I discovered my love for digital art journaling two or three years ago. From that point on I created several digi art journaling pieces every month. Something happened late last summer, I’m not exactly sure what, that changed me.  I seemed to lose all inspiration and stopped creating both digital scrapbooking pages and digital art journaling pages. Even as I started working on regaining my inspiration after the first of the year, and I am still not where I want to be, I could not create a digi art journaling page that I liked. I tried back in March but hated everything.

Losing my inspiration for digital art journaling was almost worse than losing my scrapbooking inspiration. It had become my favorite form of creativity. I hated losing my desire to make digi art journaling pages. I wish I could say that desire was 100% back. To be honest, I don’t know for sure. I do think I am on the right track. What I can finally say is that I have created a couple of pieces.

In January, Tangie Baxter resumed doing the Art Journal Caravan that she used to conduct at Scrapbook Graphics but in a simpler format. I had always wanted to try the caravan, but I couldn’t afford it. This time around, it is included in my subscription to the Art Journal Emporium. When she announced the resumption of the caravan, I was so excited to give it a try.

Each week, I have saved the weekly itineraries. Each week I have created nothing. You read that correctly, I had not created a single page for the caravan in 14 weeks. I hadn’t ignored the itineraries. I just didn’t seem to be able to draw any inspiration from any of the itineraries. In fact, I was beginning to think that it was time I faced the idea that I no longer enjoyed digital art journaling. (Let me tell you, it was an idea I did not like.)

Today, I decided to give the caravan one more time. I opened up last week’s itinerary and grabbed the color inspiration using Photoshop. I then began trying to decide how I was going to use all of the other ideas tat had been shared. Nothing was coming to me. I had just about decided that maybe the caravan wasn’t for me and I should unsubscribe when I came to an important realization. Maybe I didn’t have to use all of the ideas. Maybe I could just use a couple.

I decided to quit trying to use the parts of the itinerary that seemed to block me and only look at the color inspiration and the suggestion for creating a mosaic paper background. Those ideas seemed to sit with me even when the other stuff just didn’t work. Once I started, it didn’t take me long to realize that I did not really want to create an entire mosaic background. However, I finally found the inspiration I needed to create a page.

The last few years have seemed to be filled with way more downs than ups. Then, just as I was beginning to feel like I was on an upward trend, my world was rocked at the end of November when I lost my mom. Since then I have wanted to create a page that seemed to capture my feelings right now. To be honest, I don’t know if it truly captures the depths of how lost I have felt since November. But it’s a little glimpse into how I have been feeling.

Seeking Uncaged

Created for Tangie Baxter’s 2016 Art Journal Caravan using Uncaged, Uncaged Brushes No 1, March 2016 Collage Sheets, Resonate Papers, and Resonate Klee Splatter Graffiti from Tangie Baxter, Hattie and Hattie Art Dolls from Rebecca McMeen and Paper Tear Actions from Mommyish. Font used is Depressionist 3 Revisited.

This second page is actually something I started over a month ago. At the time, no matter what I did, I could not come to like anything I created. On Thursday, as I was going through Evernote, I noticed a page of credits with no actual layout. I wanted to fix that, so it was time for a little hard drive exploration. When I found the page on my hard drive, I remembered what happened. However, I just couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like the page. So I added a couple of torn paper pieces and called it done. This is what I created.

Tomorrow is more Important than Yesterday

Created with Crispin, Crispin & Closet, Crispin Collages and Crispin Papers from Rebecca McMeen, Abounding Scatters from Tangie Baxter and Paper Tear Actions from Mommyish. Fonts used are Subway Novella, American Typewriter, Scratch My Head and Marker Felt.

I do remember why I started creating the page. At the time, I wanted to create a visual reminder to stop dwelling on past issues that I couldn’t change. Maybe I didn’t like the page because I was no where near ready to do that. I don’t know if I am where I need to be yet, but maybe I am ready to at least try.

I am so happy that I have finally found a bit of creative inspiration. Maybe now I can finally begin moving in the right direction. I am going to try.