I created an art journal page today and it’s awful. I really dislike it. Not in a ‘oh I suck, I’m hopeless’ kind of way. More of a ‘How the hell did you create something that ugly?’ kind of way. I rarely create anything I don’t like. It doesn’t matter to me what other people think of my art, I enjoy and love it and my art journal is only for me anyway. But there are times when even those of us who genuinely love everything we do in some way, create an ugly ass page that even it’s mother can’t love.

As the great Dawn Sokol said on twitter ‘Where’s the gesso?’

This picture does no justice to how hideous it really is

Now I do realise it’s not terribly fashionable to say you dislike something you’ve done. You’re suppsed to be all new-agey and zen about it and work on not being hard on yourself, not seeking perfection and just accepting how it is. That works fine if you are prone to self-destructive behaviour. If you’re constantly telling yourself you’re not good enough or your work isn’t good enough or you let the fear of making something that isn’t perfect paralyse you and get in the way of creating at all on a regular basis, then yes, I agree. You should look at it as a learning experience and be all ‘I simply found another way not to create a journal page that I like’ about it.

But honestly, I have never suffered from any of those feelings. I create things and I like them simply because I created them, not because they’re perfect or pretty or people like them (the first two are rarely true and the last is entirely subjective.) I’m proud of the fact that I never feel any fear in picking up a paintbrush and I am thankful every day that I had parents who taught me to believe in myself so completely that, the occasional first night nerves aside, I am totally undaunted by anything creative. I have never been afraid to have a go. Want to know if you can mix acrylics with glitter? Well then get on aand mix away and see what happens.  Not sure if you can draw a cat? Draw one and if it in any way resembles a cat and not, say a cow or a hedgehog, then you win. Well done.

So I feel, in my case, no remorse for calling this an ugly ass page that I don’t like. There are no redeeming features about it, I’ve tried to fix it and it just made it worse, I don’t even like the colour combination. I realise that some people might think it’s ‘urban’ or something, but if this is what ‘urban’ is, then all I can tell you is I don’t like ‘urban’. To me it says ‘I’m trying really hard to be edgy’ and trying too hard is never an attractive quality. If someone else had created it, I could appreciate it and say how cool it was they created it. It still doesn’t mean I would like it.

Moving swiftly on, the other day I linked to Jessica Eldenstjärna’s amazing etheral paitnings. One of her YouTube videos shows how she creates her backgrounds. Whilst I’m well versed in the salting method, which I’m rather partial to for art journal backgrounds, I’ve never used detergent. So out came the washing up liquid and watercolours (actually I used gouache but it had the same effect) and I tried it out.

A3 Gouache background a lá Jessica Eldenstjärna

I missed that her paper was actually wet when she started, so mine dried out quite a lot in the process and I had to mist it from a plant sprayer, but it came out pretty well. I love the colours and how they changed slightly after adding the detergent and salt. It’s so Autumnal and reminds me of pumpkins. No idea what to do with it yet, but I’m tempted to try Jessica’s ‘found image’ technique just to see what it’s like. I love trying new techniques and this is definitely a background I’ll be using in my art journal on a regular basis. It’s just too cool not to.

In other news, today I finished the ATCs for the September swap on Willowing (they’ll be going in the post tomorrow Lee) and I finally got ‘Scarlet’s Walk’ scanned for Bonnie Rose’s Rainnmaker Project. More on that tomorrow.