Chronicles Project: Week 5

Hellooooooooo and welcome to another week of Chronicles/anti-journaling!  Woo!  If you are new here or just need a refresher, check out the Manifesto (I love that word).

A couple of weeks ago I released the master list of prompts.  I am still tweaking and adjusting and figuring out the easiest way to make this work, and I know there are people out there who are not so self-motivated (I’m looking at you, Cheri. 😉 ) – I am TOTALLY one of those people.  If you look at my page last week, you can see that I struggled a bit too.  SO.  We are going to combine the best of both worlds, here.  Using the master list and the miracle of modern science known as the random sequence generator on random.org, I will release a weekly list of prompts to use and will use those prompts myself.  It’s easier to procrastinate when you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, so let’s get rid of that problem. 😀

SO, here we go!

Week 5 prompts, chosen by random.org:

• Art:

1. If you’re in a workshop or class, actually do an exercise (I am notoriously bad about taking workshops and not doing anything with them).  If not, try a new technique
2. Check out http://www.daysoftheyear.com/ and find out what today is.  Draw it.
3. Try to copy a painting from the 1800s or emulate one of your favorite artists (be sure to credit the original artist!)
4. (Optional:  Journal52)

• Journaling:

1. Write about your favorite thing that happened this week.
2. What song do you love this week?
3. Write one long-term goal.

• Photography:

1. Look around for three things that start with the same letter.  Take a picture of them.
2. Do a photography challenge (there are a billion of them on the internet/facebook/blogosphere) and paste in your favorite picture.
3. Take a picture of the thing that is making you really happy right now.

• Destash:  Use something you can’t stop buying.
• Scrappy:  Paste in receipts/ticket stubs/other miscellaneous mementos

Here are my pages!

 

My main spread is prompt #1 in the art section – actually doing a workshop lesson.  I have done Lifebook two years in a row, and this is the first time I’ve actually completed an exercise.  It was a super coincidence since I can’t resist popups.  The page on the right was just me playing around with colored pencils.. Here’s a closeup:

 

As part of the destash, I used something I can’t stop buying:  Grounds and mediums.  I have so many different kinds of acrylic grounds (three different kinds of white gesso, clear gesso, absorbent ground for watercolor, and pastel ground, which is what this is).  I mixed the pastel ground with water and a bit of aqua acrylic, and it gave it a really cool sandpapery texture that is awesome for colored pencil.  Eats the pencil like a zombie on your femur, but still.  Nice.  I made some more of the same paper for my popups, too!

This page has a photography prompt (three things of the same letter), a scrappy prompt (I pasted in my kid’s excellent report card since it was sitting here getting in my way), and this week’s Journal52 prompt, which was Love Letters.  I took that SUPER LITERALLY.  I also destashed with some washi tape.  Mostly to keep the uncooperative edges of that Love Letter down.

 

This page is JAM PACKED.  First, art prompt #2 – February 3 was Cordova Ice Worm day, so I drew a big ice worm with walnut ink over acrylic.  I added my goal for this week, which is to get some calligraphy practice in (and to try to catch up, but that is just hilarious).  I wrote about my favorite song, dropped in a picture of something making me really happy, and doodled a bit.  I wrote down some random things that happened during the week, and I made sure to write what different supplies I used in different spots so that I would remember later.

All in all, a successful spread, I think!   You can see I didn’t do every single prompt, but I still had enough to fill up two pages plus the inclusion and got a pretty good chronicle of my week!

I hope this makes things easier.  As always, do them all if you want or pick what you like and dump the rest!