Imagine your soul bloom
in my art journal
imagine your soul bloom...
Flowers have a way of blooming in unexpected places. A crack in the pavement is often enough for nature to take over! In the same way, we don’t need the perfect conditions to let our creativity bloom. We may not have much time or the “perfect” space, or the “right” art supplies, but as long as we commit to our creative dreams, eventually they will grow and flourish!
These past weeks I have had very little time for art (and a looot of time on the computer). My studio is also 70% packed up for our upcoming move. BUT I’m keeping my art journal open on my table with essential supplies, so that I can create in tiny pockets of time. Often it’s just ten minutes before going to bed, but little by little, the layers build up and the story unfolds.
From paint left-overs to beautifully imperfect blooms, discover the process of this colorful art journal page below!
The page started very organically by using up the paint leftovers from other pages and a large floral painting. With lots of pinks and green in these first layers, the page naturally started to have a floral feel too. It’s very easy and fun to create flowers by playing with a round paint brush: each stroke naturally creates a petal and when you go in a circle, you quickly end up with the shape of a flower.
I kept adding to this page while working on other things for several months, sometimes adding a bit of collage or outlining the flowers with a pencil, just to relax. Then it was time to take it to the next step!
I gathered a bundle of collage elements, some of which were lying around on my table and on the floor. I found a magazine page with bright, India-inspired borders and decided to make the page brighter and bolder.
I had found the word “imagine” on a scrap of paper and it called to me, so I played with it and more cut-out words to see what story wanted to emerge. I journaled over the page with a white Posca pen as well. It’s always a great way to invite inspiration to flow!
With this cluster of words on the right-hand page, I needed a real focal point on the left page. Something to create a conversation between the two, and tell the story visually. I had just been leading a group through a lesson from my class Flower Flow, where we did scribbly, grunged up flowers with a water-soluble pencil and our non-dominant hand.
It was late at night and I could only spot a regular 3B graphite pencil on my table, so I grabbed it and gave it a go. It didn’t smudge as much, but just enough to create a soft look I really liked. In just a few minutes, flowers filled the page!
I played with cut-out words some more and found the phrase “the ideal spot for putting down roots”. I love this because to me it means that we can bloom wherever we are planted. This ideal spot is simply here and now. I added these words at the root of the flowers
On the left page I simply settled for “imagine your soul bloom”. Imagination is so powerful and very often, all we need is to allow ourselves to dream and imagine new possibilities, for them to start taking root and growing in our lives. Imagination is the little seed that leads to our dreams coming true!
What if you took a moment to close your eyes and imagine your creative soul blossoming. What would it take? How can you plant this seed today?
Then finally, it was all about bringing the page together with finishing touches, especially plenty more color with inks, crayons and coloring pencils (see my list of favorite art supplies here).
I hope this page and its process will inspire you to get creating too! If you’d like to learn more about art journaling, I have a whole page of free resources for you, including video tutorials, flip-throughs of my journals and plenty more blog posts showing you the process of different pages:
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