I was super excited to get this art journal as I love Krans' tarot imagery and artwork. The excitement lasted while I browsed the book, but then, when the reality of the journal quality sank in, I felt equally disappointed.
EXCITED
> The whole journal design, colour scheme and Krans' artwork are very much of my liking.
> This a great practice journal to get your creativity started, flourished or regained. You can use the journal to write, paint or collage, or all of them, whatever you want.
> I see this journal as suitable for children and beginner artists.
> The cover image (an eye in the centre of the labyrinth) really resonates with me because the creative process is just an insight into a soulful labyrinthine path that expresses itself through our eyes, psyche, and hands.
> Great hard-cover binding. The journal can be fully opened without you feeling that the pages are going to come off at the turn of the page. Besides, the hard cover makes the journal more elegant and durable.
> White-page fear no more.
> I can use some of the pages in the book as collage paper into my artwork.
DISAPPOINTED
> The journal is intimidating, in a way, as the author's artwork is already done, and, in my case, I feel like a frog beside a princess.
> The paper is not especially good for anything liquid or inky unless you apply translucent/white gesso primer beforehand. Pencils are OK. Oil pastels need of a fixative as they don't hold well onto this paper surface.
> I don't find that prompts help me create anything meaningful to me. In that regard, to me, the journal is more a level-up colouring book than a journal.
> The hieroglyphs (decipher exercises) in the book, which I find delightful, are wrongly done. If you create a symbol and give them an equivalent letter, as Krans does, you then transcribe any text following this system. However, that's not the case here; if you use the same equivalents you won't be able to transcribe some of the texts because the same symbols are given different equivalents in different pages.
> No ribbon bookmark. How could the editor forget that?!
OVERALL
I Love Krans' introduction and artwork, but the bad quality paper and the simplistic prompts do not help me create on this book. However, I owe to this journal the rekindling of my artistic pursuits on proper paper surfaces and with my own intuition as prompt. I will be using some of the pages to transfer images into my artwork or to incorporate them into my own artwork or just as an inspiration.
This
is a very enjoyable, simple-to-read sound book with great advice for
artists (from beginners to emerging) on how to develop our artistic
voice. It delves into what an artistic voice is, why is important having
one, how to find it, and the struggles to get one.
Ireally love Congdon's delightful
humorous illustrations spread throughout the book.
Our artistic voice is the art that we make when we listen
to our inner truth and convey it to the world in our personal way. Our
artistic voice is made of "all of the characteristics that make your
artwork distinct from the artwork of other artists, like how you use
colors or symbols, how you apply lines and patterns, your subject matter
choices, and what your work communicates." (p. 7).
Congdon says
that to find our voice we need to show up, make art every day, be
disciplined, practice-practice-practice, 'positivize' boredom and
embrace our fears and self-doubt. We also need tons of patience because,
as mastering a musical instrument takes years of hard work, so does
Art. Embracing our fears and doubts is especially important for
beginners, and, that being the case, we have to have compassion and
patience with ourselves and our mistakes, with the disasters and the ugly
pieces, because they're the stepping stones on which our artistic voice
is gonna be built. For the rest, all the interviewees agree on the fact
that hard work and expressing our personal truth, who we are, are
the recipe to find our artistic voice. Except for some 'geniuses', most
professional artists have to work at it. Congdon says, "The unfolding
of your voice requires showing up and working hard. It requires being
willing to create failures, to ask for feedback, and to go back and try
all over again. It requires staying open. It requires moving outside
what’s comfortable and being vulnerable." (p. 119).
STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP YOUR VOICE
Congdon recommends twelve strategies for developing our own artistic voice, and they are:
1/
Make art every day, even for a few minutes.
2/ When things get hard or tough don't stop; keep going.
3/ Embrace monotony and boredom to
break through and experiment.
4/ Create challenges and
stick to them, no matter who's paying attention to them, even if it's
just ourselves.
5/ Learn to practice mindfulness when we go outside
into the world to notice new things, new colours, curious weird stuff.
6/ Find a space to be alone to create.
7/ Find a feedback partner or
critique group.
8/ Take classes.
9/ Brainstorm.
10/ Develop your
vocabulary of interests, knowledge, and ideas.
10/ Support other artists
and learn from other artists.
11/ Stay open to all experiences.
The
book is intended mostly for artists who want to have an artistic career
or are professional artists. Yet, the advice is great also for
everyone, even beginners like me, who want to have a distinctive voice
and express their own world view through Art.
THINGS I MISSED
The
interviews with other artists are very interesting, but I see them
fitter for a blog or art magazine. Besides, some of the most important points
they make could have been summarized for the reader without the need to
go through the whole interview. Also, I would have loved having the
invited artists' artwork featured in the book (like 2-4 medium size
images per head) as well as their website and social media accounts
listed.
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