The Expressive Journal - 30 day challenge

 After 'getting through' 2022, I could hardly wait to welcome 2023. However, it's typical January weather - rainy and gloomy...dreary!

It's been difficult for me to get back into any kind of painting mode so I made the decision to sign up for a class. I find that classes and workshops help me to be accountable. The Academy Art Museum is offering a class titled "The Expressive Journal - a 30 day challenge." The idea is to take an old book, open it to two pages and express myself every day with paint, ink, collage material, whatever. The class meets for an hour on zoom once a week for critique and to share what we have done. The rest of the time, it's up to me.

I have been going through LOTS of books on my shelves - cleaning out - so finding a old book or two was easy. I dug into my recycle box and began going through magazines and the other 'stuff' that I have been keeping around for years for grandchildren to do arts and crafts.

I gathered up all of my supplies and set to work. Here are the first two pages. Since I have been pouring acrylic paint I still had a lot of paint mixed up...I poured it on the pages and swished it around with a foam brush. Then poured more paint splotches and dragged a comb through all of it. I turned on my heat gun and some cells appeared, giving it some texture. I added some words...and stopped!

I was having fun so I did a second book! It was a similar process, different colors, marks and phrases.

The next day I was in a different mood. I began exploring some of my grief readings. Under this plastic netting are a few phrases that may be difficult to read: a poem -  "I write only until I cry, which is why so few poems this month have been completed. It's just that   " ; A book title  - "HEALING AFTER LOSS" and a phrase -  "THE WILL IN CRISIS"

The next two are more thoughtful phrases that I cut out.

Then I discovered some old acrylic paintings that I had stacked up on a shelf. I thought they would make great backgrounds. I glued them onto the double pages and pasted phrases on them. 

This one is a poem by Liz Newman. I discovered her online and have bought her book of poetry "I look to the Mourning Sky."

I went back to painting the pages with this one. I can't remember where this poem came from, but it spoke to me at the time. The right hand page is a hand I drew for the book (the essay called "In Touch")

This last one, that I painted this afternoon, also comes from the book and is glued to an acrylic painting from the stack of old artwork. I added a few more tears...