Calender / journal

 

For years I have made my own calender-books, keeping score on what to do when, jobs, meetings, gatherings, parties, birthdays and such. For years they have been strictly black writing on white pages. And colorful covers.

All of a sudden it felt like it was enough. I wanted color in my life. Every day. I mean, I want a colorful life. And to remind myself to make my life colorful, I decided to make a new type of calender. This time with color. 

I bought a blank book with white pages. Painted every three pages in acrylics, and left the fourth page blank. The three pages I added the dates onto, and they were a base that I could play with as each new day arrived. I layered the paint, so it seems textured. And even though the colors vary, I used the same stamps on all the dates. This gathers the otherwise free flow of expression. I limited myself to about 10 different colors for the base. When I get to the page in the calender, I try the opposite, not to limit myself, but to be as free as possible, both in color and expression. I gather inspiration, ideas, or bits and pieces of scrap. I try out new stamps I made, or have bought. I make notes on news-headlines, mark birthdays, meetings and such. That part is pretty much like before.

The fourth page I saved for Illustration Friday. Or Inspire Me Thursday. The challenge to make an illustration, and thereby be a little bit more creative once a week. When all the other pages have color, I can´t leave one page white, I just can´t! So this way I would make myself play with the week´s theme, and make that little extra in my calender.

You want to see how some of the pages turned out?

It´s not so much what I write on the pages. Life isn´t any more glamourous then before. But the colorful calender has bought color to my life. Just as it is, in itself. And every week I am happy I made the effort of painting the pages, it is like I have a new playground every two days.