Art Escape (Celebrating Forever) 2013

 Ah, 2013. Going to college, way into mail, lamenting the fact I did not do as much art (or writing!) as I used to. The perfect conditions for an art journal to emerge into existence.

Unfortunately, the best pages in this journal are way too personal to want to put online. Like holy shit. So let's snoop at a few tamer ones.

Oh hey, what's that on the cover, is it that one picture?

The first page, to be contrary, was a collection of reasons I didn't think starting an art journal was a good idea. My favorite one: "Journaling is for self-important assholes who draw too many self portraits." eeyup.

Crane your neck and squint. So much texture on this page. The mellow background is so rare for my work, I love it.

I used to paint and draw a lot of peppers. Why peppers? I'm allergic to most flowers. The stamp I was testing was for... I don't know what it was for. I know for a fact this juxtaposition was to make good use of space and not intentional content wise, but it's a pretty good snapshot of my personality at the time, whatever that means.

This page cracks me up. The exercise was from a book on journaling (not entirely sure which one). I have no idea what I had against ascots, or business law, or half of the things that make up my "inner critic". I will chalk up the anti-starbucks sentiment to being a Seattle-ite coffee snob though. 

This post is a continuation of my old sketchbook series. For the last installment, click ye here.

Deep Dark Secrets + Happy Thoughts

So some fucker keeps making posts about her goddamn comp books and after enough posts about them and obsessing over how cool and fun it looked, I decided to make one...

under the conditions that I was a) not keeping it and b) not blogging about it. 

The last thing I needed was to be self conscious while I worked on this bullshit, especially since I have been posting so much of my art on instagram. Actually working on this project made me realize I have to cut back on that, even at the cost of not being as "present" on social media. As much as I don't do well in a void, I don't do well without my void to retreat to, either. 

The reason I didn't want to keep it was the same. I wanted to be able to put whatever I wanted in it without worry about who around the house picked it up and read it. Without worrying about myself reading it. 

With that said, here's the cover and the 6 pages (out of 40+) that I am ok with sharing. It's been sitting under my desk in an envelope for a few weeks now, I really gotta get it mailed off.

The cover. This comp book was a Christmas gift, otherwise I would never have just had one on hand and therefore never done this project.

Learned a few pages in that you really need to tape 2 pages together or you get bleed through awful. I should have just bought, idk, a fucking sketchbook.

Also. I go through a stupid amount of black watercolor.

There are definitely a good few completely silly pages. It is Deep Dark Secrets AND Happy Thoughts, after all. I lost my shit the entire time I was making this page. Still lose my shit looking at that mug sometimes.

Over arching theme.

This magazine clipping will never not make me laugh.

Stamp tests.

And the truth. I have always had a really weird hatred for comp books, probably the standard size, thin pages, boring covers, unforgiving binding, weird warping if you look at them wrong. But in a way, I actually enjoyed all those things while working on this. I liked that I had to tape pages together, I liked that it getting fucked up and crinkly and weird was inevitable, I liked the obnoxious lines through my drawings. It kept it casual.

I want to make another, or else adopt the lax nature into my written journals.

Probably not in another comp book though.