Judging a Book's Cover and Adjusting Time

I finished altering my True journal and I love it! I took a few photos throughout the process to share with you. Picking up where I left off in my last post...

I added more inking to the green stripes of my journal cover front, and it made it look a lot better. Then, I inked a scalloped canvas circle that I had in my stash with the green ink. I also used my Cropadile to punch holes around the circle perimeter.

I got this idea to put the spine text on a piece of ribbon, so I chose some twill. I thought, let's ink that as well, so I did. If you didn't know you could alcohol ink fabric that you are not planning to wash, well, you certainly can. I cut two holes in my spine cover with my Cropadile, thinking I'd run the twill through them.

Then, once I got my cover inked the way I wanted it, I covered it with 2 good coats of my beloved Royal Coat decoupage finish-sealer.

Next, I found some alphabet stamps I hadn't used in awhile and stamped my words onto deli paper. I then scor-taped the deli paper to the twill, and then the twill to the spine of the journal. I used my embossing stylus to push the ends of the twill through my holes and knotted each one off.

Then I added deli paper strip stamped words to my canvas circle and glued it to the front of my journal cover to what was originally there.

Finally, a photo collage of my finished product. I have a completely functional altered cover, one that is beautiful but will not get in my way as I actually use my journal. I'm glad to have gotten this job over with, and I'm also glad that I was able to use my stash in new and imaginative ways. Plus, I love that my cover looks so organic and utilitarian in its beauty. That is not easy for me to create, usually.

Now, just a few very raw thoughts here, as I am already having difficulties with my time management. While I was sooooo excited to be taking a certain doodling class online, I now find myself thoroughly disenchanted with it. I seem to be frozen solid in place as far as continuing the lessons. For one thing, I've realized that it is intimidating me to look at the teacher samples. I mean, when your teacher creates stuff that is so awesome, what else do you do but try to imitate hers? And I don't want to do that. I want to create MY art. I'm all for imitating to learn, but when you have to do so much prep work and invest so much time in the imitating, it becomes an issue of why am I not just creating my own way?

The other huge thing is that I'm not getting the order of product down good in my mind. She layers product of varying permanences, and I apparently need a lot more training in that. It gives me a headache to try to keep from creating brown mud. And, the pens and markers she uses on top on it all make me even more frustrated. I love pens and markers and have plenty, but I'm not going to ruin them all just for her class. People are having trouble with this, and with the layers, and we are left to experiment it all out. Fine if that's the only class taken, but it is too much dang time if you are taking more than one class.

Today I woke up thinking, enough of this. I'm just gonna audit the rest of the class just to put an end to all the grief and stress and worry. Use it to pick up a tip or two, but that is it. I start a class in lettering later in the month, a paid class, and that teacher's style is similar, so I will probably be able to incorporate what tips I learn in the doodles class to the lettering class, but in a more sparse, calm, less complicated way.

I've tried hard not to diss either the doodle class or its instructor (who I think very highly of as an artist). If I were wanting to learn how to do art *that* way, or if I had more available time to experiment, I'd be less frustrated. Diving into it is not working for me right now, so sometimes you just have to suck it up and make hard choices when you want to be TRUE to yourself...