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Heya !

I hope your week-end was wonderful. We spent our Sunday in sunny Seattle so I could attend the last day of the exhibit stop of the Sketchbook Project 2011.

I signed up last year after seeing lots of my artsy friends enrolling and thought that having a goal and a deadline would be a change I was willing to try. It was really motivating to share this with friends, encouraging each other along the way, sharing the blocks we were facing here and there on the road to finish it and sending it back to Brooklyn.

It was an amazing experience. Even if I had loooong periods of doubts, wondering why the hell did I sign up for such a big project, or if I will have enough inspiration to fill all the pages (I ended up glueing most of them together).

I knew a long time ago that the tour will come in Seattle for 3 afternoons and we planned to come down there months ago. But of course, I DID forget about it and the week-end got packed with invitations and stuff to do. My husband is the bestest (as you know now, lol) and agreed to cancel all we got scheduled for Sunday and spend the day in Seattle.

When we passed by the address on the street, I could not believe my eyes: there was such a long queue of people waiting on the sidewalk !!!
The space where the sketchbooks were was tiny so it was impossible to stay in (so happy it was a sunny day… which is as rare in Seattle than it is in Vancouver).
Unfortunately, I was able to check only 6 sketchbooks as the queue was forever growing. I was able to see the journals of Lisa Wilson and Carmen Hirkala: A-MA-ZING ♥♡♥♡♥

Here is how it works:

• When you are a participating artist, you receive a art-house library card so you can go to the exhibit, if you are a “visitor” you have to create one on site (it only takes like 20 seconds to do so). Thanks to it, they know which sketchbooks you took and if the artist chose so s/he will be notified by email that X browsed through his/her sketchbook in which city.

• When you finally arrive inside, some nice people from Art-House are with their computers and you have two choices: you select one of the themes and they give you 2 random sketchbooks from it, or you can look for a special artist to look (and then they will give you another book of the same theme to look at). Know that you can only see 2 sketchbooks at a time, and they have to belong to the same category. You can take the time you want BUT you have to stay there (obviously).

What happened is that most people went back in the queue directly so they could see the sketchbooks while waiting to return them and check some more.
I was able to eye some of the already checked sketchbooks while waiting and loved what I saw. So many different styles and approaches. People DARED to do it their way. I wish I had. Some totally re-bound the journal and it was visually strikingly beautiful and sometimes more than original.

People looked very happy to be there, to discover artists’ work and universes, talking to others. I saw children, people from the artistic industry, crafters, old people, men, women. AMAZING !

Some pictures for you to enjoy (click to enlarge):

I did 2 videos back then to show you my experience, the first is the cover and the second one is the flip-through the finished journal. I will update the post when I’ll have the link to my digitalized sketchbook. Here it is:

So… after talking a bit with my husband (not that I need his approval but I love having his input regarding my stuff), I decided to sign-up for the 2012 edition. First of all, the tour is going international ! They’ll come in our city (Vancouver), in Toronto, in Australia in and England. And I am stronger as it will be the second time. Apparently they changed the journal (It won’t be a Moleskine anymore) for something with a better green impact and a better paper (mucho artists complained about the very thin paper). BUT I think a will create a journal on my own (it is not against the rules, as long as it respects the size measurements of the journal they send us).
If you want to know more about it, it’s right here.

Which ones of you participated in one of the previous editions ? How was it ? Have you signed up for the 2012 one ? Would love to know the theme you chose 🙂

Another journal is now closed as this third journal is completely filled up But I already have the fourth one ready to receive my thoughts.

I so love browsing the old journals when finished, see the evolution, bringing back the memories (good and less good). Being the only one knowing what is behind what we can see in these pages.

Here is the video for you to enjoy (I hope):

If you want me to talk about a specific page, don’t be shy and just ask 🙂

If you follow my adventures on facebook, twitter or even on flickR, you got a taste of my latest mixed media painting almost step by step.

I don’t know what sparks your creativity, but songs and music is a huge trigger for me. A sentence, a word and BAM a lots of images are being created in my mind.

A few months ago, I told you just a little bit about Pink’s song «Fucking Perfect». This song, this video, moved a lot of stuff in me. Some of these things that belong to the past and you wish to never think of again; but that come back sometimes without any warning signal and spank you violently. This is what happened when I first watched this video that left me breathless, the tears running like a torrent from my eyes, sobbing in front of my computer. How could this be happening ?
When my husband asked me to put some words, to speak about what this song was doing to me, I was uncapable of producing a single word. It is always like this when emotions take over. Words are piling up in my throat, willing to get out, and stay stuck in there forming a huge painful lump. It took me months to write everything down about it. 5 pages got dark of words in my journal. Come back in the past, analyze, thank, appreciate the path that is mine since then and that brought me where I am now. It forged me with a hot iron. Something bad leading to something better ?

The end of her music video acted like my own special prophety. It arrived in my life perfectly on time when I needed it, when my heart was heavy with doubts about what I should do, where I will end eventually. This was the light at the end of tunnel.

I felt the need to put this into images, and this is how “Perfect” was born.
I must confess that Fear invented herself along. Fear that the finished painting would be ugly. Fear of being overwhelmed by emotions that would be too strong for me. Fear to get too attached to the painting. Fear of what you could see in it. But when I look at it, I realized that it is light and discrete. I am the keeper of her secrets, the only one to know what is hidden underneath the layers, under of glitters in her hair, why there are tears in her eyes.

She taught me not to be affraid when a step deflects from what I had originally in mind.
She taught me to embrace imperfections.
She allowed me to go on more serenely.

I still have one tiny thing to do that is linked with her. I have to dare doing what I have in mind…

YES ! I finally put one of my handmade Art Journal for sale in my ETSY shop.

This one belongs to the «sewn-over-tape» category, which I really love as the spine is beautifully exposed.
It is not perfectly perfect, but you can tell it is handmade for sure.

The cover is a piece of Mixed Media by itself, made with acrylic paint, ColorShots from LindyStampGang, watersoluble crayons and more.

The paper I use is sturdy, it is the Fabriano Medioevalis paper. I love the grungy feels of the torn paper edges and above all it allows you to play with acrylic paint, watercolour, collage or whatever you love to do in your own Art Journal.
This is the paper I currently have in my own journal and it never bleeded through.

You have the possibility to add your own title at no charge.
If not, i will add «I have the power to create» before shipping it to you, simply because this is the words I heard while I was creating the journal.

A few more pictures (click on it to enlarge):

Here is the video I talked to you about in a previous post.

I know I said I would record my voice over to explain what I was doing along but the sound did not work and I was not able to do it, so I decided to publish it like that. But good news: my husband finally found how to fix it so you may hear me in the next video (yay !).

Here it is:

A few explanation and clarification:

• For the first step (the colorful background) I used watersoluble crayons from Caran D’Ache (the Neocolor II) but you can use anything you want. I love the fact I can apply color without being too careful.
  You can use watercolor, acrylic paint… whatever you want. Just put some color on there !!!
• I had this sentence in mind so I decide to write with the masking fluid, but of course you can simply draw. I used a paintbrush and immediately rinsed it when I was done so the fluid did not have time to dry. My masking fluid is from Pebeo; I do not recommend you this brand as it litterally stinks and is not that good (I wanted something cheap… next time I put a bit more money for a better product). Some brands have a masking fluid with an applicator tip, would be great.
  Wait for it to dry thoroughly before going on. You’ll know it is dry as the color changes a bit
• You do not see it on the video but whan I knew my page was done, I sprayed it with a pastel fixative. By doing it, I am not afraid the pastel will go away eventually. And I won’t have purple pastel on my fingers everytime I turn the pages of my journal.
• NOTE: instead of PanPastels, you can use watercolor or thinned down acrylic paint. Making fluid was created to be used with watercolor 😉

If you try this technique, come and show me ! Would love to see it 🙂