“Get a cat they said, it will be fun they said” ... Back to my roots, Visual Art Journaling Part III... embracing my scattered tendencies. Inspires from Dion Baker and Pat Southern-Pearce.

My morning with Warrior Princess Daisy Mae…

Me: What did you do?
Daisy Mae: (sitting very quietly with this expression on her face.)
Me: Did you have a party in my studio?
Daisy Mae: (not moving, same expression on her face.)
Me: Was it worth it?
Daisy Mae: makes a chirping cat noise
Me: I’ll take that as a yes…now get…
Me: thinking of something I heard – “Get a cat they said, it will be fun they said” as I’m cleaning up her mess and trying to figure out how to cat proof my studio.

She owns it and is remorseless. Now she's sitting on my desk, chirping and singing to me. 

Back to the visual art journal saga...

It’s been cold and rainy here, one of those days I don’t feel like doing much. So yesterday I checked on the Electoral College votes coming in and took a Skillshare class with Dion Baker.  She has a book out, “Draw Your Day” and has a new book called “Draw Your World” coming out in June 2021. She has a lovely Instagram feed, it’s worth checking out.  Dion’s class was superb and she re-introduced a couple of ideas that I rarely do like collage.  BTW, I love Skillshare, it made a huge difference with Pandemic 2020 for me.

 During 2020, I’ve been all over the place…I’ve got scraps of paper, sketchbooks, and journals all over the place too. So this is a re-boot of sorts. Instead of trying to catch up or pick another ‘style’ of sketching, I’ve decided just to embrace my scattered tendencies. More like a life/travel/art/doodle scrapbook instead of a sketchbook. Pat Southern-Pearce (UK artist and sketcher) used this type of sketchbook for her work for a while. Here’s a link to one of her workshops. That’s where I found out about it. The paper is toned and can be used for mixed media. It is a ring bound so it will expand so I can also do collage and glue/tape in some photos or printed digital work. Maybe even some photos…

Anyway, let’s see how this type of journaling goes, I have one already but checked on Amazon for “Seawhite New Hardback Portrait Kraft Book A4 - Made in England”. After all this fretting, I'm glad it's still being still on Amazon. Ordered some double back tape to make it easier for me, the glue concept didn’t work well for me. Found some library pockets in my stash.

There's several different types of other sketchbooks out there that would work as well. If you glue or tape a lot of scraps or pocket, it works better if it is a spiral. I got rather frustrated with a bound sketchbook, it started to quickly look like 50lbs of potatoes in a 20lb sack.  Just a heads up, most of the spiral, unless they have a wrapped coil, don't travel well...or maybe I'm just hard on sketchbooks. 

Have a great day...time for me to get something done...