Soul Journaling: Days 16 through 18

I haven't updated the ol' blog in a while, but it's mainly because it has taken me so long to finish the "potpourri" soul journaling prompts. It's not that I haven't been working on them - it's that they took so long for me to develop!

Day 16: Potpourri 1

During the process of creating this spread, I learned that splattering paint is way more messy than I thought (it took me 10 minutes to remove the purple paint from the blinds...). I wasn't happy with my original color choices, so I added multiple extra layers of paint to blend everything together. I also used tape to hide some of the coloring I didn't like. The white rectangles you see are where I used scotch tape, wiping off most of the paint washes as I added layers.

Day 17: Potpourri 2

I loved smooshing the paint together in between the pages of my journal. That was the first step I did, and it formed beautiful wing shapes. I tried to go with the wing theme, even so far as to sew on feathers. It didn't turn out the way I imagined, but a top wash of iridescent white seemed to help bring it together.

Before I added on to my work (beyond the assigned steps) for Day 17, I became really frustrated since I felt my potpourri pages just weren't coming together. I decided to take a break from the prompts and just put together a spread for fun:

Day 18: Potpourri 3

Looking at the photo of my day 18 spread now, I notice that most of what you can see are the pieces I added after completing the prompt. You can kind of see my face portrait (right), and might be able to tell that I randomly listed the activities in my day in the background, but it's more noticeable that I added an extra wash of white paint, and that I attached paper over my gessoed sections and journaled.

The journaling mostly discussed how challenging the porpourri prompts were. However, I'm pleased to recognize that the prompts really helped me understand the process of adding to my work instead of just abandoning it when things don't work out. I was very tempted to start over, but instead kept pushing and adding more elements until I felt like I really owned it. It was definitely a beneficial exercise for me!