Tracey Niehues: My recent obsession

OK...here's my little secret. Don't tell! I am doing an art journal. Actually, I became addicted to doing art journals a few months ago after trolling blogland. I know that this was meant to be for me. I came across this blog by Suziblu. Her videos are a hoot. She is so artsy and animated. I just love her. She spoke to me that day and I have been her blog stalker ever since. She has these videos that she does to get you started with art journals. Of course, I ran right out and bought a moleskine and a ton of art supplies that I had no idea what to do with. I still don't know what I'm doing but I am having so much fun playing with the oil pastel crayons, the colored pencils, the charcoal pencils and the watercolors. These are my first pages that I did. Don't laugh. The skull was an assignment that Suzi gave to create a self portrait. I can draw stick people and kooky cartoon people but an actual self portrait is not my thing. So that's me! My son, Kyle, gave me the idea for the headband. (I think that there might be a little artist in that kid!) The second page's title came from a Yogi Tea bag tag. Yup! Suzi has me drinking herbal teas now too. Each tea bag has a little quote. I used Suzi's little girl and drew her on a book text page. After preparing the background in my journal I glued the entire page in and finished up with more paint and colors. I'm hooked. While at Silver Bella I met a super fab artist, Janey Jennings. She was working on her art journal at Starbucks. She journals everyday and is AMAZING! We tried to talk her into creating a blog. Hope that she does. I wish that I had everything else in my life organized to work in my journal every day. It really calls me. What's that?....leave the laundry and dusting until tomorrow?...OK! I'm off to smoosh some paint! I'm thinking maybe a Christmas Art Journal!