Practice, practice, practice...

Okay so like I said in previous posts I started working on art journals several years ago, mainly ones that belonged to other people. One day I decided why not create one for myself, a travel journal that I can take, put pictures in, items I find and that I can carry along with me when I do travel. My first attempt at my own personal art journal is this Chicago journal. I decided for my next two pages in the journal that since I spend a lot of time on the El (CTA trains) why not incorporate a map of the CTA system in the pages. The main line I travel is the O'Hare blue line.

I stay in a hotel fairly close to the airport and the nice thing about this particular hotel and this particular airport is that there's a 24 hour free shuttle bus that runs from the hotel to the airport about every 15 minutes. Also in what I call the "basement" of the airport is the entrance to the CTA blue line. O'Hare is the end of the line and it's very nice and convenient to take the El right out of the airport. Due to this particular set up you can enter the airport and head straight downstairs. Two trains pull in and out of there throughout the day and boarding the CTA is way cheaper than a cab, even though the trip from O'Hare TO downtown Chicago is approximately 45 minutes. It's the cheapest and easiest way to travel to the city, which makes seeing a very busy city relatively nice and simple. :)

When I first started this particular journal I was leery about experimenting. I didn't want to mess anything up, so I stuck with using my scanner and gluing what I scanned into the journal pages. As I progressed, learned some new techniques, bought more magazines on art journaling and continued to work on art journals from the 1001 Journals community I found myself daring to delve into more complex things...I drew a CTA train, painted some pages and fiddled around with ways to make the journal more appealing, more exciting and more interesting. After working on this initial first trip I decided to label each year I spent in Chicago. I used one word (or two) to basically describe in a nut shell how the trip was and I used some water colors and paints to express it. The more I worked on the early bits of this journal and the more I experimented the neater and more interesting each entry became for me.

Now I tend to do a lot of drawing and journaling in this particular journal but I have also started working on my own sketch book and my own personal art journal that delves more into my feelings, emotions and such. The more I learn about art, painting and sketching the braver I become in daring to try new things.

What's actually starting to happen? When my writing muse is slow I find myself picking up an art journal and going to town with it. Some of the entries turn out amazing while others not so much but each new "project" I undertake seems to be better than the previous one and I'm quite satisfied that I seem to be improving and expanding.

Art Journaling at its beginning...

Okay so I was originally planning on starting by sharing some of my scrapbook pages, but have to scan them first and probably won't get to that until the weekend so I'm opting to share the start of my Chicago journal. Now you must be patient with me as I haven't quite figured out how the displaying image bit goes on over here so images may be a bit...whacked. : )

I started journeying to Chicago for a sci-fi convention several years ago. It ended up becoming a yearly event and remains one to this day. It started back in 2004. It was my first year actually touring the city and seeing it. I had been to Chicago in the past but only as a stop off for layover flights so I had never seen beyond the Chicago O'Hare Airport. I decided when I went to this convention I was going to see the city. After doing some research and such I found out that a CTA train went to the city from the airport and since my hotel provided free shuttle service to and from the airport I had a way to get there. The first year in the city I stayed for approximately 10 days. I usually stay about ten days each time I travel out there. After taking a yearly trip out there since 2004 I now have tons of pics from each individual trip but again like those conventions pictures I referred to in the previous post they were all placed in albums that are rarely looked at, so I decided to try my hand at a travel journal. What I now have: a huge overly stuffed journal full of pics and such from my last five years of vacations to the wonderful windy city of Chicago.

It's proved to be fun and interesting trying to make each year's entries different from the past years of entries. I've dabbled a bit with acrylics, a bit with drawing, a bit with colored pencil and even fiddled some with stickers in the journal. I admit the first few pages look a bit "rough around the edges" but they are some of my earliest attempts at creating a sort of art journal (keep in mind the only prior experience before undergoing this particular project was from an LJ community in which you mailed journals on to others who each contributed to the journal with their own stories, artworks and such). The Chicago journal has proved to be an interesting way to "wet my whistle" so to speak, my way of "getting my feet wet" and breaking past the initial "I don't think I can do this" phase.

Now? Now I find it extremely interesting to go back and see what I've learned and how my journaling has changed. I'm glad I started the journal and though I'm not always in the mood to work on it and it seems to be an unending work in progress it's something that keeps my creative muses flowing even when my writing muse stalls. The other big advantage to creating one such journal? I have a great unique album that I can cherish and hold onto for years to come! Who could ask for more?