Art Journaling.

One of my absolute favorite things to do is experimenting in my Art Journal.
It´s a fun way to play with color and layout. I like to have a couple of different sizes of journals to choose from. Sometimes you have a lot on your mind and need the space to create, or you just want to test out a new color combination and don´t need a big page.
I really like Moleskine Journals. I prefer the Watercolor or Sketchbook. They have nice thick paper that goes well with paint and other mixed media.
I "Gesso" (primer) my pages before starting and I always make sure that I have a couple of pages prepared ready to go.

Here I tried out an orange-green combination. Orange and red are new colors for me.
I have usually worked with blue-green and earth colors.
I used green to contrast and compliment the redness.

The girl in the picture is me , age 2. I like to think of this work as how I feel when I´m Art Journaling: Happy and Smiling.

I need to challenge myself with colors, because fun things do happen when you are experimenting!

Finding courage.

This summer Amnesty International Norway organized what in Norwegian is called "plakatdugnad", which roughly translated means "poster volunteer work". Here, Amnesty urged people to submit any type of art work with the theme TO LOVE IS A HUMAN RIGHT, where some of these art works would be made into posters and used at a music festival in Oslo. My good friend, neighbor and a talented photographer, Synnøve Zynne Tilrem (http://facebook.com/Zynnephoto), challenged me to send in something of my own.

I had never done anything like that before. Frankly , I felt terrified. The work I have done all these years have always only been just for me, something I loved doing and not for others to evaluate. I haven´t been in habit of showing my work to anyone but family and a small group of friends. Even though the people closest to me always gave encouraging feedback, it seemed like a huge leap: letting people I don´t know see what had been safe, in a way, by just being a personal passion and for my own pleasure.

Usually, my work starts out with some sort of idea or a mental sketch of what I would like to end up with, but the end product is often quite another then the first idea I had. My contribution to Amnesty´s "plakatdugnad" was something I had to think about for several days. What was different about this work process, was of course the fixed theme. After some trial pages of art journaling, this is what I came up with:

Even though my contribution was not selected amongst the 60 other volunteers to become a poster for Amnesty, I´m still so happy I actually went for it and sent my work out for others to see. For, as I learned in Flying Lessons:

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do".
-Eleanor Roosevelt.

Facing my fears.

I have had a dream for many years: TO LIVE A CREATIVE LIFE.
One of my big goals has been to start a blog, but I have been terrified of not getting it right.
So I decided to join Kelly Rae Roberts Flying lessons, and I´m so excited about that!
Today is the day...I´m gonna face my fears and just do it.
What have I been waiting for?

I have been in love with arts and crafts since I was a little girl. I love everything about being creative.
I get excited when I try new technics and challenge myself with colors and designs.
For the last year, mixed media and art journaling has been my passion.
Here are some of my latest work.

Mixed media canvas.
Butterfly collage image from Paperwhimsy.

Mixed media canvas.
Stork collage image from Paperwhimsy.

One of my Art Journaling pages.
Moth collage image from Tumble Fish Studio.