In FIT Tuesday several days ago now (a Tuesday night service combined with small groups at Sandals), we were asked to identify things that we do that do not give glory to God and things we do that give glory to God. Interestingly enough, "drawing and painting" was on both lists.
I have to say, I enjoy art (which in my case is generally paper crafts, such as scrapbooking, card making, and art journaling) sometimes to the detriment of things I am called to do. Such as housework, homework and my volunteer activities with church.) But as you can see with my blog, while my art probably does not dishonor God, most of it is random, not spiritual.
I mean the last art journal page I did was focusing on that crazy thought I get once in awhile, that I ought to take up farming for a living. In the case of my last page, my idea was even crazier - growing palm trees out in the desert so I could visit Palm Springs every day. Would be fun, but would be too much hard work and how does a broke housewife living near Riverside get the money to start a farm anyhow?
You know, like everything else, that crazy art journal page started with a prompt. In this case, it was Prompt 6ix 7 at Daisy Yellow. Use the six things she says. Argyle. Great, I have several scraps of argyle. Garden, science, resume, sketch and balloon. OK, I will use my balloon stamp and a card sketch. But how am I going to get science, resume and garden into the page? OK, back to my fantasy of being a farmer. If I would have been a good farmer, I would have studied agricultural science in high school. Then I could add gardener to my resume.
But wait, that argyle paper has B sides. The brown argyle's B side is a ledger print. OK, farmers have to deal with ledgers a lot. And the green argyle paper has a graphic of a palm tree with some text about a hotel in Florida on it. I have never been to Florida, so I will just cover that part up with what's left of the brown argyle. But I have been to Palm Springs. It's close enough to commute if the job is worthwhile. So, OK, I will be a palm tree gardener. At least on paper.
While I like my crazy pages, I also like those that are all about glorifying God. One of my other favorite artist journal prompt websites, A Year in the Life of An Art Journal, inadvertently I am sure, is helping me to produce a few of those. It's inadvertent, because there is nothing spiritual about the website, except maybe a few other Christians who are contributing their work. The prompts I have seen for 2012 and 2011 have sometimes been so unspiritual I've had to pass. And she's talking about using Harry Potter as the inspiration for the 2014 prompts. Not sure at all that would work for me!
But 2013 (at least so far) has been all good. The 2013 prompts are focusing on mugs. That's right coffee mugs, tea cups, things to hold beverages. So, for two of the three official prompts posted so far, I have focused on one of my mugs, a red mug with roses on the front and a scripture verse on the back.
Here is what that mug looks like, and what I did with the A Year in the Life prompt posted a month ago.
The prompt posted on Friday called for using a favorite quote, and suggested using a photo of your favorite mug printed onto book paper. Doing that takes a little bit of digital wizardry. Since the design team members, and the one regular member who has already posted her page did not incorporate "mug shots" into their pages, neither did I.
They all used quotes though. I was especially inspired by the work of design team member Amy, who had taken a picture of her cup for a different part of this challenge, and had then created an art page with the art on her cup. Her quote is "Bloom Where You Are Planted." Her page focuses on having had to move from Oregon to Idaho sometime back, and she's now feeling planted there in Idaho whether she likes it or not. She also put her ZIP code into the art page. That really resonated with me, as I feel planted in 92509 (Jurupa Valley). And I already had the quote "Bloom Where You Are Planted" in my art journal.
I toyed with redoing the page that quote is on, as there are some aspects of that particular page I do not like. But I do like much of that page, and I also really like the facing page. So there was no way to do this prompt without destroying something I already liked. So, I moved on to a new page near the end of the book. (I said February, but with some recent redos, I now think I will finish Book 1 in March.)
So, what book should I copy? Then I remembered. My favorite mug came with a book. So maybe I should copy a page from it. That page would, as they all do, have a scripture on it. And I seriously like quoting scripture more than I like quoting random quotes, good as "Bloom where you are planted" is.
Flipping through the book, I realized every single page mimicked the design of the cup. Each page had a red curve, just like the edge of the cup. Inside the curve, each page was colored a light beige, like a coffee filled with creamer. Usually the text was inside that. There are also flowers inside each curve. Then there are section dividers, where there are huge bouquets of flowers inside, and the text on a reddish background outside the "cup."
The first section divider "The Garden" was very appropriate. It assures the reader "God has planted you in just the right place." And so, that is what my page says, along with the scriptural quote "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
The process was to glue the copy of the devotional book to the art journal. I used markers to extend the "mug" to the edges of the page. Because the copy was not color correct, and made yellow flowers and parts of flowers look white or grey, as well as the cream, I added more color to them with a yellow marker, and brightened the leaves with a green marker. Then I added some more stamped flowers in and out of the mug.
