I sat down and did another. The page didn’t turn out like I wanted it to, so that sucks a bit, but I am not one to give up so I have it loading now. Lets hope it works. I am a bit disappointed that I don’t have a fast forward button and right now I don’t have the hang of the zoom button. Anyway I will learn as I go along. At least the picture is good. I recorded without sound, as I find it hard to concentrate on talking about what I am doing and concentrating on what I am doing…if you know what I mean

I am watching the 2nd video I made and so sorry forgot to turn the sound off so you can hear my squeeky chair and all the banging. Oh and the worst part of the top of my arm is swinging around, I gotta change that angle next time. Thankfully this 2nd video wouldn’t load as it had an error So they say 3rd time lucky. I made a short video at a lower resolution and talked over it and it worked out OK. At least its watchable but its not really a tutorial, that I will do tomorrow.

While the first video was loading, I managed to get some plants in the garden, which is not at all like me as I love flowers, but usually leave the gardening to someone else LOL.It’s a gorgeous day here today and I couldn’t resist.

I see lots of arty people are at or going to CHA in LA right now………..wish I was there. I have never been to anything like that and think it would give you such a buzz. Maybe one day…sigh

Oh I wanted to tell you I got part of my birthday art supplies today, I bought 5 bottles of ranger color wash sprays and I love them. I also got a bottle of Tim Holtz crackle. I already have a couple colors  but I wanted one that would be a cream or white. I chose Antique Linen and was a bit sad that it is a pale green ???????? Not what I wanted at all. BUMMER! Looks like I will just have to send in another order. such a shame:-)

I’m on Pinterest and it is the most amazing thing to do, however its very addictive so you have to limit your time on there. I now have so many recipes to try and so many art tutorials to watch and also so many tips and ideas  and I love that they are altogether in one place. If anyone wants an Invite, just email me on di@dyzee.com and I will send you one.

I would love to have a conversation with anyone who is watching, sometimes you feel like no one is around, even though you know from the stats that you are getting lots of visits each day. Please leave me a comment.

Here’s a close up

The second page is next. I had nearly finished it when I decided I didn’t like it………….so I covered it with scrap paper and started again. I like the white space ..however there is this need to want to do more to the page until it is ruined …………..so I stopped !!

I like the new paper size and I love the new watercolor paper.  Any questions for me?????

All the best Di

Later on I started another book and basically did the same. However I have come to hate the shiny magazine pictures. I think that’s when I decided I will have to learn to draw. Not that I think I love the look of sketched pictures in journals much…..but just as a way of having not to use magazines. WEird!

Recently I reserved some books about drawing in a journal from the library. I got one by Dan price called “How to make a journal of your life”. The library charged me $5.10 for getting it from another library. I was happy with that, however this book is TINY! I really did not get much out of it. I also got “Everday Matters” by Danny Gregory. It really was not much better in turns of usefullness for me. I think Tracy Bunkers book “The art journal workshop was the most helpful. Funny that as I have not been that attracted to her art in the past, but for some reason after reading the book , it made me “let go” and not be so concerned about how my art looks.

I then did backgrounds in a journal, using paint and stencils and just really abstract art which I enjoyed . I found that it was hard to journal on those pages though. Then someone close to me came along and mentioned something about how they were not pretty. Then I went through the thoughts of: “did it have to be pretty to make me happy??” Is it anyone else’s business what my journal pages look like ???

Then I had lots of thoughts about ” did I really want to journal”….or was it that I just loved the rustic look of finished journals and just want to have a collection of them? Amazing how when you are pondering on something……..you find the information you need ( seemingly out of the blue).

Here is the blog post I found yesterday that really helped me. I hope it may help you too if you are looking to find your own style. The post is a guest post by Karen Grunberg on Julie Balzer blog.

My opinion is that her new finished journal pages still look like Dina Wakely‘s pages but theta may be because no one else seems to leave the white backgrounds on the pages, and of course she wont stop developing her journal pages as she goes along. But I do like how she suspended the  ( unwritten rules) in her head about how she needed to journal.

Here is a video of Roben- Marie Smiths journaling

I have now decided to also work on pages out of the journal itself and then glue them in later on. That way I can sew on them if I like and there seems more freedom to me to having a loose page to work on. The other thing I will be looking at is the size of the page, I may change to a larger page. I also want to use a technique that doesn’t make too much mess, that way I wont hesitate to get started in the mornings.

My goal is to have my art journaling as something I do automatically everyday, so I have a record of the day before…….the journal part only needs to be a paragragh. It seems important to me to actually record something about what I do each day, but because its not always something exciting, it doesn’t need to be long. The background will be important in that it has to be something I love and not look like anyone else’s journal pages.

Another thought I have been having is that most journaler’s have more than one journal going at a time. They may have one for doodling, one for journaling personal thoughts in and then others for lists or more arty work. Right now I choose to just have one as I want to have time in my day to make other art works as well.

I would love to hear from you as to how you found or are struggling to find your own art journaling style. Do you agree or disagree with me, that you need to find your own unique style?