Hello and Welcome to another edition of Mark Making Monday!
Today I am going to bravely share a journal spread I created in an art journaling class with DeAnne Olguin Williamson in Minneapolis, Minnesota. DeAnne and I share the love of self-exploration through the art making process. We both teach an inside-out approach, where self-discovery and self-understanding are way more important than the end-result.
It's important for teachers (like myself, and maybe you, too) to step into the student role on occasion. It is wonderful to learn new techniques and get a new perspective from other artists.
So, I took DeAnne's art journaling class yesterday, as I have been for the past several months. As a student, I am able to "not think", and just create. I express what's in my heart and on my mind.
I am sharing these pages with you, as I used many mark making techniques in them. Can you spot some marks in the pictures below?
A few of my favorite mark making techniques are: making dots with paint on my fingertip, using my own handwriting, and scratching into wet paint with the wrong end of a paintbrush.
DeAnne had us add a face to our art journal spread. I usually don't put faces in my art, however, a face can express a tremendous amount of information from one glance.
Try not to be too scared when you see the face I painted. It's kind of dark. At the same time, I feel like it represents the whole of life. Life is beautiful, scary, unknown, and mysterious. Okay, here it is.
(Pictured above is my page spread just before I added a swear word and some other finishing touches.)
I find it interesting that a piece of ephemera I chose from DeAnne's bag is a quote on beauty by David Whyte. The quote on white paper is collaged underneath where the face is painted. Here's the quote:
BEAUTY
is the harvest of presence, the evanescent moment of seeing or hearing on the outside what already lives far inside us; the eyes, the ears or the imagination suddenly become a bridge between the here and the there, between then and now, between the inside and the outside; beauty is the conversation between what we think is happening outside in the world and what is just about to occur far inside.
An excerpt from David Whyte's book
‘BEAUTY’ From CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
2015 © David Whyte & Many Rivers Press
Below are a couple more photos of the art journal page spread.
May you feel inspired to spill some paint, open your heart, and express yourself on the pages of your art journal!
Blessings to you,
Briana
