jennerosity creates!: sad art

my assignment this week: sad art

yep, you heard that right. my assignment from my counselor this week was not to make something that would inspire me or cheer me up, but to be real with my emotions and express them truthfully, unapologetically, through my art. so here goes.

the place for this expression is, again, my art journal. this place where i've begun to express myself by putting down collages, using paint and other art media combined with cut-out images from magazines, images and colors that speak whatever it is i'm trying to say. a new way to use my voice. this voice that's been lying dormant for too many years.

and sometimes, this voice needs to be real. stop sugar-coating how i'm really feeling, just to be polite and not look ugly. not any more. today it's goodbye to the happy cheerful bright colors...

and hello to the moody blues. and greys and blacks.

using a bit of water from a spray bottle to blur things up a bit,
i throw down the colors in quick, slappy strokes. mostly with cheap fat brushes from the hardware store.

add a few more drops of darkness with slplops of black and blue..

streak it in. just go wild. don't think, just feel.

sponge on a few whitish highlights if it gets too dark and muddy..

and maybe get a little angry with some black streaks.

ahhh, that felt good.

oops, guess i got carried away... this happened...

I brushed so hard and wet that my page tore out of the book, had to let it dry, glue it back in.

On a separate sheet of white paper, sketch some eyes, one or two, add some depth with charcoal pencil, colored pencil, black ink. whatever it takes.

cut out the eyes and play with their arrangement on the paper.
for some reason i decided i didn't want them together, so they parted ways and flew to opposite corners of my layout.

then i typed and printed out some sad words. (it was very difficult to find "sad" or dark images in magazines, so i'm having to improvise a bit here.)
i printed these out on tracing paper so they'd have more of an ethereal effect on the paper. i then tore them out individually, each word. i like the torn edge look, not scissor-y precision for this look. (you'll see....)

then i decided i needed an old spooky-looking tree, or its silhoutette on my page.
so i drew it in white pencil on a black sheet of cardstock, and cut it out.

glued it down. bam!

used a black dye stamp pad to lightly ink up the edges of my cut-out words.

glued down those words, randomly.

added some swirls of black paint, curly-q's with a long paint brush. . (not shown) ...then, for a final touch, a splash of drama... i
i held up this "true red" bottle of paint waaayyy overhead, so it dropped one nice big fat drop of bl-, i mean paint, wherever it wanted to land.