Where Lost Thoughts Go

The Place Where Lost Thoughts Go

Art journaling challenge - Page 3

Today I’m sharing the third page since starting my Art Journaling Challenge, yay! That in itself feels like quite an achievement. This is a personal challenge I am doing for myself, my soul, my creativity, and also hopefully to inspire you! I still have 7 more pages to go before the end of December: scary but doable. You will find the rest of the pages here:

The Art Journaling Challenge:

I’ve decided to finish my current art journal by the end of the year so I can start a brand new one on January 1st! I’ll be sharing the pages each week and you’re invited to follow along. You can even set your own goal to end the year in a creative way!

And to celebrate, I will reopen enrollment for my art journaling class, The Artist & the Journal, in the first week of January too.

OK, here we go: I’ve decided to start with some half-done pages, and this is the last one of those, then I have quite a few blank pages to tackle… there will be a video about that in the next post! For now, here is my starting point:

The first layer of this spread was made of book pages and gesso during a class demo, then in another live class I used it again to demonstrate some image transfers (the iron gazebo on the right page and the green plant on the left page). I quite liked the spread already at this stage and didn’t touch it again for a while, apart from adding some paint and ink leftovers in places.

I often work on my pages in tiny pockets of time, five minutes here, two minutes there… One day I grabbed the journal and added a bit of journaling. Sometimes, the simple act of opening my “Book of Days”, as I call it, is enough to open the gates of thoughts and emotions. They’re all welcome to the page, there’s no judging, no right or wrong. It doesn’t even have to make sense.

What came up that day were musings about forgotten thoughts: where do they go? Is there a place where they live on after we forget them? I don’t really know where that came from, and I don’t need to know. I quite like the mystery of this process…

I left the page as it was for many months, maybe even over a year. And when I started this art journaling challenge, I took a good look at it, wondering if I would call it done or if I wanted to keep playing with it. This idea of lost thoughts felt intriguing and eventually, I decided to explore it a bit more. But I knew from the start I didn’t want to overwork the page, only deepen its story a little.

Looking through my basket of paper scraps, I selected a few that “felt right” with the atmosphere of the page. And I happened upon this mysterious image of a lantern reflected in an antique mirror. It reminded me of Alice Through the Looking Glass.

I glued each paper element in place, then added a few touches of matching colors with alcohol inks and crayons, outlined some edges with a pencil...

The song from the Mary Poppins movie, “The Place Where Lost Things Go”, started playing at the back of my mind and made me want to find out more.

One of my favorite ways to explore a story and let it come to life almost on its own, is to play with cut-out words. Just like “found poetry”, I like to play with “found stories”. And given that I was exploring the theme of “lost” things and thoughts, that seemed like the perfect next step.

I picked up any words that resonated in the moment and placed them on the journal spread. I played with them for a bit. Some came together like magic, others didn’t feel right after all and I discarded them, to keep only a few.

I glued the ones that resonated the most on the journal spread, then allowed myself some time to journal again, using the found words as a starting point and letting thoughts flow very naturally and spontaneously. I always find it such a relaxing and surprising process.

Then it was time for finishing touches, which are such a magical part of the journey because everything finally comes together. They’re also an opportunity to get really playful and have fun while coming back from the rabbit hole, and taking a step back from what can sometimes be a rather intense and emotional process.

I added wings to evoke the fleeting, elusive nature of memories, and the French word “oubli” to complete my focal point.

So here is my completed page. I’m happy that I managed to build on what was already there and not overwork it (which can sometimes be a challenge!) I like its moody, grungy and poetic atmosphere, and the journey it took me through. Like I said, every emotion is allowed in the journal, every thought, every unanswered question.

I often feel like my journal is a portal, a magical mirror where I can catch a glimpse of other worlds if I just let go and let imagination take the lead…

Do you sometimes feel this way about your art? Your journal? Your creative process? You can tell me in the comments and even post a picture of something you created lately.

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THE ARTIST & THE JOURNAL

I’m excited to keep going with my Art Journaling Challenge! The 3 pages I’ve shared so far were already half-done but the remaining ones are mostly blank, which is a little scary! I can’t wait to share about them with you in my next post (with a little video!) Stay tuned and get creating!