Vincent

Images of Vincent and his work were used in this month's journal page and ATC exchange. The theme was 'gifts' and instead of a holiday theme, the muse took me in another direction.

With photoshop I placed his tragic self portrait on the painting of poppies for color effect. The quote is from Emerson.

There is a new theory about how Vincent lost his ear in 1888. For more than a century, Vincent Van Gogh has been known as the tortured genius who sliced off his own ear in a fit of madness. But a new study claims that Paul Gauguin lopped it off with a sword as the two artist's argued. It is contended that Van Gogh let everyone think he had mutilated himself in order to protect Gauguin from prosecution. We may never know the true story but it's an interesting speculation.

Below, I used a rare photograph of Vincent and one of his own quotes.

Time

With the old year drawing to a close and 2010 approaching, I chose the prompt for this visual journal entry: time.

Again, the composition expands from an existing image, in this case the photograph of a colorful bird's head.

Henry David Thoreau's words are at the top: "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."

A quote from Omar Khayyam seemed to be the appropriate text: "The bird of time has but a little way to fly.... and the bird is on the wing!"

Journal Page / Friends

This page is from one of my 8 x 10 hand made journals. I make these with my students and work along with them each semester.

The prompt was to begin with an existing image, then go beyond its borders and 'tell the rest of the story.' In this case, the image was the small rectangle that includes the faces of these 4 friends. It was applied to a background and their bodies were drawn and painted with acrylics. Text was added with marker and the line of music seemed to complete the story. "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you forget the words."

Journal Pages

These are a few pages from a visual journal I have been carrying around and playing with recently. Inspired by artist Teesha Moore, I have been exploring her ideas and color use to stretch my own boundaries a bit.

The text is inspired by a book I love, Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
On her website and on YouTube, Teesha Moore has generously shared a series of videos about how she creates her journal pages. They are definitely fun and inspiring and worth a look. After watching them, I made this little book so I could play too.
What I love most about visual journaling is the freedom it gives us to play and explore.

You don't have to create a masterpiece, just get out the paint, markers, glue sticks and pens and see where it takes you. Use whatever inspires you and have unstructured fun.