My New Art Journal

 I broke down and bought a new art journal, as my last one was on its last blank pages. And the new one is HUGE, 9x12! Since there are only a few pages I've used, I thought you might want to take a peek. When I get a new journal, I give it a fresh new look. The cover is simply a piece of designer paper, bordered with washi tape and just one artsy quote, "Creative minds are rarely tidy".

I decided to completely cover the inside cover with Art and Creativity quotes from Pinterest. Some of my favorites are adhered to it, along with washi tape borders. 

I started the first page at the end of January and decided I would date my pages, and occasionally write a short note on the why, what and how I felt at the time of the crime drawing. I used a small tag as my inspiration and colored it with a teal Copic.

Here I drew intersecting squares and then filled them with various designs, trying some I had not drawn before now. 

I'm not that good at creating Mandalas, probably because I don't use rulers, nor do I have a compass. After my two colliding circles were filled in, they looked lonely on the page, so I surrounded them with flowers. 

And next is the reason I wanted to "show off" my new journal (if you've read all the way down to here). The page below was inspired by Pinterest. It uses watercolors and was supposed to make these beautiful spheres of color mixing into each other. Mine didn't play nice. In fact, it was a "fail". But fails are what teach us, make a stronger and remind us that nothing in life is perfect, nor should it go exactly to our own plans. I wanted to show you my failed drawing. I decided to take pen to it and get some Zen doodling in it. It's not my fave page, of course, but not every page can be a favorite!

Keep crafting and have fun. That's why we do it, right?!