art journal – Page 3 – Mixy's Art Blog

25 more days of junk journaling

To celebrate the halfway mark in the 2020 #100dayproject, here’s a quick whizz through the next 25 pages in this ever evolving junk journal.

The 2020 #100dayproject
is over half way through!

To celebrate the halfway point, here’s the next 25 page skip through the pages in this ever evolving junk journal.

You can see the first 25 pages here 🙂

I am having the most fun making this!

I think the key to the 100 day project for me is to always be ahead of the game. Previously I’d find myself chasing my tail to get something done and posted every day. It got progressively less fun day by day!

That’s the reason I chose to make a junk journal for my 2020 project.

Every page is made from already started art – bits of dyed book pages, painted papers, oddments and scraps from around my studio.

So my foundations were solid this time.

And I’ve been adding to the pages ahead of time. As I find more things to add, or have left over paint to use up, I find a space in these pages and add a little bit more. When I’m stuck for ideas I pick up this little book and doodle a bit.

The one part for me that I keep to a strict daily practice is to number and date today’s page and post it to Instagram.

A side benefit is it’s a daily reminder what today’s date is – which right now is the only way I know!

So join me, will you?

I’m @mixygregory over on Instagram, and for the course of these 100 (or so) days I’m posting daily updates with the tags

#100daysbymixy and/or #100pagesbymixy

(because being consistent was never my strongest skill.)

25 days of junk journaling

To celebrate the Day 25 milestone in the 2020 #100dayproject, here’s a quick whizz through my first 25 pages in this ever evolving junk journal.

The 2020 #100dayproject
is a quarter of the way through!

To celebrate the Day 25 milestone, here’s a quick skip through the first 25 pages in this ever evolving junk journal.

I am having the most fun making this!

I’m finding use for all those bits of collage leftovers, the snippets and scraps, dyed and painted papers. All my odd in between bits of day are spent doodling in corners, outlining edges and shapes, filling spaces with stripes and spots, scribbles and squiggles.

Although I knew I’d made a few extra pages (because just in case) for the book (also because, it turns out they are a lot of fun to make too) …..aaaand I know I get carried away when I get enthralled in the making zone….

….But it turns out I’ve got closer to 200 than 100 pages to fill. Let’s see how it goes, but I might just keep going after the 100 days are up!

So join me, will you?

I’m @mixygregory over on Instagram, and for the course of these 100 (or so) days I’m posting daily updates with the tags

#100daysbymixy and/or #100pagesbymixy

(because being consistent was never my strongest skill.)

100 days of junk journaling

The 2020 #100dayproject begins Tuesday 7th April. This year I plan to do something a bit different.

The 2020 #100dayproject begins Tuesday 7th April.

I’ve taken part in this for the last 3 years. 2019 was the first time I achieved 100 consecutive daily posts on Instagram, of my daily art journal doodles.

This year I plan to do something a bit different.

100 creative acts in 100 days is no small undertaking.

Given that 2020 has the added factor being, so far, upside-down and spectacularly unpredictable, I’m factoring in a little more leeway to my 100 day project.

This year I’m going to explore 100 days of

Junk Journaling

As almost all the pages start out with something going on – some color or pattern – so I’ve got an easy starting point each day. On days that are full to bursting I can just add a few little doodles, a swipe of paint or some collaged bits. When studio time is more spacious I can be more inventive in the ways I can play.

So in readiness I gathered together an assortment of paper to use – scrap paper, painted, printed & dyed papers, book pages, maps, graph paper, tracing paper, envelopes and paper bags.

I like working fairly small, so I’ve made my pages no bigger than 6 inches square.

There’s a mix thick and thin, flimsy and heavyweight paper with torn and cut edges. (I kept hold of the offcuts to make collages with as I go through.)

I bound the pages into signatures of 5-6 sheets, plenty enough to make a spread every day + a couple of spare signatures for just in case.

The little 10-12 page booklets are a manageable size to work in, I figure I’ll find a way to bind them all together into a big chunky book when it’s finished. As is my way, I’m making this all up as I go along 😉

If you’re interested see how I made these bundles of book pages, take a peak at my process here:

So join me, will you? I’m @mixygregory over on Instagram, and for the next 100 days I’ll be posting daily updates with the tag #100daysbymixy

more page hopping

So I’m back to my art journal. Flipping back and forth, adding little bits here and there…

Finding a place in this new, weirder version of reality where it feels like all the adults have gone out, and we don’t know when they’ll be back. If they’ll be back. If it was all a big illusion all the time…

[optional move: fall down that rabbit hole then have to take another nap]

OR, try to get a foothold in what used to be normal.

Okay…

So I’m back to my art journal.

Flipping back and forth, adding little bits here and there. Not quite every day, but that’s what I’m aiming towards right now, to build a bit of structure back into my days.

Here’s what this new (temporary?) normal if looking like in my studio.

How are you doing?

If you’re just keeping home, keeping sane and washing your hands more than you used to, you’re doing well.

I’ll be back with the next color in my year full of color next week. Meanwhile, take good care my friends. X

a small distraction

Just for five minutes, let’s look away from all the chaos and uncertainty. Join me between the pages of my art journal. Let’s go hide out amid some squiggly doodles and swirls.

Friends, I’ve got a 5 minute distraction for you.

Let’s go hide out amid some squiggly doodles and swirls.

Just for five minutes, let’s look away from all the chaos and uncertainty – join me between the pages of my art journal.

I don’t (usually) start on the first page an art journal, or methodically work my way page by page through. It doesn’t have a right way up or an upside down. Everything goes everywhere.

(I’m far too flighty and easily distracted.)

Instead, I’ll flip back and forth, adding colors, shapes, doodles and scribbles in the spaces until it feels finished. This book is almost done, so I thought I’d share some of my page hopping doodle process.

Page Hopping Doodle Flip.

I hope you enjoyed this flip as much as I enjoyed making it. I’ll be back in a few days with an update on TWELVTY progress. Until then, take good care. Much love to you.

Home from home

3 weeks is a long time (too long) to be away from my studio, so I bundled up some necessaries for the trip and took a bit of time every morning to move some color about.

The first time I visited Cyprus was almost 20 years ago, and as I stepped off the plane, it felt like I’d come home. Something feels really familiar in the smell of hot dusty air. There were sounds and senses that did not seem at all foreign despite being 2000 miles from the place I’ve lived all my life.

Over the years I’ve been back many times, and never lost this home from home feeling.This year I wangled a way to spend 3 weeks here, and had time to really soak myself into the surroundings: the rich vivid colours & heady scents of bougainvillea & jasmine – the sand between my toes – luxuriating like the the cats that roam and loll around every corner.

But 3 weeks is a long time away from my studio routines, so I bundled up some necessaries for the trip and took a bit of time every morning to move some color about.

These are colors I chose to take (mostly Daniel Smith’s watercolors – decanted into half pans in a little tin box).

I second guessed my choice after I swatched them out here – why so many colors so similar? but as it turned out they were just what I needed, vivid blues & magentas amid the warm stony earth tones..

I’m not much of a landscape painter – my camera is for catching actual views – leaving my sketchbook as the place for playing with ideas.

The ideas I found myself playing with was the similarities and echoing patterns, repeating undulations, the ripples in the water with the curve of the waves, the textures in rocks and stones, the shifting shapes of shadows in the early autumn breeze. Mixing and remixing, folding ideas together into an endless series of permutations.

Re-entry

I feel I’m like returning a bit at a time after a long trip away – this time it took almost a week to really gather myself together into one place. What eased the transition was the pages in this book that overlapped the geography. The patterns of the travels merged into the patterns of usual daily doings & the edges between the two worlds blurred.

Catch this month’s newsletter to see a flip through of these pages to find out where this little collection of images leads next!

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Doodles over doodles

Part 5 of the time lapse comps.

Part 5 of the time lapse comps

Since I finished my 100 days project I’ve been editing together some of the time lapse process videos to look back at the evolution of these pages. Here is part 5.

Ink over gesso never fails to make me happy.

water splashes on ink on gesso make magical patterns

In this spread I began by gessoing over a page of scribbled color. Then came pebeo colorex inks running through the gesso texture, then ecoline brush pens for their juicy transparent colors that layer like nothing else.

If I’d left this page there, I would have been happy, but this challenge involved pushing through a few ‘finished already’ stages into new territory, in this case it was with water-soluble graphite and watercolor pencils, then lastly a white chalk marker.

You can see more from this series here

Get first looksies at what I’m playing with now in my monthly-ish studio musings emails – join up here

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Stitching together 100 days

Over the weeks and months these pages changed beyond recognition. This is a snapshot into the evolution.

This week we reached the end of the #100dayproject. Every day for over 3 months I posted my daily doodles to Instagram. Yikes!

Sometimes just photos, but for the most part, I shared little 30 second or so time lapse videos.

This is an art journal I’ve been doodling back and forth through for a long time. Every day I’d find a page that wanted something new, different colors or just had a space to fill. I’d scribble down words that caught my attention in a podcast or song lyrics, I’d sketch and play and add bits of scraps of stuff from my desk.

There are no rules in a book like this, nothing can go *wrong*. It’s all subject to change, it’s all ephemeral.

Over the weeks and months these pages changed beyond recognition. This is a snapshot into the evolution.

Evolving ideas

You can see a full flip through of this book by joining up for my newsletter. I share monthly (-ish) musings from my studio, first looksies at what I’m making, and exclusive discounts in my online sales, but if that’s not your jam you can unsubscribe at any time.

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awol, presumed doodling.

I’ve been off line for a while, playing in the analogue world of paints and glue and little bits of torn up paper. Recharging & recombobulating. Playing with things like this.

I’ve been off line for a while, playing in the analogue world of paint and scribbles and little bits of torn up paper. Recharging & recombobulating. Playing with things like this.

This book lived on my desk through the first half of this year. Over the weeks and months it grew fat and messy with ‘while I’m waiting’ doodles, with mopped up paint spills, scraps of stuff, with the words and ideas that were orbiting my mind.

When it was all done, I made this quick flip thro vid:

And when I say quick, I know it’s super quick. So here’s a more leisurely stroll through some of the pages, and some of the ideas that keep rolling back into my art.

Stories unfold from the words I’m listening to in audio books and podcasts, and the characters evolve from magazine pages, advertisements and found paper.

Lines of text set against rows or polkadots, knitted together with scribbly handwriting. Faces in the spaces.

Backgrounds from maps: borrow the contour lines, take them off wandering into new places.

Cut out shapes from scrap paper.

Add eyes and whiskers: see them come to life.

Writing down the words I heard and want to remember later.
I leave notes and messages for me-in-the-future scattered through my art.

“There’s a reason why we get the ideas we get.”
(so it’s important to put them someplace safe until they’re ready to use)

Then there’s the found poetry from song lyrics, Inertia blue zero freeze.
(idk)

Dotted lines around the edges make me happy: as any small child will tell you, they’re really fun to do. Especially in time to music.

Texture in sticky thick paint, like tree branches or arteries, reminds me art is alive and part of nature. And vice versa.

Messing about with perspective with angles and lines. Inventing new people.
Anything’s possible in a book.

These words were pinned to my wall of ideas, making space for new things, now they’re rehomed in the book. Keep things you love in sight, always.

Negative space: white paint dampens the cacophony of color.

Opportunity is everywhere. It really is.

Case in point, I collect cards at art fairs, copying shapes, giving this gal a sister.

Copying faces, shapes and tricky things like hands.

Dropped in here and there amid all the noise and color takes the pressure off.

How they look isn’t important when they merge in with all this stuff.

Keep playing, keep making it up as you go along. That’s really all there is.

My next project is a weeny little sketchbook for the Tiny Book Collaboration.

If you’d like to be first to see what I’m making and doing, hop aboard my mailing list right here

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A life full of color

Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.

Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.

(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)

Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.

Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.

(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)

A few years ago, rattled by some mid-life reminders of mortality, I finally fulfilled my life long ambition. But being an art student was as far as I’d thought this plan through. After spinning around in a self made feedback loop of regret for two decades, while I loved my time at college, I’d completely lost sight of the purpose.

My confusion was confounded when my course was cancelled after the foundation year. Before I’d time to consider my options my personal life fell apart, as a few weeks later my mum died.

Now I was free falling and had to find something to grasp onto, something simple I could rely on to slow the descent.

I needed a project to latch my focus to. I needed a subject I could immerse myself in. It had to be something creative, it had to be something colourful.

It just had to be color.

I hadn’t the bandwidth for anything more complex. I needed colors, but one at a time. No other rules. Just me, a book, and whatever paints and pens and things I had to hand. In just one color. I began with the color I felt most drawn to at the time, which was red-violet, magenta. It was soothing. It was all I had space for.

I took that year, one color at a time, one month at a time.

After another family bereavement a couple of months into my year long color project, I knew I needed some accountability, some way to keep this project afloat. That’s when I started this blog.

By the end of the year I’d created a this whole book full of color.

It’s still with me in my studio as a resource for inspiration – (that’s something I didn’t foresee when I began this project.)

(You can see it page by page here)

12 in 12 from mixy gecko on Vimeo.

As I showed my book of 12 colors to more of my artist friends, the idea of revisiting a year full of color began to develop. And they wanted in on it too.

So in 2017 I invented “TWELVTY“, a way of sharing the adventure around the color wheel with other creatives as an online program.

It’s been an astonishing journey, (which isn’t over yet) and I’ve learned so much (more on that in another post).

I didn’t expect to run Twelvty as a program with others again after this year – it’s been all consuming and I had other plans for 2018 – but Twelvty has plans for me too, it would appear.

So here we are, in preparation for:

We begin the journey in the new year, but registration is open from November.

I think it speaks for itself that some of this year’s Twelveteers have already joined up for a second trip around the color wheel in 2018!

There are a limited number of discounted places available to folks on my mailing list. If you aren’t signed up already – what the hey?!! – scoot down to the end of this post to add your email before they’re all swooped up!

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