2011 Year in Review: Aha!

I wish I had taken more pictures of this page in progress. The way it came together was total perfection! I had done an image transfer a few days before using the same trees -- and wanted to try something different with them -- and what better place then in my journal!

For these trees I opened my image file in Photoshop Elements and made it a reverse -- so instead of black trees on a white sky I had white trees on a black sky. You see where I'm going with this don't you? I also made it large enough to cover both pages of my journal and printed it on regular computer paper.

Instead of an image transfer I glued the image right to my art journal using my trusty and MUCH loved UHU glue stick. 

Random piece of Useless Trivia -- did you know that UHU Glue sticks come from Winthrop Maine, yes my neck of the woods. Nothing comes from Maine. ha ha. I didn't know this until my stash ran out and I found out that JoAnn's doesn't carry UHU anymore and I was trying to find out if they were still in business. 

I did seal the image with some type of spray preservative (can't for the life of me remember what it's called) to keep the ink from my printer from running all over kingdom come and my journal pages before I glued it down. 

When I had painted the rest of the sky black and added the orange sky to the bottom of the page and an orange wash to the trees I had to sit down, ha ha -- just kidding. But it WAS a total aha moment for me. I thought I heard Oprah Winfrey say aha in my head. 

It reinforced to me that EXPERIMENTATION is KEY to discovering new techniques and without that my art will always end up looking the same. It reinforced that I need to continue to document my life -- and my dreams -- and that without doing that I -- Yes -- I will wither up and my creativity will crumble away. It reinforced to me that my tiny thoughts, ideas and experimentations can be so totally worth it -- if I just try them. I just have to try. That's it. Two little words. Just Try. Aha - maybe they should be my words for the year. 

When was the last time you had a creative aha moment? What did you discover - and did you document it? 

I'm leaving you with a lot to think about today. Have a WONDERFUL day -- and make it artful! Thanks for stopping by.