"Nothing else is love"

Once upon a time there were these things called CDs.

Once upon a time I had the money to buy them.

Given the rise of the MP3, it strikes me that this may only appeal to a small (and ever decreasing) number of people... but nevertheless, I will press on.

For a while, before I became poor and stopped caring, I was into music in a pretty big way. In fact, to immediately contradict myself - I still do care about music. I just can't afford to pour all that money into it any more,and I would like to think that some of the pretension that I affected at the time has been worn away. (I liked everything before it was popular and going mainstream was an epic sell out and generally deserved the loss of my good opinion... don't you know)

I threw out all the cases years ago when I moved overseas and had to make my collection more compact, but I did keep some of my favourites and I totally love the art on them.

So I decided to use them as inspiration for some of my journal pages.

The Shins are awesome. Seriously awesome. True story... if you haven't heard their music - look into it.

Chutes Too Narrow is still one of my favourite albums... ever. And check out the cool art, its all cut out and stuff... so I thought I would use it as inspiration for the first page of my NEW ART JOURNAL.

ps. note that those jellybeans disappear... aldis jellybeans are awesome.

The new art journal. It's the size of an autograph book.
I figured a small book would be easier to work with initially.

And now to unfiltered photos...

 I drew a little scene and coloured it in with watercolour paint. I really don't mind watercolour being epically messy, but if you want clean lines... wait for a colour to dry before painting the one adjacent to it.

Cut out the parts I wanted out.

Then I started with the next page - referring back to the first page to see which parts would be visible when they are on top of each other.

 Then I went over it all with coloured pencils to make everything sharper and add in details like the bridge, and grass patterns and such. See how only my name and that tiny horse (donkey?) silhouette is visible? Totally planned.

I also cut out the space around my name and that hill and the monsters head. So you can see the next page, which I will show you all later.

I say its a horse, but its ears are very donkey/mule-like.

And there it is. The title page(s) of my new art journal.
Thanks to The Shins and my propensity to horde things.

Do you have CD covers and art that you love? Rip it off  Be inspired!! Use ideas from things around you and make them your own.

"Mercy's eyes are blue and when she places them in front of you, nothing holds a roman candle to the solemn warmth you feel.

There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love."

- The Shins (Saint Simon) 

Merci pour l'aventure.

Pixar created one of my most favourite love stories when they made 'Up'. Of course it doesn't hurt that Ellie and Carl is very similar to Ellie (me) and Kyle (my husband) but asides from the name similarities, their story of loyal, enduring and life changing love puts the movie up there with my favourites. I used to just sit and watch the montage of Ellie and Carl's life together because it's definitely one of my favourite montages - even though it's sad. (really sad)

Ellie's love of life, despite never getting to South America as she had planned as a girl, her happiness in her marriage (despite the bitter sadness they both must have felt when dealt the cruel blow of infertility) and most of all the way she viewed all of these things, small and big as adventures - is all a great inspiration to me. 

You can tell how much she valued her life experiences, her memories, and her time with Carl, because she recorded it. 

Wah! Such a wonderful thing to leave behind. So full of love and fond memories and moments and all those good things that you want to remember about life. How I would love to get my hands on similar creations (if such existed) from my grandparents/parents/friends/whomever. 
As a side note, this is another one of the reasons why I feel so strange and melancholy about seeing family photos and albums in second hand and vintage stores.


I totally cry nearly every time I watch Up (Its strange, but I cry more about animated movies than I do about others... hmm) 

The point though is that I often feel that things are far too mundane in my life to deserve recording in anything by the briefest of notes. I think that it would help me as much as anyone, to record things as the adventures that they are. (Small though they may be) So in the coming months you can expect a lot more journaling, tutorials, scrapbooks, art and photos as I try to capture some more, try to be more grateful for, more productive with, and do meaningful things with the life that I have. 

And just to be clear, my whole renewed energy in this is not entirely supplied by a wonderfully rendered animation, but also by some of the other more diligent record keepers in my life - like my mum and mum in law, a certain graceful ballerina I know, and others. 

I do know people in real life. 
Just sayin'.

"Thanks for the adventure - now go have a new one! Love, Ellie"

 

Continuing Happiness

God is in the details.

There are a lot of variations of this idiom, and the general idea I suppose is that details are important. The first time I heard "God is in the details" I kind of took it literally. That God can be found in the details of our lives.

I kind of like the idea.

When you travel it seems easier to notice all the nuances of a place, to notice the beauty. The difference when we come home is only partly to do with location, most of it is us and the way that we choose to look at things.

"People travel to faraway place to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home."                       - Cagobert D Runes

For the good of my continuing happiness I have changed the things that I write about in my journals. Instead of recording the complaints and irritations of the day I focus on the things that made me smile, and the small details that were satisfying and joy inducing. Even just fascinating.

That's why I've made these books.

Inside each there are prompts and basic outlines to help you to record all those quirky and unique things that happen to you in your life that make you grin and laugh or even just those little poignant moments that you didn't get to photograph.

I like making my mark on things too, so the illustrations are all uncoloured (so you can colour them in) the paper is 100gsm so its a little sturdier and more able to take the ink, paint, glue and creativity that you  pour onto them.

thats what he said...

Sometimes other people say things that make you laugh.

Sometimes other people say things that inspire us to be better, braver, and bolder.

Sometimes other people say things that make you sit back and think, "oh yeah, that's totally true" and your view on the world is ever so slightly altered.

Sometimes other people just say things that reflect an exact feeling that you've had and thought was unique to you, and so even though you will probably never meet them, it feels like you're connected.

Sometimes I write those things down.

I made this book just like normal but with the left over bits that come from cutting 12x12" scrapbooking paper down to A4 (for binding A5 books) After figuring out that I could do this with all my scrap paper, you can expect to see more. They are also a great size to carry about, write things in, and all that kind of stuff.

This one, in all its double sided patterned glory is going to be a quote book. Because putting inverted commas around a 2 year olds statements makes them "official"

"Mums a pimple" -Lola (age 2) 

See?

These kinds of things have to be saved for posterity... And all those other more meaningful ones too.

My recipe book.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

- Scott Adams

In an attempt to maintain some kind of creative motivation I have created a recipe book... of art. Using the recipes of others has never made a chef's food any less good (at least not in my opinion) and I think it is perfectly fair to be inspired by the artistic creations of more talented people than myself.

Note that I said inspired. Plagiarism is not okay. Especially if you plan on selling things. Anyway, this is what the guts of my 'recipe book' looks like. Many magazines sacrificed pages in the making of it.
Its essentially just a collection of all the things that I liked out of various magazines and IKEA brochures and things like that, stuck in one place. It's kind of fun attempting to reverse engineer things.

Modern Family has cool art... don't know if anyone else has noticed... but on top of having funny writers and actors, they also have some pretty cool people dressing their sets. Anyway.

Recognise those triangles?

I really want to do a paper cut style map... you can't really make it out, but there is a map of New York there with buildings and trees and people and words and its wonderful. I just have to think of a place that would lend itself to the style. Sydney is epic and sprawling so maybe not... 

Ideas, ideas...