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This week is another one of my Core Desired Feelings for 2015. This next one was the longest of my words: abundance. I wasn’t sure how to tackle it and it took a few iterations to get it right so it was readable but not too big. I thought of not making it cursive but I really liked the way it looked cursive so I kept trying until I got one that worked.
it’s long and hard to spell but i love the word abundance. Fifty-two stamps is a project for 2015. You can read more about it here.
For this first page, I used Alena Hennessy’s lesson from Life Book 2014. Alena’s style is very fluid and intuitive and I wanted to emulate that. This page also has no text. It’s easier for me to be organized, have a plan, and write my thoughts down. It’s considerably harder for me to just go with the flow. For this page, I painted the whole page first, and then I drew my flowers and painted over everything else so what you’re seeing in the flowers is what was underneath. This one reminds me that we all have layers. What you see at face value isn’t always all there is. It also reminds me that what’s here now doesn’t have to be the final version of what there will be. Like art, we are always evolving. We are not finished products. And anything can be painted over. We get to choose who we are. If we don’t like what we see, we keep changing till we do. It also reminds me to be more fluid. To trust my intuition. To trust that beauty emerges no matter what. here’s a closeup of the left side:
and right side:
Thanks to Alena for teaching me so much. Note to Self is a project for 2015. You can read more about it here.
This week’s page just contains one sketch. I saw this beautiful, colorful house in San Francisco and immediately knew I wanted to sketch it. We were driving by, so I asked Jake to stop so I can take a photo of it and then I sketched it many days later when I was home.
Even though it has a lot of mistakes, I like how it turned out. Overall, it has the feeling of a colorful house even though I clearly took some artistic license in many places. And there we are. Everyday Brave is a project for 2015. You can read more about it here. Here’s this week’s story:
Title: River Bear Sitter For his second job, he got to be the River Bear Sitter. This meant that he was responsible for River Bear for two whole weeks. He could choose to take River Bear home each night and bring him back to school. Or not. For the first week, he didn’t bring River Bear home at all. I had no idea what his plans were but he told me that he wasn’t required to bring him home and I didn’t push him. But then on the second week, we were off for Thanksgiving so River Bear got to come home with us all day long for a whole week. Along with River Bear, we also got a little picture book which we were apparently supposed to fill (not that Nathaniel told me anything) with photos of him with River Bear. So throughout this week, our goal is to get as many fun shots with River Bear as possible. Even though Nathaniel doesn’t seem to have a grand plan, he did insist that I take a photo of him and the bear in front of the Christmas tree. And he also said that we had to make sure to take a photo of him at our Thanksgiving dinner ( which was quite funny to me because no one, except Jake, is all that into Thanksgiving in this family. ) It seems he has a few plans for the bear after all. I have found this whole process quite interesting. I had thought he would be super-into hanging out with River Bear and getting his photo taken as much as possible. But he seems to be quite laissez-faire about the whole thing. Which, I suppose, is a much easier way to go through life. Maybe he’s trying to teach me a lesson… We shall see how the rest of the week unfolds, but for now, I’m enjoying all the photos he’s asking me to take and the relaxed attitude he seems to have towards the whole experience. Stories of Twenty Fifteen is a project for 2015. You can read more about it here.
This week’s pick says “be open to whatever comes next.” I loved this the moment I saw it. It has one of my desired feelings “open” and it’s a reminder to be willing to receive. To let go of the need to control. To be open to possibilities. To be open to the wonders of the universe. To be present. here are some closeups:
here’s to being able to stay open. You Choose is a project for 2015. You can read more about it here.
After my word of the year, the next four words I planned to care were my Core Desired Feelings for 2015. I figured this way, I could use them on my art projects for the year. or stamp them on my daily planner so I would remember how I want to feel. So, the first one I decided to tackle was “alive.” (Now you know what the next three weeks will be, too.) This one didn’t feel very hard to make but it turned out to be a bit more square than I intended it to be.
Just looking at it makes me connect with the feeling of being alive! Fifty-two stamps is a project for 2015. You can read more about it here.
I’ve been taking Ali’s One Little Word class for as long as she’s offered it and this year is no exception. The January prompt is usually my favorite one as it sets the intentions and tone for the whole year and then I find myself referring to it all year long so I take it pretty seriously. Here are my January pages: The front is a print out of the text I wrote here about why I picked this word.
The back is beautiful graphed paper from Margie’s beautiful The Girls’ Paperie.
The next page is a 2×3 pocket page. It has a definition and a quotation:
The definition is from the blog post too. It’s what brave means to me. The quote is from the wonderful A. A. Milne: “You are braver than you seem, stronger than you think, and loved more than you’ll ever know.” And here’s the back with let go, invitation and reason why:
Let go says: I want to let go that things always have to be the way they are. That things can’t change. in fact the only thing we are guaranteed in life is change. I want to let go that this person I am is concrete. I am fluid like life. I can be whatever I wish to be. I can feel however I wish to. I get to choose. I can define every part of my life and how I live my days. Invitation: This word is an invitation to question everything. It’s an invitation to get out of my comfort zone and look at all the things that come my way with a new filter. A Beginner’s Mind. Anything is possible. I want to be alive. This is an invitation to learn what that means for me. What makes me come alive? What does it mean to be brave? Where in my life can I use more of it? Reason-why: I chose this word because I realized that brave begets more brave. It gives me energy. It shows me that I must question everything. Assume nothing. Take nothing for granted. I want to fully live all the days of my life. To do that I must be brave and bold. And here’s the next page which has more sections:
I’ve already talked about what I’ve done so far so I won’t rewrite that section but here’s what I have for more and less:
What do I fear the most:
The back of the form is all about my intentions:
I made sections for health, serene, abundance, open, and alive. Here’s the snippet of what I wrote:
And if you’ve read this far and aren’t totally sick of me, I have two more things. Ali asked two questions to keep in mind all month:
So there we are. Not all months will be this huge but I wanted to make sure to preserve January since I know I will refer to it a lot.
For this first page, I used Carissa Paige’s lesson from Life Book 2014. The subject was about home and I thought a lot about what home means to me and what I consider to be my home. I grew up in Istanbul, Turkey and my sister and parents are still there. A lot of what I consider to be my home is all the way there. I now live in the Bay Area and am married with my own family here. So my heart is always split. Some days I feel like both are my home and other days I feel like neither might be. And the truth probably lies somewhere in between as it always does. So for this page, I collages some pieces to represent my childhood on one side, and some from my adulthood on the other. I then drew the globe (if I had planned it better, I would have put my sister and I on the right side, closer to Turkey and my boys and me on the left, closer to the US but alas I didn’t plan it.) in the middle and painted all over it. Then I wrote: Home is where the people you love are. isn’t that the truth. here’s a closeup of the left side:
and right side:
this one has a lot of texture:
So, next time I find myself wondering where I belong, I remember: I belong with the people I love. Note to Self is a project for 2015. You can read more about it here.
This week’s page’s photo doesn’t do it justice because the diet coke can is actually glimmering. I used gold guache paint on it. Continuing on the theme of sketching whatever’s around, I went for my pink sneakers on the left side.
The right side is my diet coke, i pad with headphones (can you tell what book I was listening to?) And, of course, nutella!
And there we are. Everyday Brave is a project for 2015. You can read more about it here.
I’ve done The Savor Project for the last few years and I’ve changed it up slightly each year to see if I can make it work for me. And year after year, I felt like I didn’t like the system I ended up with. It felt more burdensome than fun. Also, I feel like it always disintegrated to a photo project. A lot of photos from the year but not enough stories. So for 2015, I decided to do something different. Instead of going for breadth, I am going to go for depth. I will be picking a photo and a story from each week and telling the longer stories. I am using a 6×12 format. I designed these using the templates Ali Edwards had created for the 31 Stories class a few years ago. Hers was a 12×12 with two 6x12s next to each other but I want to just do a 6×12. I bought 6×12 page protectors and created templates and that’s all I need to get going. Here’s the first story for this year. It’s actually from the end of last year, I always try out my ideas first so my first few pages are always from the previous year. Title: The Sticker Book After David made the book, the two of you went through my drawer in the garage and picked a stack of stickers for your project. For the next hour, you both worked silently and diligently on your sticker book. When it was done, you showed me all of its pages. Each page had a category. You had one for money, cheer words, stars, science cheer words, animals, and one fo plants and flowers. I loved seeing how organized you two were and how systematically you went through the whole process. But, of course, the best part was watching how excited you two were about all the stickers, about your project, and how proud you were to show me the results. Even though you get along well, for the most part, it isn’t very often that you two work together on a project. I cherish those rare occasions when you work together and you’re not arguing but you’re collaborating and really enjoying spending time together. As you grow up, you will see that there’s nothing as magical as watching people you love, love each other. And there’s nothing as wonderful as seeing your kids get along, enjoy each others’ company, and be happy playing together. The two of you never cease to remind me how lucky I am. Today was just another example of little moments of magic that surround my everyday life. I am so thankful for you, I am so thankful for our lives together. I am so thankful to get to live these little moments with you. I love you so very, very much. Here’s to a year of storytelling!
I like to spread out my projects by style and medium (as well as topic) each year. So when it came to designing my projects, I wanted to pick something that wasn’t painting or coloring, at least not just painting. The very same week I was thinking about all this, I saw this beautiful collage. It was very sparse, elegant and really beautiful. I decided that’s what I wanted. A collage project. My last collage project was back in 2012 so I thought it might be fun to tackle one again. Something different than what I did last time. I think….but we’ll see. The introspective part of this project is to couple this art with my code desires. I went to pinterest and made a board of images/phrases that remind me of my core desires. My plan is to print one for each of my collage pages. This way, I can always remember my core desired feelings. That’s the plan, at least. Here’s another look at week 1: Love all the shimmer. I am planning to keep my spreads relatively sparse. Mix in some paint. Have fun. Here’s to a year of collages that remind me to focus on feeling the way I want to feel.
Last year, I added stitching to my yearly projects. I liked doing something that didn’t involve painting, drawing, or pretty paper. It was different. I liked going outside my comfort zone. So I wanted to try that again this year. I knew I didn’t want to do stitching again. But I still wanted something different. I thought and thought and then it came to me out of nowhere. I would carve stamps. One stamp for each week. This might be crazy, it might be boring, it might be useless. I am not sure how it’s going to work out. But what I do know is that I am having fun thinking about it now. I had fun carving the first few stamps I did. It might be tough to come up with 52 ideas. We’ll see. I plan to start the year with the words that are meaningful to me, so, of course, BRAVE had to be the first one.
Here’s to a year of carving! |
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