Did you finish your 2009 art journal? Or did you just shut the door on it and start a brand new one today? I always start a new one at the new year, but i’m always in two minds about whether to finish off those end of year pages in the old one. Because of the way I work in my art journal I tend to have lots of half finished/part started pages in the old journal, calling to me, wanting to be rounded off.

Usually I work on my old and new journals together, jsut as I would on any other pages. But I’m tired of it. Tired of that old book, tired of seeing those same pages still begging me to do more to them. I want to start fresh so I’m leaving the NaNoJouMo prompts unfinished. Maybe I’ll go back and fill some in later. For now, I’m happy to close the book and begin with a clean slate.

January 2010 Art Journal, Handbound

This is my clean slate. It’s 8×6″, a little smaller than my previous journal and made from 140lb watercolour paper. it has 4 signatures of 2 giving me 32 sides in total – just enough for a full month. I intend to work on it throughout January and see where it takes me. I’m used to working in journals that have a lot more pages, so this should be an interesting experiment.

If you missed The Artistic Biker’s live New Year’s Eve show last night you missed a lot of fun. You can still view the stream here if you’re interested, along with his previous shows. He invited a few different people to send in a video messages for the New Year to talk about our plans, our resolutions and to make a wish. Here’s mine. (ETA: YouTube is being very slow allowing you to watch videos after converting these days – please be patient while it sorts itself out!)

Also available on YouTube are the video greetings from Willowing, Less Herger and The Snake Charmers

Happy New Year and Decade to you all!