Sunday, February 13, 2011

I am about to embark on a semi-scrappy adventure and thought you might want to come along for the ride. This is NOT scrapbooking per se...but it will have a lot of overlap of supplies AND I think it will be very inspirational.

That's where I thought you might come in.

See, as much as I am a verbally-oriented person, I've always...well, just plain sucked at keeping a journal. I've tried. Oh, have I tried. But really...yeah, I've just sucked at keeping it up. So this time I'm trying something a little different. I'm going to do some art journaling. (This is the book I bought but a bit of browsing amazon or a bit of googling will show you, oh, a gazillion or so approaches: Journal Spilling: Mixed Media Techniques for Free Expression.) Now, I understand this is NOT scrapbooking and may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I do believe that we can all use some of these concepts and practices as a springboard to become better, more creative scrappers.

So, my first challenge to you (taken from the book above) is this, a step in letting go of your inhibitions:

  1. Start with a blank piece of paper, any color. Grab anything random, don't overthink.
  2. Quickly (again, don't overthink this) grab ten or so of your scrap papers.
  3. Tear these into smaller peices.
  4. Drop them onto your background paper.
  5. DO NOT MOVE THEM!
  6. Glue them where they landed.
  7. Grab some paint (crayons, markers, whatever.)
  8. Scribble or brush all over the page. (DON'T TRY TO BE ARTISTIC OR CREATIVE, JUST SCRIBBLE!)
  9. If you have thoughts running through your head, right them down. Wherever.
  10. BE DONE!
If you like what you came up with, let it dry and use it as a background paper. Or cut it up and use it as you wish. Maybe it will show up somewhere on the monthly challenge layout? Or heck, crumple it up and throw it away.

But be inspired by the process.

Let me know what you think of the exercise. I'd love it if you share with us your results as well! (Link over on the right, as always.) Here is what I came up with in my art journal.

2 comments:

  1. I love this! I can't wait for life to slow down even for a minute so I can try out this fun exercise! Someone at sb.com used to do an art journaling challenge similar to this. My book has just been sitting on my desk begging to be used again!

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