I know. This Perspective thing. I've done several posts on the subject. And now I add Right or Left, Up or Down. What's with my brain, anyway? Perspective in art journaling is another way to study it.

There are certain words that I know God wants me to explore: perspective, restoration, structure–to name a few. I love the exploration, study, defining.

And this one was a fun one.

I follow Jo Beal @jobeal4 on Instagram. I love her art journaling and art diaries. She draws where she's been that day or her thoughts, adds words. Maybe addresses, dates. When those posts show up on the feeds, I stop and stretch the photos and videos. You need to check her out.

When she advertised a coming workshop, I signed up! It was only $35 USD (or around there with the conversion) for a 4 week workshop. Each workshop, she opened with some slides of her own work, then she had us warm up with contour drawings or line drawings without looking at our paper. Each week she had a theme–one was from photos of people and how to combine them on a page.

Another week was maps and mapping. When she is out on a walk, for example, she might draw footsteps or lines on her journal for where her own footsteps landed and anything she noticed (or stepped on!) along the way.

Her journals are beautiful!

So from one workshop, here is a sample of mine.

Fun, right? Just stuff on my desk at the moment: my green reading glasses, jar of drinking water, my own books, a card, my back scratch fork, and my actual desk top wood (green paint over reclaimed wood, then planed!).

What has happened because of this workshop is that it opened up the art again. It opened up a whole creative well. Writing is more fun. A scene takes shape and boom, it's down.

It has caused me to dig into a book that I kept–Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. She starts the reader with contour drawing, etc. but focuses on drawing from the right side of the brain (duh!). One way she does that is to draw something upside down!

From page 55, “Familiar things do not look the same when they are upside down”. (Duh.) “When an image is upside down, the visual clues don't match. The message is strange, and the brain becomes confused.” (Or, more confused. I'll stop!)

But it's true.

When I draw from something that is upside down, I sometimes know what the image is, but I see it differently. My eye measures distance, placement. Then as I draw it, instead of perspective being off, or placing things wrong, it's pretty good.

Well …

It's not perfect, but pretty much like Jo's. Perspective in art journaling has opened up a whole new …

Perspective, right?