Aloha Borgs,
I've been getting some questions here and there (I'm lying I haven't gotten any questions) regarding my journaling method so I thought I would just go ahead and offer a little insight into how I make my pages and what mood I was in and what I was listening to or watching. All that good stuff. If you're interesting in looking at my previous pages you can hit up my tumblr, because I'm not going to go back to the beginning of my journal and start this process. So without any further ado, let's get into it.
Okay so my theme for this week (and don't expect there to be a theme every week because there won't be) was experimentation. I really wanted to try and get out of my comfort zone. I don't know about you but once I get too familiar with something I get bored and I stop doing it altogether. I'm an Aquarius, what can I say. So I decided to move away from my usual spreads and use some media that I'm not too keen on using.
What I was...
Watching: Death Becomes Her (1992), Witches of Eastwick (1987), Extreme Weight Loss
Listening to: Signs (Beyonce), Amy Winehouse discography, Hotline Bling (Drake), Time of Our Lives (Pitbull), Don't Tell Dave (Dance Gavin Dance), Carl Barker (Dance Gavin Dance)
This page is one of my least favorites of the bunch. I was in a weird mood and on top of that it was page that I tested a DIY Alcohol Ink Spray recipe that I found on Pintrest. Basically all you do is mix a packet of Kool-Aid and rubbing alcohol and mix it in one of those three ounce travel spray bottles and voila, you have alcohol ink. There's a few things that I want to stress when using this spray, for one, it stink...really bad and two, it gets everywhere. So if you're planing on using it I would strongly suggest you use it outside or in a ventilated area and that you don't wear anything you don't want permanently stained. Oh and one more thing, if you use it there will be bleeding though your pages, unless you're using it on thick paper. Just somethings to keep in mind.
As for the designs. I made these in my ART 101 class that I took freshman year at uni. I handmade them with an exacto knife and sticky velum (I don't know if that's redundant). It was probably my favorite thing I made in that class and they last a really long time as long as you keep the sticky side of the velum intact.
You can see how much that Alcohol Ink Spray bleeds through on this page. But, I have to say I really like the effect it gave. Without it, these pages would not have looked half as nice. I traced the eye with pencil then gave up half way and penned the rest. This week I was really feeling my blue Uniball Micro pen. It writes super smooth and, if you work fast, you can use water to blend the color out like I did on the eye.
I was battling myself in this entry. I had just watched Extreme Weight Loss and was feeling really shitty about my weight, but at the same time, I knew I couldn't allow a shitty show to make me feel like I needed to change myself. As you can see that battle definitely plays out in my writing.
This first page was a mess. I woke up and read some stupid article about how people are beginning to like poke (a raw fish dish that originated in Hawai'i) and I could feel my blood boil, so I hastily wrote this poem and posted it on my tumblr. Looking back, I think the only thing that wasn't horrible was the title, although I really like where I was going with the poem. I just need some time to flesh out the idea more and who knows, there could be an updated "A is for Appropriation" coming soon (don't count on it.).
WARNING: THOSE WITH SECOND HAND EMBARRASSMENT ISSUE BE WARNED:
As for the second page...it's about these guys who've lived on my street forever who grew up to be GORGEOUS and I am just going through some SERIOUS WHITE BOY THIRST. Like f I see their outside hanging out, I'll legitimately get dressed and do my hair and makeup to get the mail...like you have to be fucking kidding me with this. So I wrote that note to remind myself to calm the fuck out and not listen to the voice in my head that tells me that white boys are the shit. Instead I need to listen to the other little voice in my head that say 'white boys are shit' and everything should work itself out. Anyway, I filled it in with some pastel crayons and called it a day.
And now...we have made it to my hands down favorite page of this weeks spread (and arguably my favorite page of my whole journal. Just look at it, isn't it beautiful? Don't you just want to print it out and hang it on your wall, or put it in your binder, or wear it on a shirt? No? It's just me? Whatever. This beauty was made with Micron pens ranging from an 003 to an 08, acrylic paint (it's the background of the eye and the lips, colored pencil (to color in the lips) and pastel crayons (to shade in the eyeball). The patches or red are from using the Alcohol Spray on the next pages. Damn, I'm good!
Okay...I gave the spray another try on these pages and failed miserably. As you can see in the top right hand corner, I used to spray too close to the page and it totally smeared the ink on both sides of the page. The opposite side was totally ruined so I had to paste something over it, as you can see on the left hand page below.
On this page, I was suffering from a lack of creativity and a desire to write, so I went online and looked up some questions to answer (which is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I might have to compile a good list of questions in the future). I would definitely recommend this method for those of us who go through writers block. You get to continue writing without thinking too much and in my experience the questions eventually spark something and you can get back some of that momentum that you lost. Also, it's always fun to look back at the way you answered certain questions and see how much you've changed over the years.
And bringing up the rear is this beautiful last page which started out horribly and ended pretty nicely if I do say so myself. I found this picture while browsing through tumblr and it really caught my eye so I printed it out and boy did it come in handy. I was (and still kind of am) in the process of reorganizing my room to optimize my journaling work space. That means I had to pull out all the crap I didn't need and replace it with the crap I do need. I got a lot of inspiration from this picture because it's not overly neat, yet it seems like everything is easily accessible, you know? So I thought what better picture to put next to my entry about organization.
And that's it. Hope you all liked this...whatever it is, journal explanation? I'll come up with a better name for it later but let me know if you have any questions or suggestions on how to make this better.
Journal On!,
X
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