The Long and the Short of it

Tomorrow is the last day of November, seems hard to believe that time has gone so fast and Christmas is upon us.  I do believe what they say about the older you get the faster time flies.  Seems it was just July and we were all at my sister's place on the lake having out Christmas in July.  The one time of the year when we are all (or most of us) together.  We have grown into a large group, coming from two girls!   Momma and Dad would be so damn proud, wish they could have lived to meet these new family members.
Tomorrow marks the last day of the on line class I have been taking in art journal.  I have so enjoyed the class, love the girl who is teaching, she has such a big personality and watching her videos you feel as if you can do anything!  She has been such a god send to me, I am truly loving what I am doing now with color, can't believe that I am getting to use a paint brush, the small kind!  I do believe that with age I have discovered a new kind of freedom, I don't seem so fearful of failure.  Where just a few years before I would never have tried to do some of the things that we were shown in the class.  Much less post pictures of what I have done!  I want to continue doing the daily art journal, this has meant to much to me to just stop now.
Next I want to be able to create my own journal, build the thing up from just paper and thread and see what kind of job I can do.
Thinking about the new year, what is one thing that I really want to do?  Loose weight!  I want to feel better, look better, dress nicer, Stella needs to get her groove back.  I know that my weight has been one reason I have felt so bad the last few days, in fact I know that if I don't do something my heart is not going to take it much longer, it's having to work to hard now.  I want to be here to watch my daughter become an "Ironman", I want to yell and scream when she runs across that finish line, I want her to know how proud I am of her, of what she has accomplished in her short life.  I want to travel to Austin to visit with Jason, I want him to be proud that I am his Mom and I want Johnny to be happy to be married to me.  It will be a lot of work, and it is going to take some time but I know I can do it.  It's time to put up or shut up!
Later

Kat Layton's photostream

Kat Layton's photostream on Flickr.

Have you found your nitch?

Through out my life, I have read about finding yourself, finding that thing that brings you joy.  In the 58 years that I have been here, alot of that time was spent raising my children, would not take anything for the time I had with them, but while they were at school and after all my work was done I wanted / needed some thing to fill up this void I had, I wanted to create something.  At first I took up embroidery, and loved every minute of it, learned every stitch and was good at it.  I moved on to crewel embroidery on linen, did several big projects, most of the things on my walls were things that I had made.  Just about everyone in my family got one or more of my pieces of work.  I moved on to creating things out of old jeans, would get comments from people wanting to know where I got what I had on.  When macrame first came out, I did as I have always done, got a book of directions and learned how to do just about every knot there was to do, and created so many things.  Even had a job making these purses for a shop in the town where I lived.  Then I started making quilts, my favorite part was making the top, I got to work with color that way, my most favorite kind of quilt to make was the amish.  I loved to work with the solid colors with the black as the main color.  I took a tole painting class at one point when it was so big and oh how I wanted to be able to do this type of work.  To be honest I was so afraid of failure that I did not really try.  I completed the class but felt that the instructor did more of the work than I did.  So I kinda said I was going to have to give up that dream of ever being able to express myself with any type of paint and paper.  Along came cross stitch and I loved it! I loved to create samplers, the older looking the better, the smaller the linen the better as well.  I have them in my home today and I'm still proud of that work. I learned to stencil, did floor cloths, and stenciled just about every room in my home at one point.  Even did rooms for my friends on their birthdays as a way of letting them know how much them meant to me. Taught myself how to knit and crochet, smocked dresses for my daughter that she hated. Needle point, easy to do esp while riding in the car.  If it is done with a needle, I have done it. 
In 2006 my daughter (my baby) got married, and few months later, my Momma passed.  I found myself with this huge empty place.  Two of my most favorite people in the world did not need me as before and I did not know what to do with myself.  I deal with depression and at this point in my life I felt as if each day was a battle. 
Then my Dad passed, my aunt passed, my grandmother passed, my Dad's brother passed!  It was unreal, I was also a bit estranged from my oldest son.  How can you be a bit estranged? Well, he might call once a year, or twice if I was lucky.  This in and of itself was heartbreaking for me,
Around the end of 2006 I started scrapping and loved it but did not feel that I was very good at it.  I loved to work on a layout with pics of my children, mostly of my daughter.  I found that I only wanted to work on picture that was current, the ones of the children when they were younger seemed to really get me down, also if I worked on a layout with a pic of my Momma, I would be depressed for a couple of days.  I have scrapped for over 5 years and I would not take anything for the layouts I have.
Then one day I came upon a blog about art journals, I have kept a journal since I was in my 30's with only the writing never any type of art work, I can't do art!  I found that I kept going back to this blog (Julie Balzer) just about every day and then I would look for more, until I could spend my day just reading all these blogs about art journals. I'm not sure what possessed me to order a watercolor journal but I did, and when it got here and I took a look at it, all these white pages, I was scared to death!  What was I thinking? But I took the next step and put color to the paper and omg it was so much fun!  I would watch videos and I would hear Julie say there is no wrong way to do this, and I started to believe her!  I told myself I had to try new techniques, to think out of the box, not to be afraid of the way things turned out.  As long as I was pleased I was doing it right.  That was about 10 weeks ago and I go to bed thinking/creating this and I get up and can't wait to get into my room to do more and more.  I'm taking 3 classes right now and I'm so excited about the things I am learning about this type of art and about myself.
I have learned that for most of my life I have be afraid of failure, of not doing the right thing at the right time. That I would disappoint someone.  That I would not try to do things for that fear, it has held me back in so many ways.  I have always feared that others would find out how afraid I was and think even less of me.  I have always had abandonment issues, I'm sure this fear fed this even more.  This art journal thing has made me feel joy, a joy that I have created, it did not come for any one else, I did it for me.  Whether what I create is good, that really is not the point of what I'm doing, this is freeing me from some of that fear that I have had since I was a child and it feels good.  It feels good to express myself on paper doing something other than writing.  No I can't draw, I'm not creating masterpieces, but I'm having a ball, using water colors, brushes, I'm getting my fingers stained and colored which I love!!!! 
My daughter is a runner by choice, she has done a 1/2 Iron Man and is training now for a full Iron Man next November.  She has this passion for doing this, it is not a chore, it is a way of life for her.  It is her nitch, it's what makes her....her.  It is always on her mind, the next run, the next workout, the next bike ride.  Some people don't get it, but I do, I totally get it, I have wanted to create for most of my life, I have done a lot of things with my hands, now I'm doing it with my heart.

She Art Workshop 2

I just signed up for the She Art Workshop 2 and I can't wait to get started, however I do need to finish She Art Workshop 1!  I was a bit late getting into the first class and when I saw that the  #2 class was starting and would not be available again until next year I went ahead and signed up for it.  I need to concentrate on these two classes right now and put the other journals aside for a while.
I am learning so much about this mixed media, this has really been almost a life changing experience for me, I find myself thinking about it, seeing things in a new light, I feel now that I have a good reason to get out of bed in the morning and at night I have trouble walking away from it. LOL!  Trust me this is a good thing for me.  I have been so involved with it that I don't have time to feel whether I am depressed or not, I just want to work in these journals.  Also I have discovered so many new artist out there, they each have their own style and technique, it's learning from the masters right here in the comfort of your own home.  What is better than that.
I'm not one who has enjoyed the crop or the getting together with others to do any of this type of work, I have always preferred to work alone, hell I prefer to be alone................. period, who am I trying to kid?  But for the past 6 weeks I have so enjoyed getting together with my sister and my niece to work for a few hours together, it's like our show and tell!!!!  We have been meeting every other week, due to the distance between us, it is like an hour and half to get to where they live, I am the one who gets to travel the most, but that is fine, I'm one who loves to get in my little car and turn up the music and drive.  Any way, I'm already looking forward to next week when I get to go up and see them, see their work, have a cup of joe and play some more.
Until next time, keep on keeping on!

Journal

This class rocks! I am loving every minute I spend working in my art journal!  Seems I learn some new every day and the fear is not at the level it once was.  We are up to day 11 and so far so good.

1st week in 30 in my journal

2nd week in 30 in my journal

2nd week of 30 in my journal

Second Week working in my art journal

To say that I am loving this experience does not begin to describe how much I am enjoying this class.  First of all I love to watch Julie Balzer's videos, I love to hear her talk while she is doing her art, the way she will express different things, her Ta-Da moments.  To me she is one of the most laid back people I have ever seen, I would love to meet her one day.  She gets the point across that there are no wrong ways to do this, if you get paint on or off, it does not matter, it will just flow.
The first two page spread I did not have any problems, enjoyed each entry, even found myself wishing we were spending more time "together".  Then when we started the next two page spread that is when I hit the wall.  OMG, I did not create mud I created something that I called brain matter, all ugly gray.  I wanted to cry, I was using a water proof ink pad but for some reason it was bleeding into my spray.  I would dry the page and add more spray but that did not help at all.  So I gesso the page all over again and started again, the black still would come thru, so my two page spread is like murky water.  I had to get up and walk out of the room I was so upset.  Talking to myself, I kept saying there is no right or wrong, make it work.  So after taking a break and talking, I went back to the journal and took a hard look at what I had to work with and decided to make it an underwater page!  Works for me.  You be the judge.

30 Days In Your Journal

So today is day two and so far so good, I can and will do this.  I have kept a journal for years now I am just going to add color.