Journal Junkie – Awesome Life

Alrighty, bugs! I’m super excited about this one! Bear with me, as this post may include things such as virtual high-pitched-girly-squeels of excitement, seemingly never-ending rambles of my newest art adventure, and a way-more-detailed version of what has been going on in my life than you probably care to hear. Let’s get started – yay!

So my lovely mother (who loves art just as much as I do) and I recently discovered Joanne Sharpe’s online art classes, and we are admittedly in love with them. We signed up for our first class over break and started it together, having daily afternoon mother-daughter-art time, it was quite awesome. Since then I have obviously migrated back to Montana, so now we complete our projects separately and constantly send each other pictures of our most recent creations so we can tell each other how cool they are, and occasionally judge each other when we make funny decisions regarding our art.

One of the classes we are working on is called “Draw your Awesome Life”, and it truly is awesome. If you are interested in looking at this class (or any of her classes, because they are all super cool with knobs), just head over to Joanne’s website – which can be found here; http://joannezsharpe.blogspot.com

One of the projects in this class consists of what Joanne calls “life grids”, and I had so much fun with this! It’s basically a week-long calendar where you can illustrate what you did each day of the week and make 7 little tiny pieces of art, combined into one super colorful and equally as exciting journal spread! At first I was afraid that I wouldn’t have something to say every day of the week, but I quickly realized that no matter how boring I may think my life is at times (due to school consuming my life and whatnot), it often isn’t. Each day I had something I was excited about or at least felt was mentionable (for example, I was not particularly thrilled about my speech on Thursday, but it was worth mentioning). Every day or two I would add whatever days had happened since I last drew, just by simply drawing out a little illustration in a box. At the end of the week I broke out the water colors and went COLOR CRAZY *insert high-pitched-girly-squeels of excitement here*.

Something funny about this that I would like to point out is that most of my represented events have to do with either fitness or unhealthy food. Such as weight training, running, swimming, pizza, and a Valentine’s Day cake. And of course with some art supplies and classes thrown in there. Clearly my interests are a bit eclectic. But you guys love me anyway, right? Right.

So now I would like to tell you a bit about my week and elaborate some on my recently mentioned events. Because, well, this is my blog and I feel like talking about my life.  First of all, let me bring your attention to my Wednesday event; “New fastest mile time”. While 8:22 definitely isn’t the best time out there, my previous fastest time was 9:01, so this was a huge accomplishment. And not only this, but the day I got my new 8:22 time I actually went for a 2 mile run, and BOTH miles were each under the 9 minute mark. Strangely enough, my second mile was about 25 seconds FASTER than my first. I was really stressed that day, so what I have learned from this experience is that I run significantly faster when I am stressed. (Note to self: next time my little world is about to implode in on me, zip outside and run like the wind! But grab your stopwatch first, so that you know if you have miraculously ran a mile in 2 minutes flat.)

Also, you might notice that Monday was “Arm Day” in my weight class. This experience taught me something as well; my arms are rather pitiful. I should fix this. I have never been a weight training person until I signed up for this class this semester (because I’m that weirdo who sees “womens weight training” on the class list and thinks “hey, that sounds fun!” even though I really knew nothing about weight training at the time). I have always been pretty active, especially since I got to college and joined the triathlon team and whatnot, but most of my activities are things such as running that don’t really involve much arm bulkage. So my first arm day at the gym was a bit of a challenge. However, my partner wasn’t feeling too impressed with her arms either, so we got to be wimpy-armed buddies. Which in a weird way, made it a lot better.

You may also notice that I got new calligraphy pens this week! One of my other Joanne classes uses these and I originally just got 4 basic colors of them because I wasn’t sure what I would think of them. But now I’m in love with them so I ordered 10 more. Happy early birthday to me! (Laney-attempts at calligraphy coming soon to a blog near you)

Also, yesterday was Valentines Day! So as my journal says, Happy Valentines Day bugs! (alright, maybe I added the “bugs” part to the end of that) I hope you all had great Valentine’s Days with your loved ones, whether this implies your significant other, your family, your pets, or anyone else that makes you happy. Or maybe you’re one of those crazy people like me who is partaking in a long-distance relationship and spent the evening skyping with your boyfriend while eating brownies with your roommate, who is also one of those crazy people who is partaking in a long-distance relationship so she understands and you both have a mutual need for brownie on Valentine’s Day. Whatever you did, I hope you had a fantastic day!

Well, I’ll stop rambling now. I’m loving this new art journal process though, so be prepared for more posts from my cute little journal!

Until next time,

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤

(Medium: micron pen, koi water color)

Good Thoughts

Hello, fellow bugs!

I know, I know, I promised I would be posting more. I’ve decided to stop making promises to you guys that I can’t keep because then I just feel bad when life doesn’t work out the way I planned. Instead, my new promise to you is that I will just post whenever I can, however often that may be, because that I can definitely agree to.

However, looking around at other fellow bloggers’ blogs, I’m realizing that many people are more consistent with when they post – for example, they always post on a certain day of the week, or they always post on the first of the month, or something along those lines. Well, I would like to come up with an organized plan like that because that is something I would more likely be able to stick to. Rather than just “I’ll post soon”, saying “I’ll post on Friday” is more promising in the inner workings of my crazy mind. However, because this has transformed into an art blog, I’m not sure how to go about doing that because I can’t guarantee that I will have new art to post on a weekly basis. I also can’t guarantee that I’ll have time to type out as much as I would like to if I did it on a weekly basis because, well, getting a college degree while simultaneously working a part time job, training for a triathlon, and MAKING the art that I would later post is a bit time-consuming. So for now I’m brainstorming with the idea, but I’ll keep you guys updated on what I decide.

Anyway, on to the featured art of the day!

So I did this one a few weeks ago over break, but I decided to talk about it today because I am unable to do this style of art while in college and I miss it. It turns out that there isn’t a very easy way to transport liquid ink sprays from one state to another, so I decided it was best to keep them at home for the semester and play with them again when I return this summer. And plus, I won’t pretend like I don’t have enough other art supplies to keep me busy until then…. no judgements allowed.

So as you’ve probably picked up on by now, especially if you’ve read my previous posts, this is done with dylusions ink sprays, which are super cool. I did this one when I was still figuring out how they worked, so I used a loose-leaf piece of card stock rather than in my journal. For those of you creative bugs out there, I’m sure you understand the fear of putting a new medium in a journal for the first time. Crazy things start to happen in your mind, such as “If I mess it up it will ruin the whole journal!”, “I have a perfect vision in my head and I don’t know how to make it reality!”, or even “If this isn’t what I want it to be the entire world could explode!!”. Okay, maybe that last one was a bit over the top. But if you’re anything like me, that might as well be what you’re thinking because you’re terrified out of your mind to actually put color onto the page in front of you. My roommate has heard me have to mentally prepare myself for this process on a number of occasions. She’s a trooper, that one. Dealing with her crazy roommate and whatnot.

Anyway, the colors don’t blend quite as smoothly as they would on another type of paper, but they still blended pretty well for one of my first attempts. I sprayed the page first, picked up extra color with paper towel, sprayed again, and continued this process until it looked like the masterpiece I was hoping for. Next I stamped the borders, and next was a super fun part; the zendoodles. I took my black micron .5 pen (possibly the coolest pen in existence) and zendoodled the hills along the bottom. Next I stamped and colored the leaves on the side and the bright happy sunshine. Coming to the end now, I stamped the houses on a separate sheet of paper, colored them with my zig markers (okay, technically my mom’s zig markers. But for the purposes of this post I’m going to pretend that they are rightfully mine), cut them out, and pasted them on there. Lastly of course, I added my quote with, you guessed it, my black micron .5 pen.

So a side note I would just like to throw out here – this was the first time I used Elmer’s Craft Bond Extra-Resistence glue stick. This stuff works wonders but it literally took us 30 minutes to figure out how to open the stupid little thing. And by “us” I mean my mother, my father, and myself as a team. The cap is impossible to get off. Even now, after I’ve used it multiple times, I still don’t have the magic touch. If anyone else has had this issue and knows the secret trick, please share it and save me an extra 30 minutes of frustration towards an inanimate object each time I use glue in my art. It would be much appreciated by both me, and the people around me who are tired of hearing me yell at my glue stick. Shoutout to my roommate again for dealing with my insanity.

So, the quote may be a little strange. I didn’t have a quote in mind when I started this project and after I had done everything else on the piece I decided to just scroll through my pinned quotes on pinterest (which trust me, is a lot) until I found one that spoke to me. I liked this one so I used it, although my boyfriend thought it was weird. But he’s weird. So we can’t trust his judgement. (Love you sweetie!)

Well, lastly I have one other thing to throw into this post. I recently found a site called bloglovin that I’m still trying to figure out and understand, but if I understand correctly, I can link this blog to it and get followers over there as well. It’s kind of like just another giant collection of super cool blogs, which I am definitely interested in being a part of;

Follow my blog with Bloglovin’

Not completely sure how this works yet so I guess we will find out as I go. But here’s to hoping I put the correct link on my page. If you are happy following me on here and don’t want to check out bloglovin, feel free to ignore this link! Though if you really enjoy reading assorted blogs, I highly recommend you check it out! You just have to click on the link above or even find my bloglovin link on the left side of my page!

Well, happy 3-day-weekend, bugs! Make good choices!

Love,

Laney-bug ❤

Medium used: Black micron .5 pen, zig markers, delusions ink sprays, dylusions stamps, black archival ink, card stock

Life is like a Bicycle

Hello Bugs!

Firstly, I would like to say that I’m back at home in Texas and don’t have the luxury of a working scanner here like I do in my dorm room in Montana, so we are back to photographs of my art for the time being. Sorry about that. Anyway, continuing on….

So you remember when I said that I would be posting a lot over break? Well clearly that hasn’t exactly happened. But the good news is that I have done a lot of art over break, I just haven’t had many chances to sit down and tell you about it yet. But here I am now, making up for it.

So today I decided to share with you one of my newest art journal pages. For Christmas I got a bunch of new art toys that I’m really excited about, and this page was kind of my experiment to use all of them and see how they worked. I started by spraying the page with my new dylusions ink sprays (which are the best thing since sliced bread), and stamping a simple border along the bottom of the page. I also did a few fancy things with some stencils on the page, such as spraying over a stencil with water to make faint marks on the page (see all of those funny little lightly colored bubbles all over the page? Voila!). I also stuck some matching washi tape in the middle of my page so that the ink sprays I will use on other pages in the future won’t soak through and mess up my lovely composition. Next I grabbed some card stock and my sakura gel pens (which weren’t new, but they are one of my favorite art supplies ever so I still decided to use them), and created that lovely bicycle you see on the right hand page. Here’s a close up of the bike after carefully cutting it out and pasting it on the page.

As you can see, it’s not perfect. I didn’t always color perfectly in the lines and there are a few random smudges on the white part of the wheel (I honestly have no idea how a green smudge got there since I didn’t use green). But I am trying to teach myself to go with the flow when it comes to my art journaling and not be a perfectionist, which is quite the process for me. Overall though, I’m pretty happy with my shimmery gel-penned bike. And I think it really ties the whole page together.

My next step was to create the purple hearts that are scattered around the page. I sprayed another piece of paper with purple and white ink sprays and cut out the hearts, stuck bicycle washi tape to them (because when you are both an artist and a triathlete, that’s something that will be inevitably sitting around somewhere in your house), and darkened the edges with black ink and a sponge. I got this idea from a pinterest art journal page that did the same concept with music note washi tape, and I really like how it came out. Here’s another closeup.

After my hearts were completed all I had to do was draw a sunshine on card stock, cut it out, paste it on, and draw my quote on the left hand page. I also fixed a little mess up of mine; you see the Albert Einstein tag on the bottom of the quote? Well, I originally had stamped something there. But once I wrote my quote, I didn’t like the way the stamp looked with it, I thought it was too close to the writing and didn’t like it anymore. So, with some advice from my swell artistic mother, I decided to both cover up my mistake and give credit to Einstein for his words of wisdom all at the same time, and I love how it came out. I simply used the same paper that I had used earlier for my hearts, so it was super simple!

For my very last finishing touches I dipped the edge of a glue stick cap in red ink and stamped it all over the page, making those little red rings you see scattered around. It needed just a little touch of color, and that did the job!

Well, I hope you enjoyed my rambling about my art journal page. I’m loving my dylusions ink sprays, I highly recommend them for you artistic bugs out there!

Happy 2015, bugs! Keep arting!

Love,

Laney-Bug ❤

Medium used: dylusions ink sprays, dylusions stamps, dylusions stencils, washi tape, card stock, sakura gel pens, black micron pens

But What if you Fly?

Hello bugs!

I told you I’d be back before finals came to a close! And in case you haven’t noticed, my scanner is finally working again so you have a much clearer image of today’s masterpiece!

So I found a picture on pinterest of an itty bitty baby giraffe (or at least I assume it’s a baby based on it’s funny proportions) hanging onto a balloon. I thought it was adorable and got tired of studying one night, so I drew it. And then I felt that I needed to add something to my itty bitty baby giraffe, so I looked up quotes about flying because it seemed appropriate. Then I found a quote that I really liked, wrote it in a pretty-like-fashion in the balloon, and voilà! My itty bitty baby giraffe had a quote and was given more meaning! Next I decided to break out the water color markers and color my itty bitty baby giraffe, along with his ever so exciting balloon. Next I wanted to add a whimsical background, so I randomly started drawing blue circles with some of my fancy pens as the sky that my itty bitty baby giraffe was floating through.

I like the quote I ended up using because I think it kind of relates to me as a new college student. It’s not that I think I will “fall” in college, but simply that I like the idea of if I ever feel that I might, there’s always that possibility that I could also “fly”. For example, I’m stressing out over finals right now, but when I sit back and think about it I realize that each final is really just one test and that if I don’t get a perfect score, life will go on. I am in no danger of failing any of my classes and in fact am doing quite well in them, so it’s much more likely that I will “fly” than I will “fall”.  So of course I won’t stop studying, because I’m Laney and studying is what I do, but I just shouldn’t worry as much as I have been.

Well, that’s that for today! Good luck on all of your finals bugs!

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤

(Medium: Koi Water Color Markers, Black .5 Micron Pen, PaperMate Felt Tip Pens)

Giraffes Can’t Dance

Well bugs, we’re going to try something a little new today. Something that I don’t think I’ve mentioned to you before is that I absolutely love doing art. Granted, my art is rather foolish and usually contains silly things such as the dancing giraffe that you see above, but it’s one of the many ways I express myself and is one of my stress reliefs. My mom would say that I have an “immature art form that appeals to the adult eye”, which I would say is probably about accurate. Anyway, I’m going to start trying to incorporate my art into my posts. I’ll basically still talk about life in general the way I always have, but I’ll try to pair it up with whatever art I have recently created. I actually think this will help me with inspiration for posts because whatever I put into my art tends to be whatever big thing is on my mind, so now I’ll have a better idea of what to write about. Anyway, let’s jump into this post.

“Then he raised his head up and looked at the moon and stars above, ‘We can all dance’ he said, ‘when we find the music that we love'”. What is this quote, you may ask? Well, it’s from a children’s book titled “Giraffes Can’t Dance” by Giles Andreae. This was one of my favorite books when I was little and honestly, I had forgotten about it until recently. My mom found this quote somewhere in the deep dark depths of pinterest and sent it to me, thinking it might spark up an old childhood memory.

When she sent me the quote I immediately remembered that I loved the book, though I couldn’t quite remember the story – except that it involved a dancing giraffe (that’s the important part, right?). So I turned to google to find it and behold, I found a 3 minute long youtube video of its narration. I of course had to watch it, which I now encourage you to do if you feel that you would appreciate a story about a dancing giraffe. Which, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t? Here’s the link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVzblgpqQnk

Well for those of you who don’t feel inclined to watch this wonderful narration, I’ll give you a brief overview. Basically, Gerald the giraffe is a bad dancer and he is sad because the other animals in the jungle make fun of him for it (for the sake of this book giraffes apparently live in the jungle. Just go with it). The other jungle animals can all dance the tango and the scottish reel and all sorts of other kinds of dances, but they tell him that he can’t dance and discourage him before he even tries. So then he walks away and finds a clearing, where there just so happens to be a cricket with a violin that inspires him to dance to the music of the nature around him. (At this point in the narration video a rather creepy cricket voice suddenly shows up). At this point he has suddenly found his groove and all of the animals of the jungle can’t believe how awesome he is and essentially tell him that he is the bees knees. They ask him how he learned to dance that way and the book is concluded with the quote that I doodled up above.

Looking back on it now I find it rather hilarious that this was my favorite book as a child, and that now is the time I have rediscovered it.  A few years ago I became obsessed with giraffes and they have been my favorite animals ever since. And more recently, just a few weeks ago, I was accepted to an international volunteer program that will allow me to go to South Africa this summer. I’m sure that I will tell you all about that in a later post, but all you need to know for the sake of this post is that I’m super excited, and that while I’m there I get to go on an African safari – and there WILL be giraffes! YES!

The timing of all of this is also quite fantastic because this semester I am taking an aerobic dance class, just for the fun of it. I actually really love it and it’s one of the best parts of my day. It’s at 7 a.m. so most people would probably despise it, but for me it’s just a great way to start my day. It puts me in a good mood, gets me moving, and gives me something to get my mind off of my crazy homework load. I’ve always enjoyed dance, but never quite like this. The class is often taught by grad students and I have decided that teaching the aerobic dance class as a grad student would actually be fantastic. Overall it has really gotten me excited and has just been a great addition to my daily routine.

 

I find it kind of awesome that the book I liked so much when I was little is actually quite representative of my current interests. So, next time you’re up in your attic (or perusing the dark depths of pinterest), look through some of your old favorites and see if you find any foreshadowing of your own. I loved being reminded of this book, something about children’s books just makes me happy. How could you not be happy when looking at a dancing giraffe?

Anyway, until next time…

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤

(Medium: watercolor and micron pen)