The woods are lovely, dark and deep...

but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep...

This quote by Robert Frost was the last item I added to this art journal page. Which, funily enough, started out with me wanting to make a tree. From this lonesome tree on a page, a whole proces started, I love that about art journalling.

Before I started art journalling, when I wanted to make a painting, I needed a subject. Usually an example, a picture, something or other that I then would translate to the canvas. Now I can just come to the table, with either a thought, an idea or nothing at all and still express myself.

As I said, this page came about with me painting a tree. I painted the background black with acrylic paint and freehanded the tree with, fairly thick, brown acrylic paint. I overheated the tree, because, well, you gotta have bubbles.
I left the bottom right corner free, because I had found a stamp set with which I could make date stamps and had stamped the date on there, so I kept that.

And then I got stuck, so I went on to do something else. I bumped into a blogpost about art journal prompts, where this lovely lady (can't find it anymore, but I will search for it and post it later) had a box, full of prompts, to draw from when she was stuck. I printed all her prompts as I thought they might come in handy some day. Cut them all out and was left with this funny piece of paper. Looking at this paper I saw towering buildings in it and used it as a stencil on another page. Where I sprayed it with some black and blue paint and glimmer mist.

Only then it occured to me, I could, maybe, use the paper on my page with the tree and this triggered me to think about the prompt over at Art Journal Journey: "Landscape Within Me".

So I tore some pieces from it and pasted them down and it did look like a landscape, be it an odd one. I coloured it in with soft pastels. Added some odd bits and pieces I felt related to me. Some bits from a tiny clock I ripped apart. Some broken print plate. A clock face ripped in half, playing cards, stained and tainted. A butterfly, tiny amongst the towering buildings. A drawing of the internal organs, with a broken print plate for a heart. A tiny birdy in the old and gnarly tree and several more things I found.

Added some shading and then got completely stuck again.

I did have the word "broken" bouncing about in my mind. To get rid of that, I googled some quotes for broken. Found something about broken promises and  wanted to explore promises a bit more. Googled quotes for that and found the perfect quote.

I fell for the words "The woods are lovely, dark and deep" and the rest also fell perfectly into place. "I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."

So yes, something resonated within me and I took the risk of ruining it all by writing it myself. Since I do struggle with pens and the paper. It turned out allright, I guess. Though I must start searching for pens that will write on any surface, because mine tend to bail on me every now and angain. Should you have any tips for me, please let me know, because I dread writing on a page, afraid my pens will ruin it.

I could have gone even further with this page, but I like it as it is. I think it truly represents a piece of me, of the landscape within me, so I will leave it as it is.

And since I added a quote I would also like to enter this page in the journal journeys ch#18: quotes.

Thank you for watching and I wish you a very nice day.