Art Journaling

So, as I said, I have been studying this "art journal" thing, learning, perusing web (check out Teesha Moore among the many) and printed page (check out 1000 Artist Journal Pages among the more many) and delving into my ridiculously abundant stash of paper, scissors, glue and paint. I have come up with questions, answers and more questions. And: I have this relative who went to Cambridge University in England where they have the phrase "reading for one's degree". A concept that as a homeschooling Mom I love - as if we are all intelligent enough to read ourselves to Aptitude. Yes, well, I am reading for my degree in Art Journaling, even if I do not have the luck to also attend Cambridge. (Will colleges be outmoded by the elaborate profuseness - is that a word? - and facility of the Internet as they say the printed book will be??) (Ha, As if.) So I will show you pages that I have painted. Remember that I said in an earlier post that the pages were odd papers that I had hanging around? Maps, calendar photos, brown paper bags, not completely successful painting experiments...

Thus the crazy shapes of the pages.

This pink page was gessoed (the back of a calendar photo and so: upside down), then painted, then sprayed with water and after sitting on the paint for 20 seconds or so, a paper towel laid on top, patted gently, and lifted up to reveal the polka dots.And I have been wildly, and with abandon, playing with, not brushing the paint onto the pages but, scraping various layers of color onto the pages.
I have no idea why these pre-edited pictures have come out sideways...

And then I started to make medallions for the pages...Another paper cut. This might be the one I taped into place with packing tape. Or maybe it is the one I glued with Paper Mod Podge.

As I scraped the paint I made designes on the cardboard. I liked this one so mych that I let it dry and made an embellishment out of it.
I think that it looks like mountains.

Gold chocolate coin wrapper here (a favorite embellishment) painted into place with sequin glue, metal tape affixed to fun foam and embossed with the blunt end of a 1.25 crochet hook.A really favorite paper cut and layered medallion. (Glued together with bits of felt in between as I could not find my sticky foam dots.)

Another with a bit of gilding. And lastly this morning a few words about writing. On the dark pages I write with a white Sharpie poster paint pen, and on the lighter pages I write with either a blue poster paint pen or a Copic black pen. (Sorry, I don't know what the fuss about these expensive Copic pens is. I think that a Sharpie medium point does about the same job for about 1/4 the price.)I am being intrigued by my process with the pens. In order to make the writing visible on these colorful, visually noisy pages, I have to use these broad-nibbed pens. Not at all the control of a lovely fountain pen, or the clarity of a black fine point gel pen. But something is happening to my writing. Not the letters themselves but the forces unleashed by expression. They are different. I am different. A wildness? A released call just from the very slightly more gross motor movement of my hand? That much difference (between Bic and marker) can unloosen such a tongue?

And then I am here with my very pretty, extremely fun journal that has these beat up pages, altered through time, and paint, and decoration until they feel positively precious as I turn them; and I ask myself: