Sunday, December 12, 2010

Get Carded

This page was a bit of fun. It was my birthday this weekend and in the lead up I was not in a party mood and decided just to have dinner with my Husband. We went out to dinner and I was surprised my some of my greatest friends being there as well! We had a great night and I really felt loved by everyone around me. When I was looking at the other pages from the Get Carded page I saw one which had LOVE written on the page and I really stopped and thought ‘that is exactly what I am feeling now!’. I was really happy with how my background worked out and will use the card method on other pages.

Conversations with Self

This class was a challenge! I have talked before on this blog about how I sometimes feel each journal page needs to be deep, meaningful and to challenge the things that I feel are not good enough in my life or need improvement. I (like many others) have issues from my childhood about how I was raised, childhood anxieties and to be honest just some really shitty memories. I really didn’t want to go down that path with this class, and made a conscious effort to look at the positives of being a little girl growing up in Australia. I took some time out to reflect on what I used to do as a child. How did I play and use my imagination. I know I loved making things to sell in my ‘shop’ (my poor neighbours had dozens of plaques for their doors made out of dry play-doh), playing in the rainforest near my home and riding my bike. Then I remembered when we moved into a house when I was five which I loved. There was rainforest nearby, it was near the beach and my best friend lived in the next street. The first day we come to the house the back yard was overgrown with tall dry grass. My Dad got out the lawn mower and made a maze for me to play in! It was great, I spent all day in there hunting for animals and pirates and princes. This memory really sums up my ‘essence’ as a child. I was full of adventure, fearless and always wanting to learn and explore. I wrote a letter to myself from my 5 year old self. I wrote about my adventures and the things I love doing. This page has everything I loved about being a child all wrapped into one!   

Chinese Paper Cutting Meets Modern Art Journaling

Sorry things have been very slow around here of late. Life has been busy and while I have been thinking about 21 Secrets this has not turned into actions. A few weeks ago I did complete the Paper Cutting Meets Modern Art journaling class but I didn’t know what to do with the cut outs. I did have trouble with the flower, when I opened the cut paper four pieces fell out (oops) I did get it on my second go and had a beautiful butterfly and flower. I decided just to have some fun with them and this is what I came up with. Nice and bright and simple.



I have decided to carry on with the class just using whatever I already have at home and substituting what I don’t. There are a few classes I think I may miss, but I will see what happens.

Monday, November 1, 2010

The positive and negative of splatters

For this class I did not want to just have a background, I wanted to incorporate the splatters into a complete page. I had some ink at home which I thought I could water down for different shades rather than using paints. I sometimes use Scribble Paintings with clients and I thought I could use this concept with the splatters, to see if any images or symbols appeared in the ink. I did not have an intention for the splatters, rather I just let it happen organically. It took me a few days to get back to the page, I just wasn’t feeling it to be honest. When I did spend some time with the page nothing jumped out which wasn’t helped by the fact I could not think of an intention or purpose for the page. Now that I have reflected on this for a week or so I have realised that I tend to set my intentions about things I think I need to improve, fix or develop. I have had a few really fun and open weeks and was struggling because I didn’t feel I needed to really work on anything obvious. This turned out to be the obvious thing to work on!  As much as I told myself I did not need to have a page which was about moving forward and deep self reflection I could not get past this. I spent some time journaling and thinking about how I feel that I always have to be improving, learning and achieving to be a better person. Why can’t I have a journaling page about where I am now and celebrating what I have? I sat on this for another day and came back to my page and immediately saw a petri dish full of growing bacteria. This fit perfectly with my musings – I had to grow and nurture what I have now in order to get bigger and better. I added some words from my journal to the page and I was done! I have a page about being in the moment and celebrating what I have right now.


Sorry for the poor quality of the photo’s, it has been raining and overcast here all week and there is no sun at all!

On a side note I am having trouble with some of the classes. I don’t have some of the materials to complete them and am in a dilemma – While I know the techniques are great I can’t see myself using the products again and I don’t want to buy something only to use it once. I am thinking that I may just improvise and do what I can, so if my pages don’t seem the same as the class, they most likely aren’t’!  

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Get it out Get it down

I am so glad I did this class next, it really flowed on nicely from the work I have been doing already in 21 secrets. When I signed up to the program I really didn’t know what to expect and I really didn’t think I would be doing work which touched me on such a personal level. I saw that other people had followed Connie’s lead and drew a face and I thought that was really fitting because in this page my intention was to get out all of that ‘stuff’ that was holding me back from what I want to be doing in life. The lady on the page is me, a free and ‘stuff free’ me! The letter writing was great and I filled up a whole page in minutes. I used a few pieces of the letter, but have decided to burn most of it to really just get it out. I am waiting for a full moon to burn my letter, I am not sure why, but it seems more exciting that way!



18 classes to go!

I am magic

For this page I wanted to do something which was intentionally messy, something I had no control over, to try and get over my need for perfect page. I wet the paper and then dropped coloured water on the pages. The one with the words ran together and took ages to dry, but luckily didn’t go through the other pages. Looking back at the words that I put on the page I think they really reflect who I am as a person. The one set of words which really stand out for me is ‘no turning back’. I really feel like I am at a stage in life that I can let go of the past and just move forwards. There is no longer any point to wallowing in the past (really this only has very little use at all) and I WANT to move forward without looking back. I love the bright colours of this page and I drew myself in gold pen because it was such a sunny day here in Australia and it felt golden.  




The Secret of Beginning

This class seemed the obvious place for a newbie like me to start. I feel strange saying this as an Art Therapist, but I really have no idea about the technical aspects of ‘making’ art. Seriously – I had no idea what Gesso was (and yes it is super fun to use!). This class also brought up the anxiety I have around creating and my own expectations on myself. The problem I found throughout my entire Art Therapy course was that I never fully gave myself to a process because I was always thinking about what I would produce, how it would look, what would people think? Ridiculous I know, nobody has to see this unless I show them, but then my expectations are so high and I am so hard on myself that the anxiety comes up again.
I am embarrassed to say that I started this page and was so unhappy with it that I tore it out and started again. I knew all I had to do was let it dry and cover it over (perhaps with Gesso!) and start again, but in a mirror of my life I tore it out and threw it away. Isn’t if funny when you see a personal trait in your journaling? I often find that things sneak up in journaling and then hit you in the head when you least expect it! I wanted to set the intention for this page as one that would carry me throughout all 21 classes, I really thought about what I wanted out of this experience and then realised the intention had been given to me. I friend had some cards and I choose one a few weeks ago which said “Clear within”. Fitting right!


This page really hit home that I need to stop placing these unrealistic expectations on myself and to let things out. That this journal is an opportunity for me to work through the things that are holding me back from greatness, from being awesome!
I decided to do another page to look deeper into why I hold myself back. I used my Art Therapy techniques for this one so I could work intuitively and not from my head space. What come from the process is a deep fear that if I try something and fail people will know about it, so I use that reasoning to not try new things. This blog has come from this page. I have never blogged, always wanted to, but held myself back.
20 classes to go!