best with pen in hand rather than typing it out.

I grabbed a bunch of my old notes. I tried to get a good variety; words, numbers, diagrams and different colours of pens. I tore them up and glued them into my journal with gel medium. I got the art challenge down but I still had to figure out the prompt. “Going under cover” makes me think of a disguise. Putting that and my research notes together got me thinking about how I feel at work. I feel like a fake and at any minute everyone is going to see through the confident, intelligent show I put on. I am constantly interacting with the experts in my field. I have authored a couple papers. I have even presented at conferences. I just don’t feel like I know enough to be doing all these things.

I found out that this is actually a common feeling among Ph.D. students. That’s what studies say at least. I am skeptical. The other students I work with seem confident, arrogant even. It’s called Imposter Syndrome. I defined it on my page.

Just in case you can’t read the photo, Imposter Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved.

This spread started with my research notes. I glued a few strips of paper from my stash on too. I did a light layer of white gesso over top and a layer of blush pink acrylic paint over that. I was pleased that you could still see the lined paper and my writing through the paint. I used bubblegum pink acrylic to paint some blobs on the page. I used a large stamp with circles on it and pink ink to randomly stamp all over the page. I got stuck for a while at this point.

I decided to draw an eye in the middle of one page. The eye represents my research and my fear of people seeing through my act. The eye was done with watercolour pencil crayons and Neocolour II.

From there wrote the Imposter Syndrome definition in black signo uniball pen. I doodled a DNA strand above that and did some stamping with a butterfly. I have to work on my stamping, it is still coming out blotchy.

I figured I had to do something with those big pink blobs, so I started writing words related to work in them. The blobs that were too small to write in were turned into atoms…Rutherford-Bohr diagrams of Carbon. Why? I don’t know, I don’t really think about that type of science anymore, but that’s just what they made me think of.

It turned out to be a very pink spread. I like pink, so that’s ok.

DLP6: Don’t Stop Until You Get Enough

The Documented Life Project 2015 – Journal
For more information and inspiration visit the girls at Art to the 5th

Art Challenge: When Not to Stop
Prompt: “Don’t Stop Until You Get Enough”

This challenge was posted on Art to the 5th on February 7th. I’m about a month behind. At least being so far behind, I’ll never run out of journal prompts!

The prompt is from a Michael Jackson song. Do you remember where you were or what you were doing when he died? I was downtown. My friend and I had just gotten caught in a torrential down pour. We ran into a Ben & Jerry’s to wait out the rain, but it was too late, we were soaked. There were two girls working behind the counter. One girl was crying, the other comforting her. The second girl explained to us that the first girl was fine, just a big fan. When we looked clueless, she explained that Michael Jackson had died.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to do an art journal page on Michael Jackson, I wasn’t THAT big a fan. “Don’t stop until you get enough” made me think about school/work. I have definitely had enough of that! Why do I keep going? It’s because I haven’t got enough knowledge, I haven’t done enough learning. I don’t think you can ever get enough learning. There is always something you didn’t know, something you can improve upon….in my opinion at least. School/work and my pursuit of knowledge is represented by the eye chart (Ph.D. candidate in low vision). I scribbled other things around the page that I thought I could never get enough of; spirit, worth, motivation, love, joy, inspiration, kindness, passion, freedom, friendship and laughter.

This challenge was about layers which is something I haven’t done very much of in the past. A lot of people use old book pages. I didn’t have any books I was willing to sacrifice though. Instead, I tore recipe instructions out of magazines for the first layer. I shredded the pages into chunks and strips. I used gel medium to glue them willy-nilly all over the two-page spread. Any areas that weren’t covered I filled with lines or really sloppy handwriting.

The next layer was white gesso. I made it a thin layer so you could still see the recipe print and my chicken scratch through it. On top of that, I used blue craft paint and a stencil by Dylusions. The next layer was a variety of brown pigmented water colours. I added some stamps; clocks and keys with brown ink, but they mostly smudged off as I worked. The Snellen Eye Chart Stencil is by Tim Holtz. I stippled black gesso over it with a fat paint brush.

I wanted the images of the stamps to stay put. I thought maybe if I painted over everything with gel medium, they’d stay. It worked! From there I got out a bronze metallic Sharpie and and a gold Sharpie paint pen to do some doodles. Finally, I wrote the prompt in black Sharpie paint pen and doodle highlights on the letters with a blue paint pen.

DLP5: What Lies Beneath?

The Original Documented Life Project – Journal 2015
For more information and inspiration visit Art to the 5th

Art Challenge: Under paper
Prompt: What lies beneath?

I wasn’t sure what “under paper” was at first. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one. By the time I read the new challenge, there was already a discussion going on about it in the FB group. Under paper is the scrap paper you use to prevent whatever surface you are working on from getting ruined. I usually use a garbage bag for that…whoops. To make this week work for me, I figured I’d broaden the definition of “under paper” to include the paper I clean my stamps off on, the paper I test my pens on, test my doodles on and write my notes about different page ideas and quotes to use.

What does the prompt “what lies beneath?” make you think of?

A lot of people went along the lines of water and fish. Now that I think about it, that makes total sense, but that’s not what came to mind first. The prompt made me think of myself actually. I project the image of the person I want to be. I want to be smart, friendly, strong, well-spoken, kind, confident and successful. Really, all I am is kind…kind I can do well, but the rest? Fake it until you make it, right? Most of my friends, my colleagues and most of my family know me this way. What lies beneath is someone completely different. I second guess myself all the time, I get anxious and stressed over everything, I’m always exhausted, angry, lonely and just generally empty. I don’t like this person. I don’t want to be this person. Around others, I try to be the person I want to be, someone that they would like. Who would like a stressed, exhausted, angry person? No one. I can’t even stand to be in my own skin some days, how can I expect other people to tolerate me?

This is what my spread is about this week. The left is dedicated to the person I want/try to be. I started with gesso on the background and covered that with watercolour pencil crayons. I wanted the page to be colourful and bright. I used a stencil and some white paint to put the swirls in. I stamped a few hearts around the page with gelato pigment. I dipped a brush in water, rubbed it over the gelato stick and then painted the stamp. The hearts aren’t as clean as you would get stamping with ink, but it’s kind of neat looking. I used regular old pencil crayons to draw a cartoon of myself. Her smile is a little bit strained because she is acting a bit. Pretending to be happy and confident when you aren’t can be exhausting after a while, so the smile is a bit forced.

The flowers and circles were made using paper punches from my “under paper”. They were stuck on with gel medium. I outlined the circles with Sharpie paint pen and the flowers with gel pens. Any writing was done with a black Fude pen.

The right page was intended to be darker compared to the right. I used black and silver metallic watercolour pencils to colour on top of a layer of gesso. I used black gesso to stencil some bricks onto the background. I copied the lettering off the internet. I googled graffiti fonts, found one I liked and copied from the font preview. I saved the darker portions of my “under paper” for this side of the spread. Anything with more vibrant colour went to the other side.

The figure was done with regular pencil crayon and outlined with black sharpie. Instead of details, I made her a sort of shadow and filled her with words that described me. She doesn’t really have a face because she doesn’t know what she wants or how to become the girl on the other page. She is lost. The bits of under paper were glued on with gel medium and outlined in Sharpie paint pen.

I smudged white gesso along the bottom of the page with my fingers. I covered some of the under paper punch outs, but I guess that’s ok. I wrote the quote with a black Fude pen. Maybe next time I’ll use a ruler when I write.

“Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many, the intelligence of a few perceive what lies beneath.” ~Phaedus

DLP4: Friendship

The Original Documented Life Project – Journal (2015)
For more details on this week’s challenge, visit the gals at Art to the 5th.

Week 4:
Art Challenge – Writing
Prompt – Words with friends

It was nice to be able to think about my friends this week. Being an introvert, I don’t have huge amounts of friends. Also, I do best one-on-one. None of them really know each other. My friends are forever friends. It doesn’t matter how far apart we are or how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other. We just pick up right where we left off, like nothing has changed. It’s really great. This was my line of thinking for my art journal page this week. Also, I had just gotten the Steampunk set of gelatos and wanted to go with a time theme.

I started with a white gesso background. Gelatos move around your surface better when it is gesso’d. I scribbled the gelatos on and left them dry. I smudged them all over the page with my finger. I don’t recommend this, my finger was kind of sore afterwards.

I added some steampunk washi tape. One of them was gears and the other clocks. I also added a magazine cut out of a friendship tattoo. I stenciled some gears in using a MIX-ables stencil and brown acrylic paint.

This spread was a lesson in layering. I used distressed ink from Tim Holtz to stamp in some gears and clocks which just smudged off, even after drying. Note to self: Ink and gesso don’t work together. I later found out gesso is used as a resist when working with distress inks…woops. To remedy this, I painted the whole spread with gel medium, dried it and tried stamping again. This time the ink took.

The challenge was to use writing, so I wrote a couple sentences on what I thought true friendship was about. I wanted the words to be in elongated cursive. This didn’t work out very well. My handwriting is naturally quite backhand, so trying to stretch it out was difficult. I used a Fude pen for this.

At this point, I still had a lot of empty space. I decided to add a compass. I had lots of clocks and gears to represent time, but needed something for distance. A compass did the job. I used a silver Sharpie paint pen and a distress ink pen. I used the same Sharpie paint pen to colour in some stenciled gears too. There is still a lot of empty space, but I’m out of ideas for now.