No, not at you so much. More to one side.

I had a panic attack last night because I ran out of mechanical pencils. Really. Tore the house a new househole, but finally found one.

Art journaling? But why?

Sometimes your pencil (or brush, or marker, or crayon, infinity) has a snake goddess in it. Sometimes said snake goddess is holding a giant spoon in one hand, and a big cherry that sort of looks more like a small dark pumpkin in the other. Sometimes she will have wacky hair. Sometimes this will happen all at once or maybe over the course of one late night and the following afternoon. Why?

You don’t know, do you?

I do not know. Yet.

The point is just to let it happen, right? It wants to happen, so why not on a page that can be turned… in a book that can be closed.

One of the things that I really like about this book, though, is that it can be opened.

At least you covered her nipples this time.

I think my mom would agree with you on that one. Truthfully, though, I only did because my brain and my hand just couldn’t agree on the size and shape of them, so I ended up following the pencil.

This is as finished as she is going to get, but I do still have the idea of progress shots swimming around in my head.

the bit that I actually wrote yesterday...

So, the universe said, “How about a little reminder that most of your complaints are pretty trivial?”

To which I replied, “Um, no thanks, I’m full.”

“No really, I insist. I’d really like for you to try this one on. I’m calling it carbonated stomach virus.”

Erm.

Seriously? You share too much.

Yes, I do.

So, yeah, more grumbling and groaning than art-ing this week. Add to that crazy, non productive insomnia.

Oh, waaah.

I know, I know.

Anyway, it’s a bit better today, if not completely gone. My body is still hesitant to even look at food that might be considered in the least bit interesting. Yesterday my rebel brain  talked it into a cola Icee and a Hershey’s Air Delight bar. They’re still not on speaking terms, but at least they’re not shouting about it right this minute.

The taste buds, see, are siding with the brain. They yearn to be entertained.

So, I did start a journal page last night. Feeling a bit uncertain of it, as of probably the halfway mark, but not so much that I feel the urge to abandon it. I’m trying to talk myself into posting an “in progress” shot. I don’t think I’ve done that before, and it is a bit daunting to me.

It feels a bit like serving up cake batter for dessert.

What’s with all the sweets, fatty?

You honestly think that “fatty” is going to derail me for long at this point in my life? Wrinkles in the rug, SLB.  Getting flatter with every step.

So, yes, I’ll probably have a progress shot up either today or tomorrow. I’ll do it as soon as I can get to my bff’s house to scan it.

But what if you finish it before you can get over there?

It might end up being a completed page. Still, the seed has been planted and progress shots will come when they will come.

I tend to get lost in the journey on these pages I’ve been doing lately, so I’m interested in seeing a little record of it myself.

i don't even... *sigh*

where are we, exactly?

Very scattered this week. More so than usual. I haven’t made a mark on a page since last Sunday. I know that things have happened since then, but my mind only wants to make a few hours out of them. How do a few hours make a week? Have I spent so much time sleeping or trying to sleep?

I’m trying pretty hard not to get paranoid about my mind, my screwy memory.

But you probably should be paranoid about that shit. Folks have always known what a flaky mess you are, but it’s getting to the point where even you can’t miss it, right?

I’ve always known. What’s the use of paranoia?

Anyway, I have a couple of backgrounds done, waiting for me to turn off the computer and hide from the tv. This might be a good day for a bout of free writing. Something is pulling at me, and this feels like the closest I can guess as to what it might be.

It’s stormy out. I like it, but I’m a little unsettled by it.

This is the last art journal page I finished. I loved being in the lines while it was happening.

But it looks like something you would have drawn in high school.

Yes it does.

mess around with color...

... if no one else will have you.

and then the next day...

Be Free...

I never really got the hang of zentangles. I mean, I’m all for them. I just never really got the hang of them, and never like the way mine turn out. My attention span is short… I lose the thread and get bored about halfway through most of the time.

What I do like is art journaling using a circle as my base. I’ve done this for years. Picked it up in art therapy, and never felt the desire to shake it. If you’ve seen any of the journal pages I’ve posted, you’ll have noticed the circle. I love the circle. The circle pulls stuff out of me.

Earlier this week I was feeling a bit stuck. I made simple backgrounds in my journal. I drew my circles. I sat there thinking about zentangles, and the zentangles, as always, eluded me.

Then something happened. I made a mark. I followed the mark.

And she fell out.

She is not at all perfect, but I sort of love her because she just arrived unannounced out of… me. Following the lines. No plan.

I’ve come to think of her as C’thusan. She is angry and female.

Free drawing. Who knew?

hair

Hair. Charlie's Angels hair. I love to draw it. I can amuse myself for hours with it. It doesn't matter how the whole picture turns out, just as long as I get to fall the hell into making and blurring lines.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a couple of hours out of my birthday and used them to make hair.

this blue

Alice

Have you ever had a great idea, made a little plan for it in your mind, and then just chewed it all to hell?

Poor Alice… You’ll have to forgive the navel gazing here (again) but it’s time. It’s time to let go of Alice. Now if I can only figure out how to do that…

Alice came from a dream I had several months ago. She came to me whole, with a back story and an immediate situation. I could see her, and as it sometimes happens with dreams, I could see through her eyes. I was so woven into this dream that when I woke up I felt lost.

I felt loss. Without going much further into the specifics of the dream, I will say that Alice was waiting for the ending. She knew it was coming, and wore a smile for it. Inside, she kicked at it and raged.

For several days after the dream, Alice’s story grew in my head. Maybe a short story, but no, more than that. A series of paintings. A series of small portraits. Alice at the window in her nightgown. Michael. Their companions in the house.

In my head I painted and wrote. I assembled shadowboxes full of hairbrushes and wristwatches. I imagined the sky that haunted Alice’s artist friends. I could see Alice’s ink bottle, and the stains on her hands.

There is more, but… I’m struggling with it.

What came of all of this? Not a lot.

I made one small painting. I sat this painting aside, picked it up now and again. I added things to it. I washed it over. I scribbled at it and scratched it. Nothing made it what I needed it to be.

Just last week, I decided that it was time to stop picking at this poor, overworked scrap of wood. So it hit me… It hit me very hard that this silly little painting represents a lot of things I’ve held on to, if only in the back of my mind, for most of my life.

See, Alice and I both know that it’s time to let go. Neither of us wants to, otherwise she would have been covered with gesso months ago. We have lived together for a lifetime. We stand at the window and look at the sky and know that the end has to come. We rage and cry, sitting quietly with a little smile on top of everything.

My first thought was to burn her, but I haven’t. I pick her up and run my hands over the wood and still wonder how to let her go.

Funny, the marks we make.