Art Travel Diary Thing

While I was traveling in Italy, I tried to draw/paint a little. Mostly we were walking around cities and sightseeing, so I have far more photos than drawings. I'm going to make a little scrapbook/art journal of my trip.

First, I need my CD of photos that I left in Italy so I can figure out how many photos to include. I might add some drawings, because sometimes a photo captures all of the ugly things that you didn't notice when you were taking the picture. With a drawing, you can single out the beauty that caught your eye, and just leave the extra bits out.

Here's a page from the hostel we stayed at in Ravenna. It is my most complete page at this point, and even this one I am planning to add to.

Packed and sorta ready!

Everything I'm taking is in this bag. And that totally hip fanny pack! (Almost-there's some stuff that's going in a plastic target bag until I meet up with Dad at the airport and then HE gets to take it.

Today I sewed us little cotton "sleep sacks" to protect us from potentially dirty sheets. I hemmed my new jeans, which took hours... I ripped some audiobooks for our iPods and those long train rides.

Oh and I put little ladybugs on my backpack so I look really badass and intimidate pickpockets.

I'm getting really excited about enforced downtime without a computer or a book to read. I'm hoping that some creative juices start flowing and I can work on some projects that I've been turning around in my head for awhile.

Now I just have to get some copies made of a couple of things, and print out the confirmation numbers for a couple of reservations.

Time for... a gratuitous cute photo of Mel and Andrea from this weekend! Claw hands!

Creating... Meditation.

When I was younger, I really wanted to EXPRESS myself when I drew or painted. And I was always frustrated because my drawing skills are not strong enough to do that. Now, I draw and paint as a way to meditate.

When I feel so strongly about something, and I want to DO something about it, but there's nothing I CAN do: I draw. I pick some random object and focus on copying it for an hour, and it calms me down. It gives me a way to just not think about what it is that's making me anxious.

It's a new discovery that I can calm myself down like this. I can feel hurt and angry and it feels like what I really need is to go out and run 5 miles, or do something to prove to the people that hurt me that I'm worth it. But what helps the most is sitting down and making a crappy drawing of my car keys. Amazing.

(I did this car keys drawing a long time ago, and actually I'm pretty happy with it. So maybe not that crappy. But still, it's car keys, not great expressive art.)