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Fauxdori Traveler's Notebook System, Fiscally Responsible?

A classmate took note of my fauxdori a week or so ago in class. After some discussion, she brought up something that I’m really surprised I didn’t think of, or consider about these things, she asked me if I saved money with the fauxdori over new notebooks/journals/sketchbooks. I had never thought of it that way.

I considered my sketching and journaling method previous to using the fauxdori. I either made or bought a Moleskine pocket sized sketchbook. These have 60 pages and around here cost about $10. As for written journaling I usually did that within the moleskine or in a separate moleskine Volant ($4.50 each) or Cahier ($3.30). * The Volant has 56 pages and the cahier 64. My daily carry cost was between $12 to $15.

 

My current sketchbooks are BanditApple Carnet (BAC) PeeWee. These have 64 pages each. These cost between $3- $3.50 each depending on where I purchase them. For writing I use a Field Notes book and these run about $3.30 each. So I’m spending about $7 on inserts. Clearly there is a savings in just one bundle of inserts.

My current rate for filling a BAC is 1 a month. Considering that they have a few more pages than a Moleskine Sketchbook. I’m already saving. If I were purchasing one Moleskine or HB a month  I’d be spending $120 to $144 on sketchbooks alone in a year. I’m filling a Field Notes every 16 to 20 days, depending on to do lists, journaling, and assorted school type stuff. A Field Notes is only 48 pages compared to the volant’s 56 or the cahier’s 64. that being said I always had issues with the last pages of my cahiers falling out and the spine of the my volants tearing and needing repair. I’ve yet to damage a Field Notes to that degree. Part of that is I’m not carrying them around outside of a cover but also, they spend less time in my pocket due to the fewer pages. I’d call this aspect even.

 

The answer to my classmate’s question of a fauxdori being fiscally responsible is, yes, it is. I save about $80 by not buying a moleskine/handbook every month. I also save myself a lot of aggravation. The cover allows the books to really be treated quite roughly. I’m able to carry both books in my back pocket, sit on them and generally abuse them more than I would be able to otherwise. So I’m saved from glueing up spines, falling out pages, and other nuisances.

It’s probably humorous that I turn around and spend that saved scratch on other things, like sketching pencils and pens… Right?

Make Art with Anything

I've ranted and raved about commercialism in art journaling before. (been under a rock or just discovering me now? Click here.) And I keep ranting about it. I've been gathering videos for technique today over the last few days. (It gives me a nice 20 minute or so break from reading heavy stuff.) It's becoming increasingly difficult to find videos with good solid art technique, if I stick to videos related to art journaling. I'm not usually too shy about looking at stuff that is art andnot art journaling related. But as I viewed video after video, it really hit me.

It's hard to find a video about art journaling that isn't a blatant ad for a product or process or linked to classes. All of it is trying to get us to part with our money. I'm wary of technique videos that read like a who's who of products. Tim Holtz this. Glimmer Mist that. Hellmuth's paints. Grunge Board. Glossy Accents. Spray inks. The videos don't teach us a technique but to be reliant on these products. They don't teach us how to make these product (though there are some old vids that do) they teach us to buy more.

Here's the deal, the secret, all you need to art journal is a pen and a journal. Call me a minimalist but my every day art journal carry (EDAJC) has been the following for the last 2 weeks: A Field Notes notebook, a BanditApple Carnet PeeWee, in a leather cover I made myself and a shitty ballpoint pen*. If I were to extend out my EDAJC I'd add a tin of watercolors in limited colors, a waterbrush, a camera**, a pencil and eraser.

I'm not making "great" art but I am making meaningful art. The art I'm making is helping me to remember the look of the sky as I waited when I picked up my partner. Or the jerking of the train as it rounded corners. Or calmed me after a busy class. This, to me, is what making and creating a journal is all about. It's not about the products I'm buying andusing. It's about the memories I'm creating. It's about my life.

It's real.

Train Sketches

I’ve been drawing on the train and as I wait for the train. I pic something that I want to focus on, hats, noses, eyes, puffy jackets, or interesting shoes. (I actually picked the car I was going to ride on today based on the number of neat hats people were wearing vs those who weren’t wearing hats on the other cars. Seriously.

Generally I don’t get any attention for my activities. I'm discreet (usually) about who I’m drawing, I try to pick people who are engrossed in their phone, book, or newspaper. I try not to stare but to look for a few moments gather some info, then look at my page, then look again gather info, and draw. Eventually I stop looking and keep working on the drawing. My goal is to get as much info on the page in a minute or two.

Most people don’t notice me. I usually wear headphones and blend in with everyone else. Over the last 2 weeks I’ve gotten more attention for my sketching habit than usual. Last week a fellow grad student (from UMass Lowell) saw me sketching as we waited for our trains. He watched me over my shoulder and we had a pleasant conversation. Another person was a little pushy and rude, wanting me to draw him and then give him the drawing. While I could tear the page out of my notebook/journal it would mess up the binding and I was a little put off that he expected that I’d want/be excited to draw him and then give him the drawing for free. Hell, he could have offered to buy me a coffee.

Today a woman, about my age, saw me drawing and came up to me and asked if she could take a picture of my sketchbook. She explained that she takes a picture of one interesting thing a day that she sees on the T. I let her take the picture and we talked about her project. She does it just for her. the images collect on her computer. She doesn’t share them. But she says she always finds at least one interesting thing on the train every ride. Truly a neat project. (we could talk about the importance of keeping a journal of some sort even if you never share a page with another person, but I think that’s a WHOLE other blog post. {and yes I consider what she does a “photo” journal.})

So far I’ve only ever had positive interactions with people about my drawings. I await a day when someone tells me to stop, while I hope that never happens I know it could.

All images are from my 3.5x5.5 in BanditApple Carnet notebook/sketchbook. It is housed in a flauxdori or Midori traveler's Style Notebook cover. I've written about it before (did a video too, but I'm too lazy/tired to link it up.) Anyway, no affiliation, but I thought it would be useful to give you the size of the page. Also the pens I used on these pages were a Parker Flow refill and a Pilot Metropolitan Fountain pen with pilot ink. I've got reviews in the works for both the inks and the pen. Lots of reviews coming  up.

Squaring the Circle

One of the things I've been pondering is the following question:

"Do mandala's have to be circular?"

I keep arriving at no as an answer.

Last night on the train I did my usual relaxing automatic drawing. I started the hatching, realizing I was making 7 marks over and over again. I went with it and slapped a 7 on the head of the skull. I suspect most of you won't like the video, but the Pixies are a favorite band of mine and I must've listened to this song a million times when I was in high school.

 

 

When I got home I couldn't focus on the hatching in the background. Too distracted, too amped up by class and the presentation we had and the papers I have due.

I couldn't let it go.
This morning when I got up I was able to focus on the hatching and feel relaxed while doing it. Mindful. feeling the pen on the paper, counting to 7 over and over again. Though the Zebra Sarasa is smooth and glides across the paper I could hear it.

scritch scritch scritch

scritch scritch

scritch scritch

The sound of pen on paper is something I enjoy. I don't need music to listen to when I can hear the pen on paper.
I was able to feel the bumps of the paper through the pen as it telegraphed them to my fingers. The rubbery grip of the pen keeping the pen from slipping out of my fingers.

Slowly and carefully I filled in the 5x7 rectangle on my page.

Oh, yeah, what does this have to do with mandalas? I think that a mandala can be square. WHAT WHAT WHAT. A little research shows me that many cultures used square and rectangular shaped for their mandalas. We (Western peoples) know more about the circular mandalas from Jungian psycology and Western practicioners of the art. The circle is mor often used.

But Not Today

I had a rough day yesterday. Intense, hard discussion, aggravating, the type of discussion that gets under your skin. Feeling attacked verbally.

While I waited for the train I read, and then once I got on the train, I got out my sketchbook and I immersed myself in the process of creating an automatic drawing.

I focused on the feelings of making the lines. I focused on how my pens felt on the page. The stiffness of my fingers and wrist as I cramped up from not being mindful of the moment and how it reflected the stiffness of my mind and the cramped feeling of my headspace as I worked on the feelings of being attacked.

I'd like to tell you that this image allowed me to completely let go of everything. But it didn't, it made me AWARE of all of the thoughts and feelings. It allowed me to name my thoughts, give them weight, allow them to be explored. This image gave the stuff in my head form. It will allow me to continue to work on these thoughs. eventually I will be able to let go. But not today.

Art Therapy Camp

I spent much of last week at art therapy camp. Actually it was orientation for grad school for art therapy. No matter what I call it, it was AWESOME. Seriously awesome.

First it was in a place that looks like this:

There were drum circles and singing and lots of clapping. I was surrounded by 150 (or so) women and a few men who were all interested in the same sorts of things I am.

There was a table loaded with art supplies and we could use them at anytime, day or night. Speaking of nights, holy crap I was up until at least 11pm EVERY NIGHT and then up again at 7am. That's how I got the sunrise pics and this one:

That's the moon and a little bit of lens flare. Cell phone camera and shooting directly into the light...

Anyway, I made a lot of art, stretched  my limits by writing some poetry and in general had an awesome time.

I also learned that if I ever go to "camp" again, to include Gas-X in my bag. The food wasn't bad it was just a huge change from my current largely vegetarian and home grown diet.

I have to write a paper about my experience, 6 pages, in APA style and I have to include references... Holy moly. Loads of work, but I have to tell you, I'm totally excited to be doing it. I feel like I've gotten to the place where I'm meant to be and that is an awesome feeling.

Evidence #2 and Starting Grad School

I had my first week of grad school last week. It kicked my ass, in a good way. It was an intense 9am to 6pm class Monday through Friday. We did a  lot of writing and reading and art making. It was the most completely intense class I've ever had. In short it was awesome. I got to meet and hang out with 23 amazing women. The best thing is I'll be spending the next 4 days with them as well. This time in New Hampshire.

I expected to have evidence on Etsy by the end of last week but I ended up having a lot of work  to do for school. I finally got it all scanned and up today. You can get your very own copy.

Peaking In

When I decided to publish a few pages of my journal as a zine I didn't really think much about doing it, other than I wanted to have it be in the vein of the old school zine. That feeling of being hurriedly photocopied while a copy shop employee looks on worried about the number of copies you're making. Or rushed while at work early hoping your coworkers won't come in and see the weird stuff you're copying and then having to explain to someone.  I wanted that feeling, the rush of feeling like you're doing something vaquely not quite right, but yet, feels so right.

 

A peak inside:

Other Stuff

Some of the stuff I've been doing this summerisn't art related. Instead I've been doing a lot of gardening and working on my bike. Since I didn't want that stuff on the blog here I started a secondary blog called, "Other Stuff" that houses all my writing and photos about my other stuff. You can read all about that other stuff here.

All of this inspires me to keep creating, even if it seems like a distraction from my regular posts, I find it energizes and rejuvinates me. Sometimes you HAVE to shift gears into other things. It keeps me sane.

Review: Xtras for Creative Learning

This past Saturday I went to Xtras for Creative Reuse. It’s this place where you pay a small membership fee ($5) and then you can buy a full grocery bag full of stuff for $8. They have other membership levels taht allow you to buy full carts of stuff or several bags at a time. They get off cuts and useful waste from businesses and other things. They had the leftovers from an entire office that closed down, from footrests to paperclips. They also had leftover and miss embroidered items from a shop that makes patches. Large sheets of paper, fabrics and yarn. It’s basically a massive junk shop. If you think like me, it’s a toy shop.

To get there I had to travel into Lynn, MA and down a few side streets to a spot just off the Lynnway. I should have shot a few pics of the building. It was one of the huge old industrial buildings with high ceilings and 100 years of history. It was attractive in that old factory warehouse kind of way. The area is kinda rough and like much of Lynn kind of run down. Once I climbed the 3 flights of stairs to their suite I was surrounded by stuff. All kinds of great recycled cast off stuff. Entire offices had been dumped into this place, all of it mine for the taking provided I could stuff it into the shopping bag they provided. There was loads of old Reebok schwag, the kind of stuff company employees are given to make them feel good.

I found all kinds of great stuff for my art. If you have a place like Xtras near you you should check it out.

Next time I'm there I'll snag some pics.

Follow them on facebook!

Phase 3 of the Big Thing

I can finally reveal part 3 of the “big thing.” Part 3 of the big thing is that I’m leaving my job the second week of May. I’m going to spend the summer making art, working on my online art classes as well as retooling my class site, art journaling ning. It’s not an optimal time for me to leave my job but I figured if I don’t make the leap now I’d never take a summer off, and well, I wanted to try and see if I can make books, paint and write classes. I’ve got plans for a funky thing that I’m going to call an artist’s zine/book. Super limited edition type of thing, hand made, thick with my writing and lots of art journaling goodies packed in. I’ve got a couple of class planned out. I’m at the fleshing them out stage and outlining for videos stage. Lots of good things going on.

I’m sure many of you have heard rumors about ning’s decision to restructure and increase prices. Ning has moved from ning 2 to Ning 3.0 status. I have a year and a half to change to Ning 3.0. The problem is that Ning 3.0 does not have all the features that we currently use on ArtJournaling ning. Though they may add them at some point. The second problem is that it’s increasing the price from a moderate $250/yr to about $600/yr. This is pretty drastic. A big part of what I’ve been doing these last few weeks (when I haven’t been blogging) is exploring other options for AJ ning. I’ve made no secret that I’ve been less than pleased with ning’s formats and options for classes. It’s a pain for the presenters to set up classes, and when I have guest teachers most cannot figure out how to update the class. This makes a lot of work for me on the back end of things, and while I’ve been working it’s been a total pita.

the replacement is designed for education and I’ve had a few people check out the site and they’ve told me it’s easy to navigate, easy to interact, and easy to look at. It’s not ready for new people yet, as I’m still tweaking the formating and working on the site. Not to worry, AJ ning is staying online.

Oh yeah, the new site is going to have an art journaling wiki. Super easy to search, loads of info, the ability to ask questions, and loads of links to videos and blogs.

Holy crapola, I’m excited!

Step One of the "Big Thing"

I can share with you now part 1 of the “big thing.”

Yesterday I received my acceptance letter for Lesley University’s Expressive Therapies program with a specialization in Art Therapy and Mental Health Counseling. I’ll probably take the 3 year track to complete the program starting this Fall. How exciting is that?


I hope to learn how to take my art journaling techniques and turn them into  more therapeutic (and licensed) practices. I have lots of great plans and ideas, but those will have to wait for another month or so before I can share them with you. Needless to say I’m pretty excited.

Ask Questions of Yourself

The first half of this is about how when you know stuff you don't question thing. The whole thing is about asking questions and exploring ideas. Something to think about.

How can you get yourself asking more questions about your art process?

 

Article from Shambhala Sun magazine

I’ve been trying to read more lately and a friend gave me a copy of last months Shambala Sun*. It had a number of interesting articles in it but one that I particularly enjoyed was called “What’s Your verdict?” by Bonnie Friedman. While it was written with the writer in mind it also applies to the artist.

The premise of the article is that people tend to diminish their happiness over success when it is finally achieved. So you achieve success and allow yourself only a little happiness if any at all. This explains the dull feeling people sometimes get after achieving success. As an example, let’s say you have an art journaler you respect, you decide you want to share work with that person (in their ning group) and you hope that someday that person takes notice and says something good about  your work. FInally it happens and for a fleeting moment you feel good but you discount it by telling yourself, “Eh, it’s just one comment.” Or, “What she said wasn’t that great.” even though something good happened you let your inner critic diminish the impact.

Basically, the idea of the article is a good one about your inner critic and how to deal with it, which is a very Chapter 2 of JF365 type of thing. You should check it out.

It's a Process

I’ve been sick, in more ways than one. I’ve had a sinus infection. It’s knocked me on my ass. I’ve also been dealing with disappointment. Abject utter disappointment. Disappointment so deep it hurts. I let myself wallow in it and be consumed with the feeling. The feeling making my sinus infection seem a hundred times worse than perhaps it was. Or maybe it was just that bad* that it could make me feel so helpless.

The cause of the disappointment is not important other than to me. I’ve spent the last few days in a fever induced haze of misery, scribbling in my art journal and watching TV on my laptop and sleeping.

My scrawling and scribbling in my art journal don’t reveal much to me. It chronicles my self-centered misery, my sadness and my sneezes.**

Except one page, a meditative page I did in a sort of mandala style. It’s also self centered, in that there is an image of me in the middle of the page. Radiating out from the center of the image (at the sinuses interestingly enough) are layers of circles filled with various patterns, alternating colors, lines, rays, circles, sheep, and gears. All of this done on a hot colored background in cool colors.

Though I had not planned the imagery it matches the evolution of my thoughts over the last few days, from useless rage and helplessness to being able to think clearly on the problem at hand and coming up with a plan that may work. It’s not done yet, but I like where it’s going

PostSecret at Endicott College

If you’ve followed me on twitter or facebook for any amount of time you know I’m a huge PostSecret.com fan. I’ve been watching the site for years now. I’ve watched it grow from something small to being a huge hit. If you aren’t familiar with the site, Frank invites you to send a postcard containing your secret to him completely anonymously. I’ve seen a great many secrets that resonate with me, and perhaps that’s why I continue to go to the site every Monday to see the Sunday secrets. Maybe it’s because I’ve got a few secrets of my own, or maybe I find it to be a deeply interesting idea. Whatever it is, you should check out the site, and maybe send your secret into Frank.

I've been waiting for years to see Frank speak somewhere near me. I've missed him a couple of time in Boston and once in another city nearby. When I saw he was going to be at a college in my city, I jumped on the opportunity. I dragged C along for the ride.

If you get a chance go see Frank speak, I strongly urge you to go. It’s worth your time to hear his beautiful words, the words of the people there and the images he shares. Take someone you love, it could change their life, or yours.

(I was only allowed to take pics for the first 5 minutes of the event, after that no photos were allowed.)

Art Days

Jane and I decided to do an arty day where we got together at Jane’s house and we both brought some materials the other hadn’t ever used. This way we got to test drive materials in our art journals so we’d get an informed opinion on them before going out and spending a bunch of money on them. It also gave us a field trip with our JF365 journals.

I was able to test out a whole slew of colored pencils and water soluble colored pencils. I’ll be doing reviews on everything I tested out over the next few weeks. The pencils I tested out include Koh-i-nor Progresso, Faber-Castell Polychrome, Derwent Inktense, Derwent Aquatone, among several others. We had several full hours of chit chat and art making.


If you have an arty friend near to you, I definitely suggest scheduling a day of art material testing and art! It was a ton of fun!

Find Art

Sometimes finding art around you is as simple as looking. These are in the window at my local coffee shop.

Toner Transfer Journal Junky Style

The Journal Junkies use toner transfers in their journals. I'm always jealous of well done toner transfers, as mine have almost always failed. Goof off is the first product I've used that gives great results. Watch the video, and work in a well ventilated area away from flames.

 

Week in Photos #12

Busy week and the typepad app will only let me load 5 pics. Boo!

Drawing People

I’ve started to work through the Drawing Tutorials Online figure drawing from memory instruction series. You can get it by signing up for his newsletter here.

I took figure drawing in college and then took a continuing education credit at the School of the Museum years later. I haven't done figure drawing in years. I’m trying to work with some friends to get another friend to pose for us. Since I don’t want to be too rusty when I go into the session I decided I’d brush up on my skills with the DTO lessons.

As with my college classes the first DTO lesson is about gesture drawings and working with a simple skeletal figure. I’m very familiar with this lesson. It was what we spent the first week of our figure drawing classes doing. Short 30 second poses. It is a great way to warm up.

I decided to work with my yellow brush pen and a blue brush pen. In college I used to do my figure drawing with yellow, orange, red, and dark blue colored pencils working in layers. This method works well for me. When I took the class after college the professor complained that I chose difficult materials since I brought watercolors and a long liner brush. :)

Anyway, since I don’t have anyone to pose for me I went online and found a few websites with free images to draw from. The best was this one. Caution it is NSFW EVER. I mean never ever. Lots and lots of n@ked people. I did 20 quick gesture skeleton drawings. And by quick I mean quick, spending no more than a minute or 2 each. I also worked in a dirt cheap sketchbook.

It was a good challenge and by the end of the 30 minutes I spent sketching I really wanted to flesh out the images and create a finished drawing. Alas that was not the goal for tonight, tonight was about looking and recording quickly and with simple methods. It was about getting the eye’s and hands attuned to the figure. It was learning to see.

Week in Photos #11

I'm venturing out from my usual walk into work images. Trying to find beauty in another way.

Put it on Paper #2

It's here! You can get it at the link below. Check out that sweet robot on the cover by Chongolio!

Put it on Paper: Put it on Paper Volume 1 #2

 

Quentin Blake

Quentin Blake is one of my favorite authors. You know his work if you've ever read any of Roald Dahl's books.

Love him.

 

 

Week in Photos #8

I've not done this in a few weeks. I've been feeling a little off my photo game. I've been looking for new inspiration. So here you go.