Some beautiful journals

Just browsing through youtube some more and coming across some beautiful visual journals. My favorite part of these is that they don't have to be filled with beautiful sketches and paintings from a seasoned artist vacationing in Europe, but they are ordinary people who choose to write and draw about their lives in an extraordinary way.

One
Two (I absolutely love how thick and lovely her journal is, and her pages are amazing. She sells them on Etsy.)
Three (Mini Mole!!)
Four
Five (Beautiful notetaking!)
Six; an in-progress journal spread (there are tons of these on youtube if you keep looking.)

I love looking through people's books not because I seek better art than my own to be inspired (I find enough of that without looking), but I see people who record their lives, parts I don't see, parts nobody else sees, recorded in their own way. I love seeing other people's drawings, even if they've never drawn before in their lives, because it's the most honest representation of their lives. The more techniques and skills you learn, the more you learn to fake things and falsify things and not be true to yourself and just continue creating what other people ooh and ahh over (or as some people say "make ballerinas look realistic")

Mmmmm, Sierra Mist quenches my thirst in ways that cannot be described. ♥

Journal Manifesto

I'm making a zine!

More at 11!
(or later this week...)

New Years

I had a fantastic birthday! I got to spend it with amazing people, see amazing things and make wonderful memories. I finally saw Wall-E and The Tale of Despereaux and they are both wonderfully cute movies. I also picked up a copy of An Illustrated Life, which is an amazing read if you're into journaling. I got a new sketchbook from someone who is quite incredible and I can't wait to ring in the new year by using it.

My list of New Year's Resolutions!

• Travel travel travel.
• Explore everything.
• Never feel guilty or afraid.
• Be a better person, artist, sister, daughter, mommy, friend, girlfriend, coworker, student and consumer.
• Plan better.
• Learn to write backwards.
• Draw every single day.
• Lose restrictions and regain control.
• Make an amazing portfolio.
  
• Redesign my blog and my website.
• Create a shop and begin my freelancing career.
• Make more lists.
• Collect more art books.
• Make more stuff.
  
• LOVE LOVE LOVE!

The watercolor is a random Ipod nano spot I did out of boredom. (I got one for Christmas. It's Red. His name is Geddy.)

Also, a Cool Link! http://kirino.if.tv/. Some cute and spirited little watercolors.

Happy New Year, everyone!!

Hoo

Working in a horizontal format is a refreshing change! Watercolor moleskine. I love owls. I've been doing a few of these just kind of quick repeated paintings. I enjoy them- I'll most likely continue after things slow down.
I like my Cachet well enough but the inability to paint in it annoys me, but the idea of opening my HB (which is a lovely shade of olive green this time) makes me nervous! I feel like once I open journals I have to fill them.
I also have a third Pentalic modeskin I bought last year and took home (it's lime green), those out of all the journals i've had, have been the most successful. They take paint in an interesting way and I don't care how they end up. I may just try this route with my Cachet. Or stop caring. (I just like rambling about journals.)

I feel kind of crummy right now but it's just physical pain and I need to sleep.

Projects are going well: piperproject.tumblr.com
I'm excited to see where this goes! It's a waiting game now.

Now I'm devoting time to getting things ready for the holiday fair.
Except now I'm going to sleep.

Proofs

Proofs for my 3rd screenprint (my second one didn't come out as well as I'd hoped...)
Trying a different technique for this one. I might eventually put lines on this one but i'm trying the unlined approach in order to save time and my sanity.

Something i've been watching lately;
http://www.youtube.com/user/suziblutube

I gave a talk the other day about journaling. :) I'm really excited about it. I would like to keep doing that kind of thing, or maybe start up a workshop or something like that. I think it'd be fun.

I can hear the rain. :) It's nice to get some rainy weather once in awhile.

printing

Keeping on keeping on. Some images of my screenprinting setup- pulling begins on Friday if things go well.

I also picked up another sketchbook- a spiralbound Cachet. (its brown :D) I keep trying to find a new Derwent but there is not a place that exists yet that will ship it to me for under 10 dollars.

I think the new Ipods are really cute.
And they come in red!!!

Also this made me laugh.
ITS JUST A BACKGROUND SO YOU CAN SEE THE EDGE OF THE WHITE CARD
WHAT KIND OF BACKGROUND DO I NEED TO USE SO THAT I WONT HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS
UNICORNS? TURTLES?
maybe i should just pass out bark.


Cool link: 50 inspiring gig posters.

101

"What are you wearing right at this moment"
I might do this every day...but i wear the same thing pretty much every day :'(

Is it dorky if I call my first Moleskine sighting...? Well. I spotted a squared one today on a show about the chupacabra. I'm proud of myself.

I go back to work in 5 days, and as usual my creativity surges as an escapism to my more important duties like cleaning and tying up loose ends.

Just being here

I picked up a pen and my book for the first time in a few days- God, I miss it. I've been sporadically cleaning things so my painting table is totally covered in crap. I've tripped over my canvases stacked on the floor about 10 times already, though, so that has inspired me to paint over them.

Some neat things.
Charmagne Coe. Some really beautiful abstract watercolors.
Chelsea Lewyta. Amazing illustration work!
Mike Rohde's sketchnotes. Really interesting note-taking methods.
Russ Mills. Kick ass stuff. (got a blog too!)

I did pick up some Faber-Castell Pitt pens at Virgin when I was in France, so I'm hoping to really mess around with those soon.

Also been catching up on my Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I don't care if my brain melts!

Well hello

All is well on the Western front. The weather is clearing up nicely and it's actually above freezing for once!
I'm ridiculously behind in my work now after missing an entire week of classes. I managed to get an entry into my school's citation show- hopefully I'll get a picture of it while it's up. It's different than my usual fare.
I got ahold of a nice camera for 30 minutes so I took some pictures of my sketchbook, which is new and awesome, but after I uploaded them I realized there's actually a damn scanner in the lab now.

Hopefully I'll catch up on my work soon.

Been playing Devil May Cry 3- maybe my threshold for games is weak, but this game is HARD. It's pretty awesome though so I don't mind redoing missions over and over and over again.

On the journal front, it looks like Derwent is trying to give Global Arts and Moleskine a run for it's money! The idea of a suede cover is cute, and it looks exactly like my portrait GA book, but I don't know if I could watercolor on cartridge paper. Might have to give it a shot! It's by far the cheapest of the three, but so far I'm in love with the GA. Best paper in the world.


Stay tuned for bad photographs with action figures! Wow, it's like I'm 16 again.

rofl

So I guess I am just retarded, but washes in a Moleskine sketchbook are not succeeding for me. I hear gouache works better?
Also Firefox sucks for not thinking gouache is an actual word.
I have seen people succeed with watercolors though. I guess I'll gesso a page and try again, or use the soap trick to make it stop beading up. I'm too poor to buy a moleskine watercolor LMAO plus my next book accepts it more readily.

Also! Using Youtube for art techniques is a really nice way to consume time instead of looking at pointless things like your brother's MGO battles or pablo fransisco or how to beat the crap out of disma.
(Why does this ass show up in 11 possible locations, that is like saying Oh Hey Satan will pop up on you in either Target, Walmart, Borders, Walgreens or Hy-vee GLHF!!!)

PS. I'm trying to go to Paris I currently accept donations. ;) ;) ;)

this is tragic

I went through and did a count, and discovered I have 26 unused sketchbooks, ranging from huge spiral Strathmores and 200 page hardcovers to Moleskine pocket cahiers (the papers suck don't ever buy these for sketches)
I think I have a problem.
And I have 2 more on my to-buy list!
Although to be fair about 10 of those were gifts, and another 5 were abandoned when I was helping one of my teachers clean out her classroom. (I couldn't leave blank books to just be thrown away. Sob!)
I have 4 in progress right now and my next brand is a new Moleskine, so I figured I'd pull out a few and do reviews, since I'm a complete addict/connoisseur/snob/elitist and I enjoy writing random and pointless articles. C:

OH my James Jean book came today! I'm so glad I preordered it, I got it for a total steal of a price. It's pretty much amazing.
Also note to self, drawing with only one working eye is like drawing everything with 3-D glasses, I have a blind spot and everything is vibrating and I see red when it is supposed to be white.