Artist’s Journal Workshop by Cathy Johnson

Artist’s Journal Workshop

creating your life in words and pictures
with insights from 27 artists
By Cathy Johnson

Now this would make a great Christmas present.  Hey, and she’s even offering autographed copies, a favorite gift of mine.  Of course, I highly encourage you to take a look at it through your local library, before you buy it.

Don’t think of this as a journal that only someone who is a trained artist would make, but as a journal to express the artistic part of yourself.

“People sometimes tell me their lives are too boring or uneventful to journal.  I’m not buying it.  They say there’s nothing to draw that’s not mundane.  But seeing and capturing such things in the pages of a journal rescues them from the mundane.”

I’ve always said everyone has a story to tell.  I encourage people to journal.  I’ve often heard people say they can’t write or they can’t draw, even though I know they made it through school so they must be able to put words on paper, and most people have at least doodled in the margins of paper while they talked on the phone. 

If you don’t enjoy these things, that is certainly valid, but what people usually mean is that they can’t create with the level of sophistication that they see coming from professionals.  Maybe it will be more representational than a direct picture, but you can draw.  You did when you were in kindergarten, right?  You can learn techniques and improve but just drawing will help you improve too.  If you are interested in this, don't let your current level of skill and knowledge deter you.  You will find your own mode of expression.

“This book will show you how to keep your own artist’s journal.  As you celebrate the moments of your life, you’ll discover your own way of capturing them on paper, whether you choose to do simple gesture sketches in less than thirty seconds or to design a complex page with borders, textures, layers or text.”

The author explores such basic questions as “What do you want from your journal?” and “What will go into your journal?”  It might seem art was intended to be shared but she suggests that even whether or not you share the journal is totally up to you.  She explores materials and supplies, like the many different types of pens and pencils, watercolor pencils, simple ballpoint pens.

She does stress that you should put name and contact info inside.  She says many friends have lost a journal and they usually get it back because they did that.

Looking at her images might be intimidating for those of us who are not artistically trained.  Let them serve as an inspiration instead.  What she’s showing you is much later in your journey, perhaps, but it’s also her journey, not yours. 

She encourages you to simply try things - try color, try ink, try collage. 

“For the first ten years or so that I kept an artist’s journal, I worked almost exclusively in black or brown with a pencil or technical pen.  For nature observations, studies and research, the pens worked beautifully – nice crisp details!”    Then she added colored pencils and built up to exploring all sorts of mediums in her journal.

This book provides just the right amount of art instruction as well as the inspiration to create an artist’s journal.  She provides instructions on how to do quick gesture sketches and even how to elaborate on things later, as well as different topics to journal about – nature, travel, dreams and your flights of fancy, challenges that you face in life, and/or your spiritual journal.

Making time may be the hardest part of any journaling endeavor but it can be done, trust me.  Whether you have some creative energy that is burning to get out or a spark that needs to be carefully tended to bring it back to life, you can do this.  Make time for yourself.

Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

Sh*t My Dad Says
By Justin Halpern

I was browsing the shelves one day in the humor section, looking for a pick me up, when I found Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern and took it to lunch.  I’m not sure that was a safe thing to do because laughing and eating often end in choking, but I did it and I enjoyed the book thoroughly. 

As the title suggests, the book is not for the easily offended.  His Dad absolutely uses language constantly that is bound to offend some people, but it’s also incredibly funny.

“For as long as I’ve known him, my father has been a blunt individual.  When I was little, I mostly felt terrified of him, so I couldn’t appreciate that I was dealing with the least passive-aggressive human being on the planet.”

Of course, the idea that his father is simply blunt is a gross understatement but the fact that he is remarkably non passive-aggressive is a good way to think of it.  His father says what is on his mind, good or bad.  He gets it out and then it’s over.

If you want to check out some of his Dad’s latest and greatest one liners, Tumblr makes them available at http://shitmydadsays.tumblr.com/ or they are on Twitter at http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays. 

“On My First Day of Kindergarten – You thought it was hard?  If Kindergarten is busting your ass, I got some bad news for you about the rest of life.”

While most of what you see online is in the form of one liners, his book, short though it is as 158 pages, takes the one liners into the short story length and has a bit more poignancy to it like the time his father helped teach another boy baseball, or the time he goes nuts because Justin doesn’t show up to help him with a project.  When Justin finally shows up, his Dad yells at him then hugs him and says, “I can’t wait till you have some kid and you got to worry about what happens to him.  You never stop worrying about your children.  It sucks.”

There are some truly hilarious stories too, like the time his father thought there was a burglar in the kitchen, got his gun and army crawled to the kitchen (naked) but it was only Justin’s aunt getting a midnight snack. 

Don’t worry, there are also some of his best one-liners at the end of each chapter.

“On Aging – Mom and I saw a great movie last night… No, I don’t remember the name.  It was about a guy or, no, wait, fuck.  Getting old sucks.”

It reminds me of Maxine from Hallmark Greetings or Walter from Jeff Dunham’s stand up comedy.  If you enjoy either of them, you’ll enjoy this book.  I sure did.

The Right Attitude to Rain ~ Alexander McCall Smith

The Right Attitude to Rain
By Alexander McCall Smith

You may know Alexander McCall Smith better as the mystery writer of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series but The Isabel Dalhousie Series also has some sort of mystery to the books, though it is often more of a puzzle than a mystery in the traditional sense. 

Isabel Dalhousie is a moral philosopher by profession and the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. She lives in Edinburgh and her thoughts are often taken up with the moral questions of everyday life. 

In this latest installment, Isabel’s cousin, Mimi, and her husband, Joe, come for a visit from Texas. 

Mimi and Joe also know someone else visiting from Texas, Tom and his fiancé, Angie.  Tom invites them all to a house party, but there’s something not quite right about Tom and Angie.  Is Angie a gold digger?  Is she more dangerous than that?  Is that uncharitable of Isabel?  It preys on her mind.

As a moral philosopher, Isabel is often concerned with the right and wrong of situations and behavior.  When she first sees Tom and Angie, she reacts quite strongly to them.

“She found herself disliking them, this man and woman standing beside their expensive car, because of their arrogance.  She looked down into her coffee cup, and then up again.  No, she thought.  This is wrong.  You should not dislike people you do not know.”

The Right Attitude to Rain introduces a romantic element to the series.  Isabel has become quite enamored of Jaime, Cat’s ex, but he is 14 years younger than herself and she just can’t accept the idea.  Then she takes him to help inspect a flat she is considering purchasing for her housekeeper, Grace, as retirement security.  The owner takes a liking to the two of them, and offers to sell the flat for ten thousand less than the asking price.  She wants to help the couple out.  But they aren’t a couple and it would be dishonest to accept the flat under such misapprehension.  But it does start Isabel thinking, why not?  Why not her and Jamie?  Grace points out the obvious.  Cat probably won’t like it. 

 “…she’s going to be furious… the reason we know Cat would feel that way is that people are human.  That’s something you need to write about in that Review of yours.”

In fact, Cat doesn’t like it, even though she has taken up with someone else.  She is very jealous and even calls Isabel taking up with Jaime “disgusting.”

The story has a lot to do with change, both how far Isabel has come and how much she changes just in this book.  At the beginning of the book, she notes the changes since her marriage ended.

“… now she would see through John Liamor; and she had changed in other respects too.  She had become more forgiving, more understanding of human weaknesses than she had been in her twenties.  And love, too, had become more important to her...”

I read this some time ago but picked up the book on CD because I needed something to entertain me on my long commute; and I always find these books thought provoking and yet relaxing.  It is read with a pleasant Scottish accent which does not detract from the ability to understand what is being said and lends a much stronger feeling of Edinburgh.  It is well worth the listen, or the read, and if you find you like it, there is more available.  The Right Attitude to Rain is the third book but there are now eight books in the series with the ninth, The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds, due out in October 2012.