1. Inspiration

I just got out of a hand lettering class, so I decided to continue on this path (and forget everything I had just learned on the thin and big strokes of the letter M, obviously).

3 colors journaling - image 1 - student project

I chose to play on the opposites perfection/imperfection, which kinda obsess me, 'cos I'm attracted to perfection but inspiration tends to reverse into an obstacle, verging on paralysis. While I wanted to embrace im-perfection, I unvolontarily ended up proclaiming "I'm perfection", as my boyfriend passing by pointed out.

Actually, he wasn't passing by at all; I was asking him which one of the ten versions I did worked best - yeah, I know. I totally missed the point of the exercise… and discovered it althogether.

(I stuck to digital drawing nonetheless, because knowing I can erase is the only way I manage to make anything at all - still have to work on this.)

2. What I hate

3 colors journaling - image 2 - student project

At first, I was puzzled: why would I focus on things I hate? When I understood it was more what annoyed me at the moment, and a way to process it, it became way more funny. While I was quickly drawing the panties, and enjoying the carefreeness of it (don't care if it's nice, just make it recognizable), I suddenly recalled I had been visually journaling for a while on my blog, and it made me want to go back to that practice of registering the little things of the week (what I enjoyed rather than what bothered me). Thanks for this!

3. What I want

3 colors journaling - image 3 - student project

(Yes, I'm a mouse on the web - and a sunflower in real life.)

You're right, dividing the panel into boxes makes it far less intimidating. I almost felt tight, feeling the urge to fill in every space available. Then I started to need more air/space, and realized I didn't need to saturate the box.

4. What I fear

3 colors journaling - image 4 - student project

This was by far my favorite exercise. The new template came at the right point, when I didn't feel like I needed to fill in the whole space anymore. Fears are also the most intimate and most common thing at the same time. That's the exercise I long to discover when I explore other student's projects - as if it were a shortcut to bound.

One panel wasn't enough. It made me want to draw a whole series. (Let's be afraid of eeeeeeverything together, yay! o/)

5. Freestyle

I went back to my Instagram series. That's where I picked my colors, by the way. I wanted a dark background for things to feel as intimate as what you whisper at night, when you're done with chitchat and are ready to enter more in-depths talk, secrets almost.

3 colors journaling - image 5 - student project

The text translates as:
I wanted to get rid of
the black cloud
and I understood it was
the very canvas of the world

3 colors journaling - image 6 - student project

Since then, I've taken up
embroidering on top of it

Thanks for the journey! It stirred up more reactions than what I expected (a bit like therapy: I sometimes roll my eyes when my therapist give me some exercise, and end up keeping going back to it in the following days).

La Souris

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