"How do you start a page?" has to be the number one question we get. So besides the basic art techniques as listed in the "Encountering the Blank Page" posts, I thought that I would share a page that I recently began.More often than not, I begin pages with something random having no idea or theme for the page. And even the above page was started with a random piece of fodder. The blue and green rectangle is actually a random 4x6 piece that I had started months ago as a small work of art, but one which I had not developed too far. So about a week ago, I simply glued it into this page with no idea where this page would go. But sometimes in the early stages of a page, I catch a hold of an idea, a word, or a theme. Recently, I wrote about how I don't believe in coincidences where randomness and chance bring us together. I believe instead that we are where we need to be. Our choices, our decisions, our paths have brought us to those points, and if we simply look around, we can notice that there are many, many remarkable learning opportunities all around us, and we should not be surprised when we meet people with whom we just "click". At the mention of this, a friend brought up the word "synchronicity" and the idea of how total strangers can lead separate lives with many parallels and similarities. And at times those lives can converge.
So, I began stenciling the words on this page, and looking up their definitions in a couple of dictionaries as well as looking up the words in a thesaurus. The blue lists of words are from the thesaurus. I'm not certain where this page will go next, but it has a good start.
So, words are often a good way to start. They can be random, meaningful, powerful, or even silly. They can be stenciled, written or collaged. If we pay attention, we can discover so many opportunities for growth and for our journal pages.