I want to be these people when I grow up

Tommy Kane



Danny Gregory


Alisa Burke

And then there's the amazing Mattias Adolfsson and the supercool Miguel Herranz aka Freekhand.

All these people are such great inspiration! I love their use of lines and colours, how most of them draw from life but change it up a little according to taste, their amazing photos, how bright their work is without making your teeth ache, their eye for detail without getting all anal about it and feeling the need to have every single line on paper.

And I love you, dear Internet, for making it possible for me, and anyone who is interested, to soak up all this inspiration and then go out and create our own art work, using our own observation and our own favourite subjects to draw or paint.

Inspiration

What I love most about the internet is getting in touch with people. As a teenager, I used to spend my pocket money on postal stamps and envelopes and paper, so I could write long letters to my penpals all over the world. I lost touch with most of them (though my Norwegian penpal got in touch with my through Facebook the other day!) but the feeling of connecting with people all over the world, learning about their lives, getting inspired by what they do, that is still very much alive on the internet.


If it had not been for the internet, and sites like Flickr and YoutubeI doubt my creative side would have developed at all. I was a words kind of girl. I was always writing. I looked at pretty pictures every now and again, thinking how great it would be if I could do that too, but I never really tried, because, to be honest, I didn't think I had any talent and why waste my time.

For the last 3 yrs or so I have been art journaling (something I would have never thought of if it hadn't been for the internet!) and been inspired by so many people, through Flickr, Youtube and more recently ArtJournaling.Ning. One of those people is Connie from Dirty Footprints Studio, who this week has put up some amazing videos on Youtube, where she is doing what she's calling FEARLESS painting.


Last night I decided to give it a shot.

I had no idea where I was going with it, I just started with a few shapes and connected them and all of a sudden there was this little creature. I used colours I would not normally use, like yellow and a shade of green I don't particularly like, and just went with it. It was well and truly FEARLESS. And then, when I was finally happy with the result, I added the black outlines to finish it off.

Thank you Connie for being such an inspiration!

And the most amazing part?? Just as I was writing this, Connie posted a BIG announcement on her blog. She'll be hosting a new online art workshop, in which she'll teach you how to paint BIG, even if you have limited space. How cool is that??

Had enough of neat and tidy

I don't think I could ever be a traditional scrapbooker. All these bright colours, everything exactly half an inch from the side, or an inch from the other.. The precut materials and layouts copied from books and websites, I don't know.. It just isn't for me.

Lately, I've been bloghopping a lot. I tend to do that when I'm bored. I check out who replied to blogs I read, and then go to their favourites or the blogs they follow etc. etc. Keeps me busy for ages. And on one of these bloghopping afternoons I found Steph McAtee's blog. Now she takes scrapbooking to a whole different level.

Yes, she still uses pictures and blocks of text like the more traditional scrappers do, but her pages are grungy and dark and layered and I love them! I think this is more the way I want to start Art Journaling. Not that my life is grungry and dark and horrible, but there is just something about getting all messy that makes me very happy.

Even before I found Steph's blog, I did this page below. I first added gaffer tape to my cardboard, and then layered paint on top of it. The text is done in permanent maker (not Sharpie because it died a fairly horrible death when I tried to use it on the page) and then dots on the letters in white Posca, my new favourite white pen.

Enjoy!