Compost

Compost is such a wonderful alchemical activity.

It is a beautiful mix of some of the most treasured things in my life -
gardening, recycling and magic-
I love how you can take a pile of rubbish - weeds and food scraps and grass cuttings and fallen leaves, gather them into an intentional space and combine nitrogen, carbon and water and create magical nourishing food for our gardens and our beloved planet - pure magic

In this page I took all of the rubbish that floats around inside my head and gathered it in an intentional way - free writing all over both pages and then I added the magical ingredients of self-acceptance and self-love, gesso and collage and grew a beautiful garden 

Reset- renew, refresh, restore

Love these colours they are scrumptious!
I am doing a 28 day cleanse right now, following Jason Vale's 28 day juice plan and it's going really well. I did this page on day 4  and filled it with my hopes and intentions on the left hand page and left the right hand side to journal when I am finished or very close to it. 

I am writing this on day 13, so pretty well midway and I have only had juice, water and herbal tea for that time. I am sure my body is loving having a break from coffee and wine and salt and fat and meat and all the other things I normally pass through my digestive system.

I have dropped quite a few kg but I am really loving the other results-
I am sleeping better than I have in years,
the swelling on my legs and feet is gone,
skin and hair are wonderful
and I feel great. 

Sarracenia

Have you tried that technique where you dip some string into the paint, loop it around on your page, close the page and pull out the string?

It is quite fun and gives wildly varied results.

This page instantly reminded me of another much-loved hobby of mine and that is growing carnivorous plants. I don't really go in for the fly traps, I am not exactly sure why maybe they are a bit fiddly to grow, maybe they are not quite as attractive to my eye but I do love all of the pitcher plants- they are so dramatic, often having gorgeous colours and my very favourite is the Nepenthes  but the Sarracenia is a close second.

This is a photo from Tom's Carnivores

I love the variety in their beautiful forms, colours and patterns and I also love how playing in your art journal can uncover images just waiting for you to 'find' them. Working intuitively and without any desired outcome allows us to tap into our subconscious mind, that vast reservoir inside of us that is like an iceberg- so often we are only tapping into the tip that is above the waterline, it is all we can see and we are blinded by its brilliance. 

As I was 'finding' those pitcher plants that were really very obvious to my conscious mind/eye I was pondering the sticky situations we can get drawn into in life. How we can become stuck and lose touch with our self, lose self-knowing and lose touch with our real feelings. Too busy dealing with all the 'sticky' to be able to connect with self.

Art journalling to the rescue-  I began free writing ways I can get unstuck, thinking I could be like the little frogs who catch bugs right inside the pitcher plants and how I can take my life circumstance and use them to appreciate myself and my life more. How can I address some of those stuck patterns and change them?

Dreaming into Reality

As a single mama I have been putting my needs and dreams on hold for years, but as my darling boys have grown up so much and are becoming more and more capable and mature I am really grabbing every opportunity I can to realise my long held dreams. 

With the help of my best friend and partner Kathy,  the boys and I are living in town in our beautiful new home and things are moving towards  creating a magical art studio downstairs. The boys have taken to town like ducks to water and love living here and they are taking full advantage of their independence to stretch their wings and do more and more all of which is fabulous for them and is opening up more and more time for me to follow my dreams. 

This year will be huge for me on a personal level as I am undertaking 2 courses of study and hope to be opening my studio by July.  I am very excited about everything  falling into place, especially my courses, they are both online and I am very grateful for the fabulous opportunities we can access on the internet, what an amazing difference it has made to the world.

I am training as an art therapist with Rob Gray at the Center for Educational and Clinical Art Therapy CECAT   and loving this course.   Rob is passionate about art therapy and his course is very engaging and inspiring.  I am looking forward to the personal growth this course will bring me as well as preparing to bring this wonderful form of therapy to my community.

The other course I am doing is Color of Woman teacher training with Shiloh Sophia and I am so happy about this course. I have been drawn to Shiloh ever since I noticed her powerful divine feminine art works and I love all that she brings into the world. I also feel this will bring great healing and personal growth to my community and cant wait to be offering this in northern NWS.

2016 will be huge for me, filled with healing, personal growth, incredible learning, reaching out to those opportunities and  realising my dreams.

Purging

Brain Dump

The last few years I have been so overwhelmed,
I have a lot of sad and stressful things happening, however
I am determined to get through it all this year.

One way I have been managing things is to purge all of my emotions and worries and cares onto my pages, sometimes I do that through imagery and that can express what I am feeling, sometimes I might even share those pages, but quite often lately I have had dark and angry, scared and sad things to express and while I do want to get them out I don't really want to revisit them myself or to share them with others. So I use different ways of hidden journaling.

Sometimes I journal out my heart and then simply cover it up- with gesso or collage, sometimes I just paint over the top of it or I might keep turning the page around 90 degrees and then write completely over the page full of writing like I did in the page above, there are 4 layers of brain dumping there, all at right angles to the one below and eventually  they become unreadable apart from the odd word if you really look.

I have been art journalling for years now
just think of all the money I have saved on therapists.

What is Art Journaling ?

I have been asked a few times lately just what exactly is art journaling?

It is a question that comes up quite often really as more and more people see the odd art journal page pop up on their computer screen and its popularity continues to grow.

Put simply an art journal is somewhere to play with words and images anyone can do it,for any reason at all.

There are no wrong ways to art journal and you don't need to be able to draw, there are many stunning journals done with creative collage, stenciling, stamping and beautiful lettering.

There are many different types of art journal, some are collaborative and travel among artists, in a group or a club or perhaps around the world. Some are to document something significant, a travel journal for a special holiday or a wedding or a persons life.

Others are a  very effective form of therapy, where you can pour your heart out in the privacy of your own art journal. You can even express things you just cant say in words through art.

Your journal can be as public or as private as you would like it to be. Art journalers all over the world are sharing their pages online I have even had pages of mine and pages done by my students

 exhibited in art galleries. 

It is a safe space for you to explore ideas and process things,

Document what is happening or what you have seen.

Or simply to play.

There are no rules for art journaling, it is not complicated, it is a form of self expression.

There is a long tradition of artists keeping journals ,

throughout the centuries many have kept note books where they sketched, wrote notes, practiced and experimented.  Van Gogh, Picasso and Da Vinci were prolific journal keepers and over the years you will grow to have a beautiful collection.

I will be starting an Art Journaling Class in Grafton in the next month or so, please contact me if you are interested in joining me in this relaxing creative hobby.

My art journal is my therapist

Life can be pretty overwhelming at times

 and we all go through rough patches,

 it is just extra tough when the bad times get drawn out

 and don't seem to have an end in sight. 

I am not really one for seeing a therapist and I don't think I could even find one that really suited me out here anyway. I don't tend to talk to friends or family too much either, just the surface of the matter really, and that is just how I am. I do however have somewhere that I can be as messy and emotional and demanding and unreasonable as I need to be in that moment and that is my art journal. 

Maybe that is why I have so many and why I fill them fairly quickly.

Of course they are not all angst filled pages, I take any emotion and use it to inspire my page and looking back through my journals I can clearly see the issues I was dealing with back then, and those that still follow me into the present. 

When I feel like I really need to get it all out I just write it all down, I can then chose to cover it all up or leave some out or leave it all out, I do have a lot of ways of getting it out and making it private so really no one else will ever be able to read the whole lot, but I can leave enough in the page so I can clearly see and feel the emotion or the release I was experiencing that day. 

These pages don't have to be pretty, they don't have to be anything. they are just for me to purge my head, sometimes the act of getting it all out turns into something bright and pretty and sometimes its just messy and that is all OK.

Do you vent in your journal?