Prompt 1 - Artful Amblings Art Journal

The first prompt of 2010's A Year in the Life of an Art Journal was posted on the 15th. (Prompts are twice monthly, on the 15th and 30th.)

The prompt is: "WHAT? What is holding you back? What is stopping you? What are you afraid of? What is keeping you from your potential? WHAT?!?"

I answered in relation to my art journaling process. Even though I love to sit down with any of my journals - even if it is just to doodle a bit while watching TV or relaxing...sometimes that WHITE PAGE just causes me to freeze. And especially when the plan is to share it on a group site. Rachel's idea to write out all the reasons holding you back and then PAINT OVER THEM to take away their power was a great exercise for me. Originally, I started with a watercolored page, wrote all along the border of the page and filled in with some circle stamped images. But I really didn't like the end result...so I gessoed over it all and added two shades of acrylic paint as a base to start again. I used a Sharpie fine point pen for the journaling, and markers to fill in the letters. The stamps are a sheet of stamps I bought eons ago and cut up and foam-mounted myself (not very well!) The circle stamp is 7gypsies. The collaged bits are cut from a paint chip flyer. I love that I can still see a bit of the journaling peeking through the layers around the edges.