Friday, May 1, 2015

Wrap Up for 2015 Fake Journal

Well, International Fake Journal Month is over, and I've completed my fake journal in time.    A little bit of info that I did not include anywhere in my journal.  My character is a woman (could even be myself in another lifetime) who won the lottery and bought a beach house in Hawaii.  I visited Hawaii about 13 years ago, and having a beach house there would be a dream come true.  (However, my real self would never just up and move so far away from my family, especially my grandkids). A few of the things that my character experienced were my experiences too,  but many were things that I didn't have the time, money, or the physical ability to do.

I used a Strathmore 6 x 9 inch watercolor spiral pad, mostly because it had exactly 15 sheets, which gave me 30 pages to work on.  Some of my previous fake journals were in larger books that have a lot of pages left, which I wanted to avoid.  I used watercolor pencils, something I've rarely worked with, and although I got a few really nice effects with them, mostly they strike me as either watercolor-but not as good as the real thing, or colored pencil-but not as good as the real thing.  I don't think this project changed my mind much on this.  I resorted to adding pen to a lot of my sketches because I couldn't get the definition that I wanted without it.  Shades of my real self overtaking my fake self???

As usual I started out with great enthusiasm, but sometimes I had to force myself to do that day's page, although once I forced myself to get started, I really got into it and had fun completing it.  

Did I achieve my goals?  Well, I kept my goals very simple.  To actually complete 30 pages (my 4 previous fake journals fell short), to use a medium that I wasn't used to working with, and to have fun.  So, yes, I think I achieved my goals.  As far as the fun, I really enjoyed my virtual visit to Hawaii.  I would love to go back some day  for real and sketch all of these places from real life.

My only regret was that I don't think that I made my character, and my art, different enough from my usual work - even with using a slightly different medium.