Dear Friends,

So, we’ve been 10 days on this particular visual journalling journey.  On any journey it’s good every so often to take a day to look at where you’ve been, and where you find yourself today.  How has it been for you?  Take a few minutes today to write some reflections on the past 10 days.  Jot down anything you don’t want to forget.

But before you do, why not lay down one or two layers of color?  It’s easy to do with watercolor paints or pencils.  Let the colors blend into each other to make a pretty background.

This is how I do the majority of my journalling:  colorful backgrounds with lots of writing.  I still have many days of more artistic endeavors, but writing has always been my primary journalling technique.  Above is a page where I’ve listed the titles of my dreams and the dates I dreamed them.  Do you record your dreams?  If not, start to pay attention to them, as we’ll be working/playing with them in a few days.  (No anxieties, though:  if you don’t remember dreams, there will be something else to do!)

So today, take stock.  What have you enjoyed?  What have you just not gotten done?  Why not?  Any new questions on soul life that have been sparked within you?  (If so, please share!)

With love,

Cat

This is day 10 of a series of daily prompts for written, visual, or art journalling, or just for pondering.  For more background information, see the Intro page https://catcharissage.com/2014/10/29/announcing-sixty-days-of-visual-journalling-prompts/, or this post on visual journalling: https://catcharissage.com/2014/07/12/talking-about-journals/.

Dear Friends,

It’s another DDD.  Go do something that fills you with wonder or gratitude. Or NOT do something, so that you can be filled with wonder or gratitude.

If you’re interested at all in these emails, you would probably quite enjoy going to youtube and watching a few art journalling videos.  I’ve learned from Effy Wild, Jennibellie, France Papillon, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, and many others.  But put yourself on a timer, or else you’ll be in front of the computer all day —- and THAT’S not a DDD!

Whatever it takes, put yourself in the middle of the unfolding mystery of your own life.

With love,

Cat

Dear Friends,

For many of us as kids, Saturdays were days to sleep in and maybe get together with some friends.  For a day or two, our lives could be not so busy — we could drift. . . even get bored.

For most of us now, Saturdays are way too filled with errands and getting caught up with all that we didn’t get done during the week —- if we’re even fortunate enough to have the day off regular work.

Do you ever get to sleep in?  What does your inner self look like when you do?  (Mine looks like a deep slow smile.)  What does your inner self look like when you have to get up to the alarm, again, throwing yourself into the day sleep deprived and more than a little grumpy?  (Uh . . . I’m not going to share that picture of me!)

With sketching or just with splashes of color, image what you look like in those two different situations.  If you have time, also image what your days look like when you either get to sleep in or when you have to be “up and at ’em” far earlier than you would prefer.

Now, think seriously about how you’d like to be living your Saturdays, your life.  What little things, or big, are under your control so that you can move just a little bit closer to that?  What “family policy” changes can you make?  What can you let go of?  We often think we just “have to” keep doing what we’re doing, but most of us have more power to change things than we at first think we do.  [I do acknowledge that some of us just don’t have that power, at least not at the moment.  Don’t give up hope:  vision anyway.]  Whose life is it, anyway?

With love,

Cat

This is day 8 of a series of daily prompts for written, visual, or art journalling, or just for pondering.  For more background information, see the Intro page https://catcharissage.com/2014/10/29/announcing-sixty-days-of-visual-journalling-prompts/, or this post on visual journalling: https://catcharissage.com/2014/07/12/talking-about-journals/.

Dear Friends,

So many of us are in so many different situations regarding “soul”, the sacred, “God”, religion, and/or our spiritual heritages.  I myself have struggled so much with this and worked through so much regarding this depth dimension of life. (You can read more about that on the “About” page on my blog.)  My intention here is to offer some ideas and suggestions for pondering the “d & r’s” in life, and helping us to express that part of ourselves in image or word.  That is, to ponder what’s “deep and real,” and begin to express it for ourselves, whether we call ourselves Buddhist or Christian, atheist or agnostic, or anything in between.

On the bad days, when life is flat and I can’t believe that there could be any “God” when so many people throughout history have and are suffering so much,  and the brightest I can feel is some gratitude that I’ve not grown up in a refugee camp, orphaned and schooled in the hatred of my enemies —- on even those bad days, I feel, or hope, that there’s more to life than just surviving, that there are some deeper realities, even if they are purely human possibilities and potentials.  Those deeper things, and my personal allegiance to wanting to develop knowledge and experience of that, is what I mean when I talk about “soul”.

But some of us have strong negative reactions to the word “soul”.  Or just have no idea what the word can really mean, in this mysterious crazy world of ours where it seems that the traditional home of these ideas, religion, has gone crazy with power, abuse of the innocent, and fighting it out with whatever other group it can label as other, and “wrong”.  I know that.  I really do.

Nevertheless, it is of great value personally and for the world for us to explore and claim what is really “real”, what is really “deep”,  what is really worth living for.  So I invite you to brainstorm a list of words that express these ideas that are meaningful for you.  If you don’t like the word “soul”, how about “d & r’s”, “the depths”, “spirit”, “essence”,  “mi corazon”.   If you already have a language and/or a spiritual home in these really “reals”, write it down and translate some of the words into the language you would use with your atheist friends or with very little children.

You can make a crossword again, like in yesterday’s prompt, or you can write the words in webs or circles of color.  Sometimes, the words just won’t come; in that case, cover your pages with colors that make you smile.  Swirl some cheap acrylic paint together with an expired gift card, or layer some watercolors.  Play, and see what can be seen.

With love,

Cat

This is day 7 of a series of daily prompts for written, visual, or art journalling, or just for pondering.  For more background information, see the Intro page https://catcharissage.com/2014/10/29/announcing-sixty-days-of-visual-journalling-prompts/, or this post on visual journalling: https://catcharissage.com/2014/07/12/talking-about-journals/.

Dear Friends,

What do you call your soul time? I often call it “depth dimension time”.  Do you do soul “work”?  Do you “encourage” (bring heart to) soul life?  The author Bill Plotkin coins the term “Soulcraft”.  Is the soul enlarged  or deepened by “working” on it?  What other words can describe being with what is deepest within you when you are also with the Magnitude all around you?

I like to think of living an ensouled life.

Make a crossword or other design with these words, decorating or otherwise marking the words that resonate with you.

With love,

Cat

p.s.  This photo is of my current journal, an 8 1/2 by 11 in. blank sketchbook.  I added a flap made from duct tape, folded over to make a pen pocket, and held closed by a cord wrapped around a brooch pinned to the duct tape flap.

Day 6  of a series of daily prompts for written, visual, or art journalling, or just for pondering.  For more background information, see the Intro page https://catcharissage.com/2014/10/29/announcing-sixty-days-of-visual-journalling-prompts/, or this post on visual journalling: https://catcharissage.com/2014/07/12/talking-about-journals/.

Dear Friends,

So, what does a soul look like, anyway?  What IS a soul?  “Soul” is one of those words that whenever you use it, you know the person in front of you has some idea of what you’re talking about.  Yet, are we thinking of the same thing, the same idea, the same concept, the same  ——-??  It’s very hard to put into words.  So, don’t.  Draw a picture instead, or use a bunch of colors.

Does your idea of soul shift if, instead of thinking of a soul as within your body, you think of your body within your soul?  Would would that look like?

Make it so!

Day 5 of a series of daily prompts for written, visual, or art journalling, or just for pondering.  For more background information, see the Intro page https://catcharissage.com/2014/10/29/announcing-sixty-days-of-visual-journalling-prompts/, or this post on visual journalling: https://catcharissage.com/2014/07/12/talking-about-journals/.

With love,

Cat

Dear Friends,

Is everyone in your Soul Tribe human?  What about your animal friends or totems?  What about your special spots in nature?  Your favorite tree?  Anything or anyone else, like “angels”, “spirits”, “ghosts”, or whatever humans have called things that we don’t understand, yet some of us sometimes palpably feel?  Consider printing off images of these members of your Soul Tribe and pasting them in your journal, or include them in some other way.

With love,

Cat

This is the fourth day of a series of daily prompts for written, visual, or art journalling, or just for pondering.  For more background information, see the Intro page https://catcharissage.com/2014/10/29/announcing-sixty-days-of-visual-journalling-prompts/, or this post on visual journalling: https://catcharissage.com/2014/07/12/talking-about-journals/.

Dear Friends,

Who are some of the “muddy angels” (to use Dr. Estes’ phrase) in your life —- people who you wouldn’t say are exactly people you want to emulate, but people who nevertheless cause you to think about soul?  People who might inspire you by their bad examples, or by just one or two aspects of their character?  Who was/is outrageous, but makes you happier to be a human being?  Who would never be canonized as a “saint,” but still is someone who inspires you to let your soul shine? List them or image them or their influence in your life.

With love,

Cat

This is the third of a series of daily prompts for written, visual, or art journalling, or just for pondering.  For more background information, see the Intro page https://catcharissage.com/2014/10/29/announcing-sixty-days-of-visual-journalling-prompts/, or this post on visual journalling: https://catcharissage.com/2014/07/12/talking-about-journals/.

I received a question yesterday about what kinds of pens write well over acrylic paints.  That’s actually a big topic!

In general, the “best pen ever” is the Scarlet Lime pen put out by the scrapbooker Christy Tomlinson in her shop.  But it’s sold out, and has been replaced by the Uni-Ball Signo 207, medium tip.  The Signo 207 can also be gotten online from Wal-Mart (easiest way to procure it).  It claims to be waterproof, but I’ve found that it smears when wet; perhaps I haven’t let it dry sufficiently.

I also have good luck with gel pens, but only the “name brand” ones by Sakura.  They will sometimes skip, and the ink doesn’t hold out forever, but singly they aren’t expensive, so I use them a lot when I want colored ink.

Also, the “InkJoy” pens by PaperMate will often work well.  They look like ball points.  The colors don’t show up over many colors of paint, though.

And the type of acrylic paint matters, too.  In general, Heavy Body paints (in the tube) are very difficult to write over.  In that case, just write over them with more acrylic using a very thin brush.  Liquid acrylics are much easier to write over, because there is little texture.

Interestingly, for journalling, I recommend the cheap acrylic craft paints.  At Michael’s, the CraftSmart brand is about a dollar a bottle.  They are much easier to write over than the more expensive Golden brand.  The colors of the craft paint are not as beautifully transparent as the Golden, but being so inexpensive, I can experiment to my heart’s content without worrying about “wasting” paint.

For painting on canvas, however, I use almost exclusively the Golden brand paints.  Mmmmmmm!

Another note:  Using watercolors solves all these challenges.  I often paint a background in watercolor, then when I come to use the page will write over the top of the color with just about any pen or pencil.  It’s easy enough to add acrylic then to add more details or a different “feel” or texture.

I don’t tend to use gesso very much in my journal.  It seems like an extra step that does not add a whole lot, and for me isn’t worth the time it takes to apply and dry when I’m doing my daily journalling.  Gesso is really good, though, to apply over a very slick surface.  Then it adds enough texture that your pen or paint will be caught by its “tooth”.   I do have three types of gesso, though:  white, black and clear.  I like to use the black on pages where I want to start with a very dark background.  I use the clear as a final top coat when I have collage or other embellishments.

Enjoy playing with your supplies!  It need not be expensive or complicated to add visual journalling to your life.  While I’ve journalled for more than 43 years, it’s only been in the past two years that I’ve added color and images.  I LOVE looking on my shelf and seeing the volumes brimming over with color!

A reminder:  go for what feels good, not perfection.