Seen with the Heart

I'm spending a lot of time in my journal lately. Another one of those habits that I'm working hard to make a part of my life. The drawing and painting really make me happy -- and the color too. The photo below shows what this page looked like before I added any color to it.  Now if I could just make the treadmill part of my life again, my fat pants might not be so tight ;-)

And now, the big reveal -- a sweet mix of watercolor and acrylic paint. 

As I work in my journal each day, I try to be mindful of keeping my pages fresh -- through color and design. Fresh for me, too!  The last thing I want is to start having everything I do look the same! I want to look back at my art journals and smile when I think about the different things I was brave enough to start, fail -- and complete even though I thought they were failures. There's nothing like a little time and distance to change your perspective -- what is a failure to me today might turn into a thing of beauty in the future.

The last few days I've been thinking it's time to do something a little different -- while I'm not bored with this style AT ALL -- I see a lot of artists do the same pages week after week after month -- you can only make a circle and paint drip look unique so many times before they start to get boring -- I don't want to look back and think gosh is that ALL I could do? really? Where's that creative spirit?

oooops on the big black blob of india ink. 

I REALLY don't want to get bored, nor do I want to get in a rut.  Ruts are really hard to break out of. I'm thinking of adding some collage bits to these little gems -- some vintage papers -- maybe an image transfer here and there in the background -- to keep my heart singing and my experimentation process going in new tracks. The fact that my instinct is telling me to move on to try new things means it really is time. remember, I need to listen to that ;-)

Are you in a artistic rut? What do you do to get out of it? Are you listening to your intuition? What's it telling you today?

Thanks for stopping by -- hope you have a WONDERFUL day!