Journal Craft Inspirations

Our featured ‘journalist’ is Anita Davies an artist living in Cambridgeshire, UK.

(Anita’s biography follows at the end of this interview)

“My journals have opened my wings and allowed me to fly.”

Anita, thank you for joining us - how long have you been keeping a journal, and how regularly to you use it?
I have been working in a sketchbook for approximately two years now, mainly scavenger hunt lists from the wet canvas website and EDM challenges. Then last summer I purchased a Venezia A5 watercolour sketchbook and decided I would journal everyday of the 6 week school break for my youngest son Harry to look back on when he is older. I enjoyed it so much that I continued and now I journal everyday.

What benefits do you feel you gain from keeping a journal?
Oooh, there are so many benefits.

• Firstly, they offer me a daily incentive and inspiration.
• They help me to keep the momentum going and improve my hand to eye coordination, I find my lines much quicker these days and work with much more confidence.
• This new found confidence has unlocked the doors to my imagination. I am now brave enough to manipulate, change or even dream up part or whole of an image. I have even created my own characters for a children’s book I hope to get around to working more on in the future. I was a slave to a reference before, F.O.F (fear of failure) held me back a lot. My journals have opened my wings and allowed me to fly.
• They help with new composition ideas, often putting together items on the same page that I would never have associated with one another before.
• They allow me to record memories, not the big dramatic stuff we all remember because it’s annual or we were sad but the little things that can be so easily forgotten; holding my child’s hand by the sea, watching a school pantomime, recording an emotion as it happens, keeping it fresh forever.
• They have opened my eyes to my surroundings and offered me a deeper appreciation of the world I live in.
• Finally, I hope they will secure a place for me in the lives of future generations and allow me to mean more than just a name to those I wish I could have met.

What do you mainly use your journal for?
Where ever I am, what ever I am doing…I journal it!

Would you share a couple of your journal pages with us?
Why, of course!

My first page, entitled ‘Home Sweet Home’, was a particularly emotional page for me. I drew the circles the night before, like cogs in an endless chain to express the fact that my situation felt very much out of my control. I filled in one with my emotions in text and drew my youngest Son Harry lying peacefully tucked up in his bed. The remaining circles gave me something to concentrate on, some relief, during the difficulty of the following day, while Harry went through dental surgery.

In my second page I worked both from life and imagination. First I tore some of the paper my daffodil purchase was wrapped in and stuck it onto the page, then I sketched the flowers over the top in ink, added a little coloured pencil for depth and a few flowers from imagination for interest. I balanced the page by adding a touch of colour to the top of the word ‘daffodils’ bringing that deep purple in the right of the wrapping paper across the page to lead the eye through the imaginary flowers, across the jug base and into my text.

Anita you often use decorative lettering on your pages - where do you get the ideas for different letter designs from, and what do you feel it adds to the pages?
I have always loved handwriting. At school I would tear pages from exercise books because I wasn’t satisfied with the handwriting and re-do the pages at home where I had more time…Usually instead of doing homework! It was as important to me then as it is now. I’m not sure why, it’s a personal thing really, I like things tidy, composition and balance play a major role and nice lettering just looks so beautiful and artistic…don’t you think? I think it adds something to a composition, to a page, and I feel the style of the text can often describe the page far better than the quantity of text.

I like the way you often divide a page up into shapes, can you tell us a little about this technique?
The shapes usually come to me the night before, I’ll grab something from around the house; toy box, pencil tin, mug, and then look forward to filling it up when I wake the next morning. It gives me something to look forward to as I drift off to sleep.

What do you do when you need inspiration?
I grid my journal page into small manageable sized areas and sketch random things throughout the day. If I can’t find anything, I use my imagination to fill some. I find having smaller areas to fill takes the pressure off of both having to fill a large area with something substantial and having to spend a lot of time with a single subject when my concentration is low. The grids make a storyboard of my day and state of mind. Risky but fun! LOL!

What is your favourite type of Journal, and what art materials do you like to use in it?
I am currently using two different weight journals that are both filled with HP watercolour paper. One is made by Canson and one by Saunders Waterford.
I like the fact that I can use wet media, coloured pencils, graphite, ink, acrylic…all with ease!
I love the Moleskine sketchbooks with their creamy fillings but feel restricted by their surface and size at times.
I find A5 is a great size for a journal, not too small or too large and easy to scan for uploading to my blog. I do have a smaller A6 that I keep in my handbag for café sketches, mainly because it is less conspicuous when targeting customers/figures.

Do you have any unusual stories/anecdotes related to your Journal keeping?
Yes! Something very exciting happened recently as a direct result of my journal entries on my blog. The Editor of a local newspaper had been reading and enjoying my blog for some time, recently he emailed me offering me a weekly illustrated column in two of his newspapers and I accepted. I get to write and sketch on a local platform, which I love!
It was the most amazing surprise opening that email, I felt like a child at Christmas!

To finish, why would you recommend keeping a journal?
Because we tend to remember the huge dramatic experiences of our lives with ease. It’s those little moments, those free or inexpensive, emotionally charged seconds that we all too often forget or take for granted…I want to remember them all and I want my family to remember me for them!

Anita Davies - Brief Biography
Born on 5th April 1968, Anita spent her childhood in Hertfordshire where she acquired ‘O’ level and ‘A’ level in art, before moving to the Fens in 1991.
In 2003 she began her “artistic journey”.
Self taught, she currently works in a variety of media. Her inspiration is drawn from a passion of light and vision; seeing the “hidden treasures” in everyday life and each subjects beauty, seeking to capture character and emotion in her work.
Anita’s work is held in private collections worldwide and she has carried out commissions on a variety of subjects, particularly portraiture.
Anita recently stepped down from her position as Chair of the Fenland Visual Arts Collective as well as acting Press officer and art curator of the March Town Hall Cafe on behalf of the Collective to devote more time to her own work.
On 8th February 2008 her illustrated column premiered in both, The Cambs Times and Wisbech Standard newspapers.

http://artbyanita.blogspot.com

http://artbyanita2.blogspot.com

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ArtbyAnita