Armadillo

Many of you know that I love to play around with paints to create backgrounds for my journaling. Most often, I don't have anything specific in mind when I start brushing on the colors, and I usually paint several pages ahead of the time when they will be used for writing. So you can imagine how it surprises and delights me when a particular background turns out to be almost custom designed for that day's events.

This spread is a case in point. I had randomly brushed on 3 or 4 different colors of Golden's fluid acrylics, thinking to myself that I had made an ugly mess. But in the months since I've been keeping my composition notebook journals, I've come to realize that I can't fairly judge a background when it's just a background! They are always transformed with the addition of text and illustrative elements. I've heard some people say that they often avoid writing on a background that they really like for fear of messing it up, but I've found that the reverse is true for me. My backgrounds are usually enhanced by the pictures and journaling.

This is still not a gorgeous background, but now it helps to tell the story; whereas before it was just a mishmash of colors. The text says:
"Today they started work on our foundation repair. They are putting the dirt that comes out of the holes in the low spots under the pine trees in the back yard. When it rained hard and long, it looked like we had a little pond back there. In fact, it looked just like this page. Isn't that funny...another "Judy" moment."
That references Judy Melvin who taught me to trust the creative process in her class called "Don't Think, Just Get It Down."

The little armadillo image is a reminder of the real one who kept digging up my flowers. He dug every night...I replanted every morning...he dug every night...and so on, and so forth.