I started working with Marianne Hieb’s book, “Inner Journeying through Art Journaling”, a beautiful and inspiring book on the art journaling process. Marianne works mainly with oil pastels, so that is what this work is drawn with. Her first exercise is to doodle about the question, “what are all the elements of your life as it exists today?”.
My process was to dump all the oil pastels onto the middle of the paper, and start drawing on the available space as it emerged when I picked up each color. If colors rolled off, I used them next.
So this is what emerged, a picture of me with my golden retrievers at Lake Poway near us. The hills of Poway are in the background, and we are lounged comfortably under a tree by the lake’s edge. I’m very attached to my golden retrievers, and one of my dreams is to someday have a ranch where I can raise goldens and train them as service and companion dogs, to give away to those who need them. I also want to be able to host a rescue program, repurposing those dogs that can be trained and finding good homes for the rest. Right now, I have no space for that, and these two goldens are my only rescues, who have become my wonderful companions.
But they are not all the elements of my life, so I wonder a bit at why this drawing emerged. Perhaps they are simply the most peaceful part of my life, along with the elements of nature, that strengthen and support my connection to the Tao. Or perhaps I need to take the goldens to the lake, sit uinder this tree and contemplate the elements of my life to develop a clearer picture. Anyway, this was a useful exercise for me, so thought I would pass it along. Marianne uses oil pastels, but you really could just draw or paint with pretty much anything. Marianne’s process involves eight stages:
Preparation stages:
1. supplying art supplies
2. settling in
3. visualizing
Art-journaling stages:
4. posing the question
5. responding with art materials
6. gazing
7. writing
8. noticing
“We are growing organisms, springing from a source and reaching for water, bending toward the sun. Like the seed, we are on a journey toward becoming who we already are.” — Marianne Hieb
4 Responses
what a neat process! i love the way you made the drawing by slowly revealing the page beneath the tools. and it’s a very peaceful drawing, i definitely get that from it. great work!
Great ideas. I am new to art journaling and decorated pages, but it’s a great outlet! Love the picture.
I’m going to have to find this book. My local library doesn’t have it. I saw you suggested it to another AW member that wasn’t really connecting with the AW process. This book looks fantastic!! Look forward to hearing more about it on your blog.
Yeah, I don’t think Artist’s Way really resonates with everyone. You have to be at the right point in your life for it. I also am reading Cameron’s other book, “Walking in This World, which I am enjoying more than the Artist’s Way. It seems much more relaxed, as if she has dealt with her issues and is now at a better place in her life. That is more how I am feeling these days, so it tends to resonate with me a bit more.
I’ve been through all the Artist’s Way issues, though, so I see where it is coming from and think it is wonderful if you can be open and receptive to it. Sometimes what we resist the hardest is what we most need, sometimes we are just beyond that point in our lives. The wisdom is in knowing where you are at on your path. Transition points are the most difficult to deal with, since we tend to resist change rather than realizing it is the natural order of things.
I am happy to have come as far as I have, but have tremendous empathy for others because of it. While I went through a very difficult time, coming out the other side of that, feeling as great as I do now, is amazing to me. There is recovery, and then there is realizing there was never anything to recover from, that you needed to accept the Natural World, and yourself within it, rather than fighting with Nature or yourself, and then you can move on to dealing with the people who used to make you crazy. That is what I like in Hieb’s book – it seems to lead to becoming far more accepting of yourself as you are with nature, not as you must be according to any particular process.
Doing a lot of process work, I have come pretty naturally to know that most of the time, people are just fine, but they are simply trying to live with a lot of very broken processes. It is amazing how freeing it is to come to that realization.