Life Book 2015

Life Book 2015

I have taken a few weeks out of my calendar to put the finishing touches on my Life Book project (yes, sadly from 2015!).  I decided how I wanted to bind the pages, and what to use for the cover.  I have had practice with the binding process, (see these art journals here). You can also read more about the Life Book class on this link!

 

I painted this lovely bright flower painting when I was in elementary school.  It is acrylic on canvas, and I still had it after all these years!  I wrapped it around some book board to make a cover for my Life Book.  I just love the symbolism of where I started and where I have been going with art education! Plus, I am still a sucker for primitive art.  I remember when I painted this, how frustrated I was at the inability to control the thickness of the line with the black paint. Now, I kind of like it!

Here is the inside and cover page.  You can see where I wrapped the canvas painting around to the inside and covered with a piece of paper.

There are too many pages to show, and I think some of the projects are proprietary, so I can't show them all anyway.  However, this assignment was my favorite.  It had a formula that was easy to follow, but made easier by the fact that I had many unused postcards of my artwork that I was able to cut up and put on the luggage tags.  It made them so much more personal and fun for me.  I also used Mistyfuse to fold over the top of the tags with some of my batiked and dyed fabric circles.  Then I punched the hole through all the layers before tying the floss on.  I loved these so much that I used them on my luggage for a trip last summer.  They held up well and helped identify our bags quickly.  I also like them for small gifts and bookmarks.  I like them so much, that I keep making more!  Great project!

The right side of this photo, that was cut off, was one of our first assignments.  I paired pages from class either with other class pages or paintings made for fun and then put the back sides together.  I taped the inner edge and hand sewed the other 3 edges of the pages.  That way I had finished images on both sides of each page.  I like the texture of the hand sewn floss around the artwork too.  The above image shows a class assignment (cut off) on the right and a small watercolor I did at the beach the following year.  I thought the colors looked well together, so they were paired up.

Here's another random page from my book.  The right side was an assignment.  There is a letter folded and tied with ribbon in the center of the right page.  The left page was just PLAY.  I love the abstract nature of the image and how fun it was to put together.  And, I like the way the 2 pages play together.

These two pages were all about acknowledging and appreciating our support systems.  The paper dolls were individualized to real people in my life, and have messages on them.  I had fun with this too, so I added our resident house cats, and some flowers (for good measure).  I painted a blue background and stitched on some organza pockets.  The assignment on the right was very similar. And though I'm not sure if these projects or crafts rise to the level of art, it just didn't matter to me.  I had fun doing it and it was meaningful.  (see #4 below).

I will reiterate that in spite of being somewhat reluctant and resistant, I DID learn the processes, and eventually learned how to put it together with my own voice.  I also gave myself permission to skip the lessons that were the least interesting to me. 

The absolute best things I got out of this class:
1.  Knowledge.  I know what matte medium is now! and Stabilo pencils! and watercolor crayons!
2.  Freedom to explore.  I no longer feel inhibited or intimidated by the supplies.
3.  Joy from playing.  With no intention in mind, I can start painting and it feels like playing.  I love it!
4.  Healing.  A number of the assignments worked on a deeper, subconscious, and intuitive place.  I loved the guided meditations.  I loved the assignments geared to working on issues.  These were the BEST!

Thanks so much Tamara!