What started Lizzy’s Landscapes | Creative Journey | Artist Story

Well, I’m Lizzy and I love creating and alliteration.

Ok, so maybe there’s a little more to it than that!

30 Days of Blogging Day 2

There have actually been some major changes throughout the course of my art journey, and although not all of them are riveting, there are some major changes that speak to my artistic journey.

I had such a fun time looking through old photos with my parents. Not so much artistic, but I’m almost 3 in Early Childhood Care making a DIY Valentine… I was ready to craft early!

As time went on, I can remember being fascinated with pirates. If you were to ask little me what I wanted to be when I was little (before my Pocahontas phase), I’d tell you I wanted to be a pirate. I don’t know how I got that into my head, but I got a few awesome pirate ship coloring pieces out of it (well, awesome for a little kid!).

I’m almost 4 in this picture and starting an outline of something that must have been really epic!

When I was really young, the two things I enjoyed doing most were science experiments and making art. I remember countless hours spent remaking projects seen on Bill Nye and making masterpieces with my 100 piece kids art portfolio.

I got this kit as an Easter present when I was about 6. This photo is of the original set – none of the pencils are the same length anymore!

I loved the oil pastels the most, and have vivid memories of trying to make the best waterfall ever, sitting on the floor in my room with my dad.

I went on to make some fun artwork in school, and art was always the class that made me relax. I was really passionate about math and science growing up in lower school, but I would get excited to find answers, rather than calmed. I remember my lower school art teacher, Mrs. Hanson (Mrs. Handy for short) would always have such fun ways to make awesome artwork made simple so we could do it at any age.

Later, as I went on to middle and upper school, I found ways to fit art into my schedule. Now, art was an elective rather than a requirement, so I would have opportunities to do projects and explore different mediums in a concentrated fashion, by a semester of pottery and ceramics, then working my way through the levels of drawing, painting and mixed media. This was different than the whirlwind of different projects every week, exploring everything that we’d done with Mrs. Handy, but my art definitely improved with my added concentration.

It was in upper school that I found darkroom photography and fell in love. I found taking the photos and developing them much more relaxing than opening the film in pitch dark. I remember holding my breath and working silently with my friend Alida, trying to make sure that I didn’t ruin my hard work. But it was always worth it. I’m glad that I had the chance to do darkroom before I did Digital, because it helped me to make every shot count, and taught me about light balance, composition, and how to actually maneuver a camera.

In college, I was formally introduced to watercolor painting my sophomore year and I fell in love. Our professor, Bruce, was beyond amazing at simplifying concepts and with watercolor, he would emphasize that less is more, because you can always add, but not necessarily take away. It wasn’t until about half way through the course that he finally showed us some of his pieces which were jaw dropping. My minor of study was in visual/studio art, so I did take many other art courses as well as a couple of art theory courses, but I really was captured by the suggestion of line and image that Bruce introduced to us.

I decided to start an Etsy shop on the suggestion of one of my best friends in college. She thought it would be a great way to share my perspective captured in photography and watercolor with others. I found that Etsy was a nice way to do just that, but was hard for me to focus on exactly what I wanted to show people. Was it photography? Watercolor? Sumi ink? I love so many different art forms and so many different styles, that I sometimes come off as a little bit of everything, and I wanted to find my focus.

It was after I was out of school that I began taking classes here and there to keep up with art and learning. At a steady job that doesn’t involve visual artwork or design, sitting in front of two computer monitors and having most everything digitized – I knew I wanted a way to schedule my life and keep on track and get away from my digital world. I had tried different planners in the past, but I had stumbled across the idea of bullet style journaling and I wanted to give it a try.

I had done some really simplistic bookmaking when I was young, but I still needed to do quite a bit of research to get my Bullet Style Journal what I needed it to be for my needs.

Bullet style journaling was what I needed to simplify my life, schedule everything, while helping my plan out my month, week and tasks for my art. It also allowed me the freedom to accept pages with a few mistakes, and make something better out of them. I had a lot of different requirements for the journal I wanted to use, and because I couldn’t find one that fit my needs perfectly, I made a book. It was perfectly imperfect as I was trying to learn how to bind books for the first time, but it was my first journal – still sturdy and strong with a hand sewn spine and custom cover.

BizzyBookz helped to take my love of everything and simplify it. I now can use my artwork for the covers, while maintaining print availability separately. I can plan out my next steps, bullet, share my knowledge and most importantly, still explore within the pages or off.

I’ve had quite an interesting journey thus far. I’m excited to see what will continue to happen!