If You REALLY Want to See Barcelona...

When I first read Danny Gregory's book Creative License, I was struck by his explanation that if you really want to know and understand something, draw it.  When you draw something, you look at it in such a detailed way, that you notice things you wouldn't otherwise see.  Although I'm no artist, that rang so true to me.  And I knew I wanted to keep an art journal. 

I've been trying to draw something most days for the past few weeks.  I'm even taking an online class called Sketch Book Skool that is fun and motivating and not intimidating at all. Thanks to that class, and those wise words of Mr. Gregory, I took a little sketchpad on our recent trip to Barcelona. 

Fermin would sit with me on a bench most days, somewhere around the city, while I drew something that caught my eye, but seemed like something this "little a artist" could handle.  So many of those old buildings are so beautifully ornate, I would have felt overwhelmed had I attempted to draw them.  I stuck with the more simple architecture instead. 

Here are a few of my sketches from our trip...

Here I am drawing the building in the background- Can you tell which one I attempted to draw?

Everyone seems to have a balcony in Barcelona.  But they're just for looks. Not big enough to even stand on usually.

Balconies, Dome Shaped Building, and a Outdoor Food stand in Barcelona

These were certainly not the prettiest things I saw while we were in Spain, but I sure spent a lot of time looking at them.  It was such a nice part of the day- sitting down to sketch, in no hurry, and just soaking in my surroundings.

The Humble Beginnings of My Art Journal

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I've just started an Art Journal.

At this point, it's not so much of an Art Journal, as it is a Washi Tape Extravaganza, but hey, it's fun, and I'm drawn to doing something with it each day. I think it's going to be really interesting to see where I started with this, and where it goes...

So, I thought I'd show my humble beginnings with my first art journal.

a somewhat boring datebook for 2014

I ordered this datebook from Amazon.  I hoped to find one that began in mid-year, but hey!!!  NOTHING'S GOING TO STOP ME!  The book that inspired this creative endeavor is called "No Excuses Art Journal" after all!  So I started right in the middle of the book with July 1.

The first week of July is beginning to fill up in my art journal!

As you can see, I've done some cutting and pasting.  The old fashioned kind.  And a little painting with watercolors. So much fun!  If one day I only have a minute, totally enough.  If another day I have and hour, super duper!  I love that it gets filled up, looks kind of cute, and will be so much more fun to look back on than either a boring datebook, or even my usual verbose journal entries.  I'm still allowing room for writing... But since right now I'm writing 50 songs in 90 days, most of my writing is going into that for now anyway.

Here are a few more pages for July that I've prepared for adding to along the way.

watercolor, magazine cut outs, and washi tape!

more of the same... but different!

just a little watercolor I'll add to soon with writing, drawing, or whatever!

Like I said, these are the humble beginnings.  But seriously, I'm so happy with how it's looking.  In fact I love it.

It's even given me a new obsession which is this WASHI TAPE!  It comes in so many different cool designs, patterns and colors. I've also been buying fabric tape.  This stuff just makes everything look cuter. 

my growing pile of washi and fabric tape