Aside from knitting and photographing the city, I have committed to reviving my artist trading cards (ATCs) in 2014 with actual trading this time, and I am having thoughts towards art journalling as well.
This morning a story on my FB timeline got me to thinking about social media and attention addiction. The story was about this woman who consumed nothing but Starbucks for an entire year. I’m not going to link it because it wasn’t anything substantive. Just a lot of instagram selfies with no info on how eating only from one store affected her health, if at all. Though, apparently it did end up costing roughly $500/mth more than grocery shopping (there’s a shocker for ya).
Anyway, one of the commenters said that she should do a new project where she writes all her updates in a paper journal to see how well she does without the interaction of blog followers and social media. This struck me as a really good idea. Not just for the Starbucks woman, but for everyone.
With schools looking to phase out cursive script because more people print, and the post office constantly raising postage rates (our stamps go up to $1 this year unless you buy them in books), the reasons for writing long hand are growing less and less. To toot my own horn for a moment, I have some pretty nice handwriting. I was one of those girls in high school who used to practise different writing styles until I could comfortably write in a half-dozen different ways.
But, I don’t write in script. Who knows if schools will still be teaching children how to write by the time my little ones get there. The schools I have picked out are more traditional, so chances are fair, I would say. Either way, I want to be able to pass this art along to my children before it is completely lost. To do so, I’d best get practising.
I have a lot of art projects lined up for 2014, and I would like to cut my online time by half. For me, that means that my thoughts and little quips may get incorporated into my art journal. Written in script.
I will try to post journal excerpts here, but most will end up on my artist page on FB. I have both a photography blog and an art blog. I think I may end up merging the latter into Oracle Lens.
January is full of planning. Today it is snowing. New snow to cover the old icy snow in a soft layer of white.
A Less Travelled Path 
It’s a good thing I don’t journal for the comments because they are rare. FB has a better chance of getting a comment from them filtering there, but even then it is pretty scant except for the last 2 weeks.
My handwriting is shit. Between being left-handed and forced to sit at a right-handed desk I was not allowed to shift in … well, bad school marks for me. I love your idea. For you, not me. 🙂 And I am so excited about the art! Yay!!
Starbucks for a year is insane.
I don’t get a lot of comments either. That’s fine with me, tho. I love coming back after an absence and seeing that there are still visitors every day. That’s what has kept this blog going more than anything else these past few years. I’m a bit of blog platform addict, and for a while I had blogs everywhere … I actually probably still have some of them. But this is the one people read, so it is the one that I keep.
I was always a little envious of left handed folks. One of my best friends is ambidextrous, and I knew that if I worked at it, I could write with my left hand, but it was easier to write pretty with my right hand than it was to try and not write like a kindergartener with my left 😉
I’m pretty excited about the art journalling and cards too. I picked up my journal today (I did end up going with a journal – it seems that they don’t make cheap little photo albums anymore). I can’t wait until the little ones are in bed and I can get started sketching ideas and prepping pages.
I only mind here and there about the comments. I do have to say left-handed people rock. :p
Art cards! I need to think about those. And I forgot I wanted to prep some pages. That fast I forgot! I have no idea what materials I may end up using, but I’m hoping for inspiration as the prompts come. 😀