Junque Art

I am elated to share with you the talented Cindy Gilstrap today!  She created this amazing blog post for you!  Please read and enjoy her artwork and visit Cindy at www.junqueart.com

Hey sweet creative peeps! Today I wanted to share with you one of my passions…art journaling, and why I love it! Back in 2004 when I owned a retail scrapbook store altered books were starting to creep into the scrapbook world. I was hooked immediately! I think I was drawn to the combination of vintage and new items together that created a unique piece of art in a book. It was my first exposure to a mixed media art form.  As the years have passed I have also found a love and passion for mixed media art and art journaling. I love that I can combine many different products in any way I want and create beautiful, happy, quirky, fun pieces of art.As much as I love creating mixed media pieces on a canvas or wood, I don’t always want to feel like it has to be a perfect piece of art. One of the ways I still enjoy mixed media art without feeling attached to a completed or even perfect piece is through art journaling. There are so many ways to approach art journaling. Some use it as their journaling practice and truly write a ton in their books combined with some sort of visual elements. Those visual elements can be sketches, more complex drawings, painting, collage, and more. Really the sky is the limit and it all depends on your personal style and preference. My approach to art journaling leans more toward the art. I do write some on my pages  but my journaling consists more of quotes or just phrases that I want to remember.I love using my art journal for experimentation and continuing to develop my art style. I may use a page just to try out a new product or a combination of products. I may use it to try a new color palette. I may just start a page because I have an idea in my head that I just need to get out. I love the freedom of art journaling because really anything goes. I love that I don’t feel like I have to be perfect. I love that it’s just a place to play and have fun and experiment. I love that a lot of times my art journal pages become a favorite piece of art and a lot of that does have to do with I approach it with no real plan and no expectations. Do I create ugly stuff? Absolutely! But even the ugly can be beautiful because it allowed me to express something that I needed to express through color and getting messy with paint.I have put together a little video for you of me creating an art journal page in one of my favorite vintage art journals. The only plan I had when starting this page was to capture a beautiful short quote that a creative friend expressed in a conversation. We were discussing what it meant to be creative and she said “the freedom to unfold”. I thought it was a beautiful thing to remember. We are all creative in some way, and really all we need to do is give ourselves the permission and “the freedom to unfold”.  So I hope you enjoy watching my process and I hope you give yourself “the freedom to unfold” and to try something new and creative.

Thank you so much for watching and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments.  And I would love to know what new creative thing is unfolding for you! Please share that in the comments too.