Trees in my Journal

A lot has happened over the last week or so. Besides the holidays, we had a major obstacle to hurdle to advance on the path of building our new home, and of course, this is the time of year to get sick–I had that nasty stomach thing going around.

So while I wasn't painting, I did a little work in my journal. I haven't been journaling for awhile, but I like to go there when there are personal issues I am working out, or want to record some random thought or event.

Here is my latest journal entry. I was remembering a place where I used to live.  I was going over all the thoughts and feelings I had while I lived there.

Then I was looking over some previous entries and noticed a theme. The tree and house below was a sketch I made outside of the view outside of my kitchen window last winter while it was snowing.

This entry was a part of a two page spread I made in my journal last year. I was reviewing all the places I had lived throughout my life. 

Responsive Journaling

There is no right or wrong way to journal and this is true even in a journal exchange. Sometimes an entry by one artist can provoke a direct response from the other, even if it's not the immediate next entry.

The Journal Exchange

My grand daughter is an artist. In January of 2012 we decided to do a journal exchange. We started with 2 journals so at the end of the project we each would have a keepsake. Our exchange rate slowed down but recently we decided to start it up again.

Committing to a journal exchange is no easy task. In fact three other journal exchanges I was involved in were dissolved in the early stages. People just get busy.

Below is the beginning of our journals:

We began by decorating the covers of the journals

One of the fun things about exchanging a journal is seeing what the other person will do. This is especially true of the first page. I decided to make a birthday cake since both of our birthdays are in January and that's when we were beginning this journey. Edie decided to do a self portrait.

Using Crayons

I went up into my attic over the holidays and found an old box of Crayola crayons. It was one of those big boxes of 64 crayons dated 1997. All my fond memories of lying on the living room floor, coloring (as we called it) came flooding back.I thought, why not play with them again.

With the exception of a little bit of black ink and some gel pen, this picture was made exclusively with crayon. The colors were yellow, brown, gold, peach, tumbleweed, dandelion and last but not least, macaroni and cheese.

No wonder I ate them as a kid.