Dani is one of my granddaughters.

Several years ago I found a bunch of small blank spiral bound sketch books stacked on an end cap at a discount store, priced very low. I bought all they had. A dozen or so. And for the next several days I covered the kitchen island and all peripheral counter-top space available to me with acrylic liquid paints, embossing powders and inks, waxes, buttons, tassles, metal thingie-bobs from the craft store… and I lost myself in the wonderful mess of creating journal covers.

Here are eight of them… all given that year as gifts. (Mistake, and lesson learned: don’t give art books to people who don’t write or sketch… just have the covers printed and give those — framed.)   

Wendy’s blog at QuirkyArtist inspired me to remember my love of journals and dig out these old photos. I have shelves and boxes full of journals — not hand made, but pretty — mostly writings, some drawings. No plain school-type spiral notebooks for me — they just aren’t fun to doodle in!

Art journals are though. A fun place to put things — our thoughts, pictures, dreams and wishes, our questions and discoveries, our stream-of-consciousness writing or drawing. Personal stuff.

Famous artists’ journals are sometimes published. I once borrowed Frida Kahlo’s  from the library and didn’t want to return it! I kept it for a month, feeling I had an intimate portrait of her personality, just by looking at her drawings — mostly of herself.

The coffee’s on… come in and share your art journals, or art books, or just a thought about how you use (or love) them. If you’d like to, leave a link where we can see your stuff.

And enjoy your day.

Barb Hartsook

Some of my paintings can be seen here…

But it was not to be… I have deadlines to meet, classes to attend, homework to do. And later in the day, a dance dress-rehearsal to photograph for future paintings. (Two of my granddaughters compete — this weekend is their yearly show.)

I’m rounding out week two in both my current classes, Blogging at LVS, and Open Studio (painting landscapes this session) at the Digital Art Academy.

God stop me if I ever again try to immerse myself so publicly, so visibly in classes that split my thinking! My two brain hemispheres have a challenge working in the same room at the same time. Choose, they tell me. One of us at a time!

Or should I apply what I’m learning in my painting class to my new blog? Maybe. I think so…

I plan to post paintings often — what I’m currently working on, sometimes works-in-progress, sometimes finished paintings already on canvas or watercolor paper. (I paint with traditional watercolors and oil paints as well as with Painter.)

Sometimes I’ll post a tutorial using Corel PainterX.

Here is a quickie landscape I did using Painter last fall. I use it as a greeting card, blank inside.

Today I’m sending it to you as my way of thanking you for stopping by. I hope doing so will make a difference to you somehow.

I welcome comments and conversation… the coffee pot’s on, the teakettle steaming.

Barb

Some of my paintings can be seen here…