Getting Stuck

I had been on a pretty good roll with my art journaling.  However, around the time of Thanksgiving I came to a rather abrupt halt.  I don't know why.  The idea of art journaling still exciting me but just sitting down and doing it never happened because I couldn't think of what I wanted to do once I sat down.

I decided to give it a break, but left all my materials out, so when an idea struck me I would be ready to go.  After Christmas I went to Barnes and Nobles because I had a gift card. I decided to check out the arts and crafts section.  Here I found several books on art journaling and a deck of inspiration cards called Wide Open: Inspiration and Techniques for Art Journaling on the Edge by Randi Feuerhelm-Watts.  This seemed to be just what I needed a little boost in my creativity.  I purchased it, and while I was waiting for the train I opened up the package and thumbed through some of the cards.

One card talked about hands and for some reason this tripped an artsy trigger, and I knew I was back in business.  I came home plopped myself down at my desk grabbed some purple paint and gesso and got to work.  I smothered a blank page in my purple paint/gesso combo, then somewhat haphazardly glued pink tissue paper over that.  I then rather savagely ripped some card stock and placed that at an angle over the page.  I then proceeded to add a bit of text from an advertisement.  At this juncture, I planted my hand in the middle of the page and drew around it with a charcoal pencil. I then decided, quite instintual, to add some random stenciled letters to the mix as well as covering the page with a piece of peach tissue paper that was off-set from the page. And I finally ended with a smear of blue paint with a dash of gesso.

I was back, so to speak.  The page wasn't my favorite, but it was helping my creative juices to get flowing and that is all that I really needed.  I was excited to see what would come next.