In change there is power

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
/Alan Cohen

The 40th Art Journal Crusade (in May) was about branching out of your normal size and going big or small. I covered a big surface with paint, going XL on brown paper and totally loved it, and then tore that paper into small signatures and made a XS journal too, and loved it, though I forgot to take a photo of the XS journal together with my normal sized altered book Art Journal. But now that is taken care of too:

I think #40 was one of my favorite crusades. Changing surface, size and placement is the best thing for boosting your creative life. Experts say that if you want to become “more creative” you should change your habits every now and then, like walking a different rout to work, going into shops you never visit, do something backwards, pick up and read through a magazine that you wouldn’t buy, sit in another chair when you write and so on and so on. We just love being comfy and safe, so it is a real challenge to sometimes mix it up and remember to do things differently. I love my comfortable habits, so I do need challenges to not become stale. That’s one reason I love the crusades so much, because it asks me to do something I didn’t think of myself, plus I get to do it in my art journal and learn something new. Bliss!

For June the crusade is an easy one, just create a grid in your Art Journal. You join the crusade by going to the blog post and commenting with a link to your post. Easy! And if you read my blog you know I love love love grids! See previous post with monthly inspirational mosaic and posts on my photo book here, and here! So for this crusade I re-visited a spread created this winter, with one grid page:

It is inspired by an article in Cloth Paper Scissors mag by Juju Vail. She altered a board book and filled it with grids, that then became backgrounds for her pencil sketches. I loved how they looked so I tried to create my own grid, but then forgot about it and moved on to the next spread…

Lately I’ve seen grids everywhere – my eyes open to grid compositions everywhere. I re-visited the grid page this week and finished it with a sketch of a brown little bird, coloured with water colours:

I like how it came out.

And some clouds, and a favorite quote on the opposite page:

And a tiny frog… sooo tiny! I love frogs, did you know? It started somewhere when I was a kid, so long before my owl obsession started really. To me they are the symbol of hope, maybe because the word “hope” and “jump” are the same in Swedish – my mind does that sometimes. Hopp! I have been thinking lately about the personal symbols that come up in my own art, like frogs, owls, roses and such. You will find all of them in the XS journal – and I didn’t even notice about it when I made those collages. Unconsciously I am drawn to symbolic images, and not until I think about it I will know what they are and what they mean to me. What are your symbols? Do you notice?

Join in

Are you making grids too? You should, and then join the Crusade Grid Lock – go read the post and if you are not inspired already you will be after reading Michelle’s post. They are a lot of fun to put together, and make great backgrounds!