Cogito, ergo sum

Another spread in my upright Moleskine journal and I keep forgetting to mention the size. It's 5 x 8.1/4". The whole spread was inspired by the Buddha quotation stamp on the right hand page which reads: " All that we are, is the result of what we have thought". As you can see, that certainly made me think and I moved from that to the Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). You can read my ruminations on the pages, but I have to be honest and tell you that I wrote more but have hidden it under all that black tape on the left hand page. There is definitely such a thing as being too frank and this one was not for public consumption. Seeing the tape will hopefully remind me of what I actually wrote there.

Instead I covered the tape with a piece from a very old (mid 19th Century) book about thinking and to my amusement it says: " When thou walkest, musing with thyself, in the green aisles of the forest, utter thy thinkings aloud, that they take a shape and being". I agree with the principle but the practice might lead to unexpected consequences such as being considered stark raving mad!

The face stamp is from Cherry Pie Stamps and the circle one from Dylusions ( called, Around the Edge). I made two faces looking each one looking in opposite directions (a bit like the Roman god Janus) by stamping one face on some painted waxed paper (this was originally only done to test out the stamp) and then glueing that wrong way up (it's transparent) next to the other stamped face on the page. As you can see I made the spread on the 17th August and have only just found a niche for posting it here.

I Am ATCs

After wrapping up my postcards from the previous post, I immediately progressed to Lenna's next swap which was announced very recently. It's for ATCs and they have to be on the theme of I am.......... You fill in the blanks yourself with whatever you think you are. I could have used I'm not completely sane, or even I am entirely mad, but instead I used what I am most and that's myself and that self is an artist. Yes, I do sometimes doubt it but nevertheless I must be, people even buy my work! I used my Morning Pages (I've already started doing them before the Artist's Way starts in October) this morning to start every sentence with I am, something I usually avoid as much as I can, specially on this blog.

I started without a safely net and for me that means NO fabric, but instead a sheet of watercolour paper. Art has been the wrong way around for me. Most people start painting first on paper, and then progress to other media but me, I started with fabric and there I stayed for a very long time, indeed I stayed there till now. You can see the finished painted paper above and it was very much inspired by the new and luscious goodies such as acrylic paint and mica sprays I bought from Art from the Heart and which arrived by FedEx this morning. When I unpacked them I simply had to use them immediately. They were truely delightful and now have a place of honour in the shed, or rather the artist studio half of the shed, which is encroaching into the other half when John isn't looking.

To show you more of the detail I've uploaded 2 of the cards separately, the one at the top and the one above. You can see there is all kinds of everything on there, painting, stamping, stencialling, hand drawing, dripping (is that an official technique?), and that's because I am a moorish sort of person. Why stick to a few paint colours if you can have them all, has pretty much been my life's motto.

All the pictures I used are of me, needless to say, but at a much younger age. All were taken when I was still living in The Netherlands which means they are more than 31 years old. I might find that hard to believe but it's a sad fact. There is also some of my own handwriting on them, which is also very me.

So here they are, this is who I am! The card at the top is the one I decided to keep and all the other ones will be on their way to Lenna soon, 6 for the swap (I must remember to pay her for the additional set!) and one for her. I'll leave the choice of which one she would like to have up to her and it will be interesting to see which one she thinks is most me!

If you want to find out who you are too, you can sign up for this swap here on the Creative Swaps site.