After not doing a fake blog
last year I was excited to participate again this year. Although it takes a lot
of work to be able to get a page done for each day, I enjoy doing it…but it is
a big commitment.
Here are some positive things about my fake blog this
year.
· The topic of flowers and a garden center was easier
than the ones I have used in the past for my fake blog. It didn’t take as much
research or planning so I didn’t always worry about falling behind.
· Doing so many blog pages made me more comfortable
sketching and painting flowers.
· The sketches for each page took less time once I
figured out what flowers I was going to use.
There were many royalty free images of flowers available for use, as
well as many reference photos that I took and sketches that I had already done.
I worked from all of them. I would usually gather the references ahead of time
and write something out to give me an idea of where my page would go the next
day.
Here are the negative things about the fake blog
this year.
· There were days that I was just tired of flowers and
couldn’t get enthused about doing a page. However, once I got started on a page
the idea would grow and usually went fairly
well. I think that happens sometimes when you push yourself.
· I was running out of ideas of different things to do
at the flower shop. I didn’t want it to be just flowers with no story to it.
But just when I thought I couldn’t come up with another idea, something would
come to me.
My thoughts about the whole
experience.
I just loved seeing the work by
the other artists doing fake journals. Previously when I did the fake journal
there were very few other artists who were linked on Roz’s blog. It was amazing to see the work that was
created in just a month. The narrations and the sketches were wonderful!! We
really rocked this year!!!
Many of the participating
artists just amazed me with the results they achieved working through emotional
times in their lives, travel that got in the way, and health problems either of
their own or family members. I made me realize how important art is to our
lives, and how healing it can be. We need it to keep us balanced.
In a way I regret that I
didn’t experiment with a new technique. I am a creature of habit and usually do
what I’ve done in the past because it worked. Immediately after starting I saw
Jan Blencowe’s page that incorportated Gelli plate images, and I regretted not
experimenting and using my Gelli plate (that I still haven’t tried). Hopefully next
year I will be inspired to step out of my comfort zone and use a different
technique.
My thanks to Roz for starting
all this and inviting us to participate. It is wonderful to see the number of
artists that took part. I would also like to thank everyone for your comments,
support, and inspiration. It is so great to be a part of an art community like
this!
