Fill a tiny journal: Connection

In my previous post about the Fill a tiny journal project I shared my heart page and a whole process video of me creating it. This week I shared a bit about my process of creating this week’s spread in Instagram stories and totally forgot to write my blog post about it… But here it is now, just a bit late but just a shiny and new! Prompt: Connection.

As previously mentioned, I am working in a small, handmade journal that Tammy made for me and sent all the way from Texas. It mostly have watercolor papers, but the spread I am working on this week was this:

Music sheet and light yellow ledger page. I really like both, and wanted to “keep” the print while still creating on top of it, so I brought out my watercolors and painted on top of it.

I have been thinking about “connection” and how I’d illustrate that in a tiny art journal for weeks now, and it’s hard. I guess my brain works better with literal things like “heart” where you can just plonk down a heart and be done with it. For connection, you could do so many different things and the prompt still wouldn’t be obvious to the viewer if you didn’t tell them what it was, right? But then again, of course it doesn’t always have to be obvious what you’re journaling about in a visual way.

A visual page is often littered with hidden meaning.

My first idea was to draw out two persons and connect them with lines or using string, or even embroider them together. I want to do more embroidery on paper this year, but maybe not inside a journal where I need the next couple of pages empty.

I also thought about connection in a bigger sense: how we’re all connected through the internet and what a blessing that is these days. How without the Internet I wouldn’t have half of the friends I have, or get hardly any happy mail, or be able to sell the journals I make, or share all the photos I take, or… and so on.

It’s all a bit like a whirling pot of connections, going round and round. So that’s what I painted. A whirl of connections with some words strewn in, as well as some metallic watercolor paint.

I haven’t used these metallic paints much probably because I haven’t painted a lot of watercolors, but I will start now because I really like how they shimmer on the page. And of course I love anything that shimmer, sparkle or shine. So the question if I should add in some bling was idiotic of me. Or course I will add in bling!

I think these sticker gems are made for adding to your phone case? In any case, I wouldn’t, so I cut them apart and added them to my swirl here and there to “connect the dots” or to, I guess, dot the connections maybe?

If I tilt the page a bit you can see how pretty it looks in the light from my window:

And ta-daa! Here’s the finished page:

Also note that the lyrics is very appropriate for our prompt. But maybe that is just because that’s the way (uh-huh-uh-huh) I myself are connecting things in hindsight? No matter where you start you can find hidden meaning if you really want to I think.

Thanks to Tammy for this journal, and thanks to everyone participating. There are loads of photos on instagram on our two prompts so far and it is has been a blast to click through this week to see how similar or different we’re all interpreting this prompt. Next Friday the prompt is friendship. Stay tuned to see if I can find a photo of Tammy to print for my journal…

Join us

Follow Tammy on YouTube, Instagram and visit her awesome blog DaisyYellow and make sure to read her blog post on connection!
? Follow me, iHanna on?YouTube, Instagram and here on the blog, where you can?subscribe to blog posts via e-mail (just note that it is not the same as the Newsletter). You can also sign up for the DIY Postcard Swap that I host to get in on the happy mail happening around the world!
Find all the prompts here and share your page each Friday (or later down the road) with the hashtag #fillatinyjournal – and when you do, don’t forget to click around, admire other’s pages and give them a like and a comment. Let’s build that feeling of community – together.

Let’s connect!

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