The above two page spread is from my current journal. I recently set up a makeshift photo studio and shot many of my journal pages from my last two journals. I am hoping to share more of them over the weeks to come.This spread began with the large stylized self-portrait in the center, and I soon after added the web-like, black ink lines and blue watercolor pencil on the right-hand side. It remained in that state for quite some time, months in fact, as I began and worked on other pages. I just was at a loss. I couldn't think of what to add next, and it lacked direction. Finally, after looking back over these pages time and time again, something needed to happen, so I just started adding random things to the pages - the collage elements, the blue watercolor on the left hand side, the random rectangles, and the green watercolor pencil. I added the word "disconnected" and the writing after feeling very much disconnected from my art and my journal. I finished off the spread with the yellow, acrylic spheres floating.
When I began this spread, I had no idea where it was going to end. And my approach reflected those feelings of stagnation and disconnection. The art flows much more easily when I am in the middle of it - when I get a head of steam and am constantly working. But if I get torn away for a while with work, family, or sheer laziness, it is difficult to get back in the groove and allow things to flow. Sometimes I just have to dive head first into a page and just do something even if it has no rhyme or reason. Art is risky.
This spread evolved over months, and it took a while for it to find it's voice. My pages seem to do that a lot. I can't force something, and so the pages evolve. I have even done a little more to this spread since taking the photo a couple of weeks ago.
Art like life is always in a state of becoming.