April was such a fun month for me!
Fake author background: I based my fake author, Lizzie, on an alternate personality of myself: When I was 10, I wrote a letter to my "future self" and packed it away to be read when I was in my 20's. In 1992, I wrote another letter to my "future self", which I read a few years ago. I had been meaning to write another letter to my "future self", but I just hadn't gotten around to doing it.
This was where Lizzie begins -- to reply back to "her" past "self". At the end of the month, she DOES get around to writing that letter to her future "self" (which is something that I still need to do!) :-) Since Lizzie will never be able to actually mail each of the letters to the past or the future, I had decided that each letter in the month would have to be to someone/something that Lizzie would not be able to mail it to: someone from the past, a ghost, someone who died, a stranger, a character from a book, a beloved pet chicken, etc. This would also explain why Lizzie happened to have all of these letters, and why she used previously canceled postage stamps.
I thought it would be fun to intertwine her story with that of my fake author from 2010, Marie. Marie was dealing with the loss of her twin sister, Zoë, who died in a fiery car crash in 2009. The theme of "loss" was prevalent throughout the month and how Lizzie was (and was not) able to deal with it.
The final letter's envelope is black -- which may (or may not!) be a clue as to how things end with Lizzie.
Goals: My goals for the month were to use materials that I had on hand and to try and spend some time working with different mediums and take note on what I liked and disliked. I have a tendency to bounce around and never really explore a particular medium in depth. My overall goal for the year is to change this tendency.
The "journal" was made from a large sketchbook that I had. I cut out the pages to make both the envelopes, and the letters that are inside. I also had a lot of vintage postage stamps that I had been wanting to use for a very long time -- so I was very excited about the thought of a month of mail art.
The paper I used was not friendly to some mediums. For the first letter I used a dip pen and fountain pen ink, and the ink bled and feathered. Since the envelopes were made from the paper in the sketchbook, it wasn't intended for watercolor --but it did have some decent heft to it (no clue what weight it was). I was able to use watercolor pencils and Stabilo Tones without much of a problem (no buckling) other than the fact that I could not re-work the paper or make any corrections due to the sizing issue.
Hand's down, I can say that I really dislike using colored pencils. I don't know if it has to do with the brand of pencils that I own (Derwent Coloursoft), that I don't know how to use them correctly, that they don't erase well, that they are not as opaque as I like...not sure. But I really don't like them.
Interestingly, I didn't mind using the Col-Erase pencils to draw Wyatt Earp...
I also was not fond of my watercolor pencils this month. They just seemed kind of pale, boring and "blah" to me. I am fond of saturated colors and the transparency of watercolor doesn't always appeal to me.
Not surprisingly, I liked using the Stabilo Tones (Stabilo Woody). I like the saturation, the fun pops of color, and that they did NOT smudge on the paper! Woo Hoo!! LOVED that!! (When I use them in my journals, they always smudge on the opposing page and it drives me nuts. ) I don't mind getting messy when I paint and I often use my fingers to smear things around; but, I cannot stand smudging on my paper where I do not want the smudging to be. (I have this love/hate relationship with graphite as well).
Pigma Micron pens worked great on the paper. I really like the look of pen and ink drawings (especially those crazy-detailed ones!) but I am quick and impatient by nature and find all that detail to be very tedious.
Future goal:
Based on my likes/dislikes, I hope to pick ONE medium and work exclusively with it for at least a month. I am currently at a loss as to which one it will be. Part of me wants to focus on colored pencils to see if I can discover some hidden love for them --- and another part of me wants to toss them in the trash and work with something else...
(Roz -- I'd appreciate any thoughts you had on this dilemma!)
And I need to bind up Lizzie's Letters --- I will post a picture when I am done!
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