How quickly time flies.

Goodness I hadn't realised how quickly time passes until I looked at the date on my last entry.
Time really does go on and the old saying 'Time and tide wait for no man.' is oh so true.

I have been admiring the art journal pictures that are on Flickr. The photos are truely inspiring and there are soooooo many to look at I really didn't know where to start. Thank goodness Flickr gives you options as to which of the photos best meet what you are looking at in its choices of  'Relevent', 'Recent' and 'Interesting' (Top left corner of the screen). I generally go for the ones that are recent because then I don't have to wade through photos that I have seen before to get to look at something new.

There are so many talented people in the world. I feel that if you gave several people a piece of paper, a pencil and a packet of crayons and asked them to illustrate the way they felt about what makes them happy you would end up with so many different results. Not just in the fact that each person has a different idea of what makes them happy but also the many different ways that each person would use those tools given to them. The most amazing tool being the one that God gave you - your brain.

I love creating. For me it isn't just art or one craft or another as I tend to switch from one to the other depending on the mood that I am in.
Some days I will be an avid cross-stitcher the next up to my arm pits in glue and scrap paper.........My other half doesn't know which craft or what I will be doing next. Good to keep him on his toes.(giggle). Actually I really do appreciate his tolerance.

I generally use my art journal as a place to get things off my chest. It could come under the heading of raw art journalling as I tend not to hide my feelings under paint or collage. The reason that I do this is so that I can go back and look at what has changed in my life and, with the benefit of hind sight, be able to look at my self and what my attitudes where at the time and how I have changed since then.
For example, a while ago my other half told me to go on a trip to see my brother. My reaction was 'He wants to get me out of his hair', 'I am annoying him','He wants to be rid of me'. I wrote all of this in my journal and thought that he didn't love me anymore. The truth was he had noticed that I had been a bit down and that he thought that a visit to my brother would cheer me up. He was also worried that I was not going to come back because he was worried that I didn't love him anymore. Looking back on what I had written at that time I can see what had made me feel that way and realise that I was lacking in my communication with my other half.
There have been a lot of matters that I have worried about. I have found that if I write about those matters and what my reaction to the event is then I am able to get a better understanding of myself. It sounds cliche but it is true.
I do encourage anyone to grab a visual journal from BigW or KMart, there are several sizes - I tend to go for the 'Derwent' A5 size- and to start drawing, painting and writing in that book. It may not be your cup-of-tea, in which case you have not spent a great deal of money on a 'Moleskine' and you wont feel guilty about spending money on something that you don't like. If you do enjoy the process and the results then you can proceed to the dearer books if you want.

If you would like to read more on the subject of Art Journaling have a look at Zom Osborne's blog 'pinch me to see if you're dreaming'. There are links there to another post about the allure of all the 'cool stuff' that is being offered so that you can create the 'perfect page' and how it doesn't expand creativity but hinder it. I am so glad I had a look.
I hope that this has helped.

Have a really good day.
Lou