The language of me

It has been a few days since I blogged. I've had a rough week or two where I've felt like I've barely been holding on but I've slayed some things from my massive and sometimes scary to-do list so I feel like I might be coming out the other side of things. I still have a few big things looming on the horizon that I would rather avoid but for now I think I can manage. This level of maintenance has now allowed me to do another blog post. 

I wanted to get in at least one more journal spread for the Art Journal Journey theme of Language that the lovely Elle of Empire of the Cat chose. I also made sure it was a mixed media piece so I could share it with the peeps over at More Mixed Media Challenge. So I invite you to watch as I change another previous spread I was not happy with into a piece that speaks to who I am using the language of the Zodiac and where each of the planets in our solar system were sitting, including our beautiful warm, dazzling star and moon, the moment I was born all those years ago.

This was the journal spread I covered it. It's not that she isn't lovely and peaceful looking and it's not that I hate her, it's just that I never got around to finishing her and I started her... at least 5 years or more ago. So rather than having a finished page in my journal, a page I had no desire to finish, I thought I'd just cover her up with something I love instead. She will always be there, underneath it all, so it is kind of symbolic in a way. She is me from many years ago but a new me has emerged since then.

As I've really been enjoying using the paper from this particular book and it so relates to the theme of language I used it again. This time I didn't rip it up though, I just cut off the white edges and glued in the pages whole.

From there I laid down some Koi's watercolour here and there to try and pull of a galaxy like Elle did for her first journal page for this theme. It's not something I've done before so I admit to not having a clue what to do. I'm not exactly a watercolour user all that often. I much prefer my alcohol inks and acrylic paint and if I'm going to do watercolour, I rather watercolour pencils but I felt like actual watercolour paints were what was needed for this.

Then I remembered that I have those metallicy pearly watercolours and I'm so sorry but I have totally forgotten the name and brand and of course they come in little tiny bottles with zero branding on them at all! They are gorgeous though. So I added a bunch of them to make the paper all shiny and pretty, you can kind of see the effect in the dark blue at the bottom of this photo. Then I used my white posca pen, got it all juicy and just flung it at the page to create dots and streak marks across the page.

Here's a photo of the shiny watercolours, maybe someone else recognises them and can put the brand in the comments cause I'd love to buy more when I run out eventually!

If you've been following my blog at all you would know that I am in love with digistamps, especially those from The Paper Shelter who have recently brought out a series of the Zodiac signs ::fangirl squeal:: So that called for me to do a spread of my personal Zodiac that tells the story of me. The very unique language of Samm. The biggest one, Capricorn, is my sun sign. In place of Earth I put my Taurus rising sign and above that my Libran moon, otherwise if you follow it around from the sun it shows what zodiac constellation each of the planets in our solar system was in at the very minute I was born.

Normally I colour digistamps in with Copic, that's just my preferred medium for them but I decided to try something a little different this time. I decided to use my Derwent Inktense pencils. Unlike what I did in THIS post, I kept all the backgrounds the same, I did all the skin tones the same, all the hair colour the same and used all my favourite colours. Why? Well, because every single one of these Zodiac represents a part of me. They are all me in different aspects of myself, governing over different parts of my life from the way I relate to friends, how I relate to lovers, my stubbornness, my sometimes indecisiveness, my deep unconditional acceptance, it all shows up in this Language of Samm.

I decided to use my Ceramcoat for the skin rather than the pencils though, not for any particular reason, just as a point of difference maybe and, well, because I love the brand.

Once I had them all coloured in and the borders done I added some white dots with my white posca pen around the outside of each one and a trail from the sun all the way around to pluto.

Lastly, I added some lettering "The LANGUAGE of the ZODIAC ~ a personal story" and it is done! I'm so happy with how it turned out! I love it a bajillion times more than what was originally on these two pages. I feel so connected to this as it truly is a road map to me of sorts... or perhaps a star map to me. If one were to bother to learn about each planet and what the zodiac traits are, they could know a great deal about me via this spread. The only aspect it's really missing is what planets sit in what houses but that's far too complicated for a journal spread for someone who only knows the basics of astrology. 

I love it so much though, that I want to do one for each of my kids. I am even considering doing an online course on it or something. Perhaps not using digistamps but coming up with our own representations of each zodiac. Something to think about I guess. I hope you enjoyed this journey into the Language of Samm!

FYI: I am not affiliated with any of the products mentioned, I just love them all. They work really well for me and I can use them to my advantage. 

In Joy!