One of the themes I'd like to (finally!) look at in more depth next year is self image. It's an age old theme that has accompanied me through my life from my mid teens to the present day. This year I contributed to Beauty in Every Form, forthcoming publication on the subject, by my friend, Richard Savage, and it is a deeply personal topic that I would very much like to explore more through my work.
I believe cross writing, whereby you write both horizontally and vertically on a page, was originally used years ago when writing letters to save paper but it is a technique I often employ when art journaling. I favour Sharpie pens and a fast, frantic, stream of thought approach!
I very often use my art journals for list making (there's a whole blog post or three in me on that topic me thinks! lol), brainstorming and planning. I always used to carry an art journal wherever I went but I realised the other day that I seem to have got out of that habit. ;o( That's something that needs rectifying!
Sitting under my desk in the studio on top of a little chest of drawers there are two books: The Roadmender by Michael Fairless (a pseudonymn for the author, Margaret Barber, who wrote it in 1902) and The Works of Longfellow. They are both depleted, have pages hanging out and many a gap in them where I have used text from them in my artwork. Another art journal technique I employ is, if I have the urge to add text to a page but not sure what, I will get one of the books out, randomly flick to a page and find what I'm looking for, even if I don't know what it is I'm looking for until I find it! ;o)
Yes, I do believe a return to some regular art journaling is required right now! ;o)
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