EMERGENCY—BEWARE—DaVinci Gouache Has a Quirky Little (HA) Characteristic

I'm waiting for Dick to get home so that he can draw a name out of the hat for the winner of the Spot-the-Robot game in my 2013 Fake Journal Video.

Meanwhile I have URGENT Business to discuss with you.

I wrote a review of DaVinci gouache here.

As soon as I post this post I will go and put an addendum on that original post—but I didn't want you to  MISS THIS NEWS.

I was painting this evening in a large 11 x 14 inch Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Hardbound Journal. (It is cheaper for me to buy those journals in that size than to make journals in that size because of the sheet size I can get paper in. And as you can see from this year's fake journal I'm just working larger and larger all the time—so an 11 x 14 inch Strathmore journal seemed a nice choice).

I have worked on this paper since it came out some time ago. I love it. I make books out of it (smaller books, square books mostly, as those aren't available). I have worked on this paper in gouache before, with Schmincke and M. Graham brand gouache.

Imagine my surprise then when I was working on a gouache painting with DaVinci gouache and thought, "well that paper is getting moist I wonder if I will have the same problem that I had when I was gluing down paintings made with DaVinci Gouache." (Remember—the moisture in the glue reactivated the dry paint and it came up on the wax paper I used to burnish the painting in place! You can see a photo of this and read about it in my review of DaVinci gouache, link repeated here.)

I pulled the left page back and SURE ENOUGH the moisture from the new painting on the next spread had migrated through the paper and it had reactivated the paint on the previous spread. That "dry" painting on the previous page had started to "print" onto its facing page.

THIS IS NOT A PAPER PROBLEM.

I have for decades painted with gouache in my journals, painting on one spread on one day and then the next day painting on the back of the very page I'd painted on the day before. I have used a variety of cheap gouache brands over the years and in the past 10 years I've used Schmincke gouache and then M. Graham gouache (I don't recall exactly when M. Graham released their gouache line, but I started using it right away.)

I have never had a situation on ANY of the papers I make journals out of (and Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media paper is one of those papers) where the paint on the previous spread was reactivated by the moisture from the new layers of paint on the current page spread. The list of papers I've used includes most watercolor papers that are 90 and 140 lb., lots of printing papers, several drawing papers, you get the idea—a wide variety.

This has never happened to me before.

But here it was happening today.

It is a characteristic of DaVinci Gouache.

BEWARE OF THIS.

I would not recommend anyone use DaVinci Gouache for visual journaling because of this characteristic—paint reactivating because of moisture/painting on the next page, causing the paint to reactivate and "print" onto its facing page. 

Use either Schmincke or M. Graham brands of gouache. I've never had this problem with them.

I'm not overly fond of Holbein gouache for a number or reasons you can read on my main blog but it is opaque and even if somewhat fugitive it's fun to use. I've never had this problem with it either.

Because of this moisture reactivation characteristic I would further recommend that if you do choose to use DaVinci gouache in your visual journal that you NEVER, EVER close your book with even moist glue a few page spreads further on in the book. If you weight your pages when you glue, like I do, you'll be trapping the moisture from the glue (even a glue stick has moisture) and that may migrate through the pages to your painting and reactivate the DaVinci gouache, causing it to "print" on its facing page, ruining perhaps your favorite spread, and at best altering it.

If you do use DaVinci gouache in your visual journal always place a dividing sheet (I recommend glassine for a permanent sheet, or wax paper during gluing) between two pages of a spread that have a "dry" painting on them, when you are gluing later in your book. That way if moisture from the glue, matte medium, gel medium, acrylic paint, watercolor, or gouache migrates through the paper (as moisture will do in any paper) and it reactivates that gouache painting, you'll have protected it from messing across facing pages.

I would do this even if you use gesso as a ground on your pages before you paint on them. Gesso should stop some of the moisture transfer, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I think your best bet is to avoid this gouache for visual journaling all together. If you want to experiment with it, use it on single sheets you'll only be painting on one side.

Or use it on separate sheets of paper as I did in my 2013 fake journal, cut out the painting and glue it in your journal—keeping in mind that you can't weight it as it dries, or even burnish it down hard, or you'll pick up too much of the original painting. (See my original review of DaVinci gouache as to how I did this and what happened. And keep glassine or wax paper between the pages of a spread where a painting has been glued in if that painting was made with DaVinci gouache and you are painting or gluing further on in your book.)

This is pretty much a deal breaker for me for using DaVinci gouache in my visual journals.

Again, I have had decades of using other gouache, specifically Schmincke gouache and then M. Graham, and I have not experienced this "quirk" which I would label a problem, with either of those brands, even on very lightweight paper, like Nideggen.

I had to let you know about this right way. I thought the problem I experienced in the fake journal came out of my practice of painting on loose sheets and gluing those paintings in. PVA is very moist.

I didn't realize the paint would respond in this way if another painting were painted on the reverse side.

Now I'm going to put a note on that original post! BEWARE.

A Video Flip Through of Roz's 2013 Fake Journal

The video flip through of my 2013 fake journal has been crunched. It's up on YouTube here. If the embedded video doesn't work please go to YouTube.

In the coming weeks I'll have more to say about the pages—as well as some more "stages" photos, now that you can see the finished piece. I hope to have professional photos shot at the end of May and they may give you a better idea still, of some of the details.

I will also be creating a page on this blog where I'll write out what it says on each page so you can read what she wrote on the pages. (Most often what was written didn't have much to do with what she created visually.)

But for now you can get the gist of the whole book.

The work on the book began on March 18, 2013 with some Gelli Arts Plate Printing sessions. Actual journaling in the book began on March 31. I completed 3 page spreads a day (because neither I nor my character seem to be great at simple math). There was one day where I think I only did 2 page spreads.

You may or may not notice the following:

1. The final shot in the video is a truncated view of this year's button. I crunched the film two times, after adjusting this shot, and finally let it go. People will see the button if they come to this blog, and I couldn't work out why WISIWG (what I saw I wasn't getting).

2. I found some incredibly wonderful music from Kevin MacLeod on incompetech.comhttp://incompetech.com/. I'm not a musician (all those years of piano lessons don't add up) and I'm unaware of half the editing tools in iMovie so any butchering of his rhythms and melodies is all on me. The musical pieces I selected perfectly captured the character's constant theme and mood in her life—upbeat, but aware of the quirky, and always alert to another shoe about to drop; the upbeat is key though, because she doesn't let shoes dropping break her stride. Anyway I wouldn't have had half as much fun doing this video without MacLeod's music and I recommend you check out his site and support this creative person.

3. The page spreads are numbered for your reference in the contest below.

4. The character puts a large red dot on each spread and writes the date around that dot (you'll see that all more closely on the photos I post at the end of May, but you can see this on the video if you look in the bottom left or right of the pages.

5. I'll have more to say about the character, but for now the video opens with a couple important details about her.

The Contest:

As I mentioned in an earlier post this year, the contest is going to be a "where's Waldo" sort of thing. On one page spread in this journal you'll find a ROBOT STICKER. He's a retro-toy robot. He's less than 2 inches tall.

Watch the video, note down the page spread number that you find in the top left corner of the frame for 4 seconds as each spread comes up on the screen. Also note down something else you see on the spread—are there words large enough to read, or there sketches of a dog or a person? That sort of thing.

DON'T TRY TO ENTER THE CONTEST BY WRITING IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THIS POST—that's grounds for immediate disqualification. Don't spoil it for others.

Send me an email at rozjournalrat@gmail.com

The Subject Line MUST READ: IFJM 2013 Contest.

In the body of the email write the spread number on which you found the robot and the other details of identification you noticed.

You have 48 hours to enter.

All entries must be received by SUNDAY, MAY 12, at 8:30 p.m.

A winner will be drawn from the correct entries and receive a really cute small, pocket-sized watercolor journal from me that is just perfect for pockets, pursues, and especially for use as a 2014 Fake Journal!

A Before and After Peek at a Page Spread in My 2013 Fake Journal

Above: A prepainted (acrylic printing with the Gelli Arts Printing Plate) page spread with collaged paper elements. (The printing was actually on a sheet of paper that was collaged down as well.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I happened to have taken photos of this spread after I collaged some printed papers and some decorative papers down in place, and before my character ended up journaling on it.

Above: The completed page spread. (Well almost completed—the collage papers which extend past the pages' edges haven't been trimmed yet.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.

This year's character was all about not being precious with anything—backgrounds she liked, papers she liked, sketches she might have liked…

In the first image today you see how the page looked before she was journaling. In the second image you see how it looked when she finished. Beneath the sketches of the man on the righthand page you can see there was also additional printing with acrylic paint before the collage started. This happened during a second printing session. The journal pages were flipped through and ones that seemed too "bare" got more attention with more printing.

On top of that printing you'll see the collaged sketches which overlap each other, washi tape, collaged papers (the original blue paper on the right hand page is only visible in tiny peeks).

News that Roger Ebert had died was noted down. This character did three page spreads a day and it wasn't important to her to write much about some things, but just note them down to fill up the spaces so she could finish a page. And she liked to note things that were happening in the world.

After noting Ebert's death she sketched a pineapple in mid-blue watercolor brush pen and outlined it with strokes of light blue acrylic paint using a Montana Marker. (We happened to have a pineapple sitting on the kitchen counter—evidently she also likes to eat pineapple.)

Note: This pineapple step was like pulling teeth for the real me because it meant obscuring a sketch I actually was fond of. My character recognized no such fondness for her sketches and was brutal. Let's just say that when I closed this journal with its pages filled on April 18, I felt very bruised!

She ended all her pages by stamping a large dot (usually red) and writing the date around the dot. (See the bottom left of the spread, under the B in Ebert.)

More Faces as Collage

Above: Three Pentel Pocket Brush Pen Sketches of the same man chatting. (I actually did five in a series at the same time). All on gridded paper. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Sometimes so many sketches of someone were made during April that the person became a "character" in the fake journal. In other words someone real became repurposed as a friend or acquaintance of the character creating the fake journal.

Above: The same three sketches collaged on a spread in the fake journal—over a background of acrylic prints made with the Gelli Arts Printing Plate. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

When you see the final page spread in the video flip through you'll see that the character journaled about something unrelated to Chuck, and added some more collage papers. There was a total lack on the part of this character for any need to explain when, where, or why she sketched something or someone. And generally the accompanying journaling was unrelated to what she wrote. 

Layering in My 2013 Fake Journal—Faces as Collage Material

Left and below: Four face sketches made on graph paper and lined paper using the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, DaVinci Gouache (for color) and various washi tapes to hold pieces of paper together so I could expand a drawing beyond the original sheet of paper's edge. Click on any image in the post to view an enlargement.

My 2013 fake journal character's approach to journaling was lots of layers. You saw in a clown spread how she used those layers. Here are a couple more faces that you'll see soon in place on pages when the video flip through is completed.

Some of these sketches were made while watching TV (something both I and my 2013 character enjoy doing); others were made from life, typically with not very patient models. It seems that April was a stressful time for everyone I knew.

The process of this year's fake journal started when I began painting the backgrounds of the journal I was using at the end of March. My character works ahead so I actually had to imagine not only her daily journaling process but her work-ahead process. Besides prepainting and pre-printing the backgrounds on her journal pages she created a massive amount of face sketches to cut up and use as collage material once April actually started. She kept them in a large envelope and they were used in the journal out of [gasp] sequence.

I know, I know, I don't know how I survived the horror.

Layers: Creating Backgrounds in My 2013 Fake Journal

Left: One of the Gelli Arts Printing Plate printed pages in my 2013 fake journal. See details below. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

The character who created my 2013 fake journal had a very carefree and unstudied approach to creating the layers in her visual journal. She would add and add. She would cover other things with abandon.

I always thought I was carefree about doing background painting on my journal pages but this was a whole new level of "just do it and move on." I actually found it a little bit uncomfortable. So I knew I was on the right track.

I did three painting sessions with the Gelli Arts Plate using inexpensive Americana Craft Acrylic paints (which had been recommended in one of the YouTube videos I watched). They are liquid, in bottles. I believe they were successful because of how liquid they were. They would stay "open" long enough for me not only to take a first print with stencils in place on the plate, but then take a second print once the stencils had been removed, and sometimes even a third "ghost" print.

If you want to use a more archival or higher quality acrylic paint you'll have to experiment. I would suggest trying a couple colors of Golden's Open Acrylics first. I have a couple friends who have tried them and like them. I find the odor from the Golden Open Acrylics too strong for me to work with however. (It's an ammonia type smell. It knocks me out.) You could of course add a retarder medium to your regular artist quality paints, but I find those also smell strongly. More open time on the plate will also mean slower drying time on the paper, so plan your printing session accordingly.

Note: Click on any of the images in this post to view an enlargement.

Right: Extra paint on my brayer was rolled off across the top and bottom of the pages in this spread. I then pressed wavy corrugated cardboard that had been pressed into the "inked" Gelli Arts Plate onto the page as well.

The other approach my character employed with abandon was an almost total disregard for color theory as I might use it. She may have used a lot of analogous colors when inking her plate, and she often used complementary colors layered over each other, but she used tints and combinations of colors that I would not have used.

At one point in April I actually found myself saying to friends—Who knew I loved Pink!? (I can't blame the continued use of pink on my character!)

Above: In the third image  of today's post you see graph paper top left and right, mulberry paper (purple and red) and lined paper with a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen Sketch, all printed upon.

My working method was as follows. I would pick one to three colors of paint to put on the plate. Typically I would line them up in 2.5 inch squirts down the vertical length of the plate (10 inches) to make one long line of color in the center of the plate. With an 8 inch brayer I would then smooth the colors back and forth away from the paint line, thus covering the entire plate. This could be done in about 3 or 4 strokes and would create a distinct area of color for each color, as well as slightly blend the colors where they "joined."

Above: Stenciling on the left, with areas of inking with the brayer on the right.

I would then quickly walk over to the journal, open on a table (protected with a plastic sheet because I was working with acrylic paint.) I would brayer color on to the page spread, in effect "cleaning" the brayer, and using all the excess paint.

Next I would rush back to the "inked" plate and draw into the paint with soft-rubber tipped tools or place stencils and various other pattern making items (like bubble wrap, which is quite fun to use) onto the plate.

For items like bubble wrap which are going to block the entire surface, I would press them in, pick them up, and then rush to the journal and press down all the paint the bubble wrap had picked up down onto a page. I would then return to the plate to print.

Above: This spread started with a massive purple ink blot—Ziller Violet acrylic ink was spread on one page and the book was shut. This was one of the first pages painted and the ink blot technique was a test. The ink showed through the paper and required painting and collage on the previous and next spreads. It also created a huge area of "dark" which was, as you see, lightened with acrylic paint printing.

If I had been using stencils I would leave the stencils in place and I would lay a piece of paper on top of the plate and rub down with a 3M card style burnishing tool. Sometimes I would press and smooth just with my hand. One could also use a traditional barren for this task.

I would then remove the paper and that would of course be a print. I'd set it aside to dry. 

Next I would REMOVE the stencils I had used on the plate, quickly take them over to other pieces of paper or the journal, and press them into the paper, transferring any excess paint they carried from being pressed into the plate.

I would return to the plate which now had lots of areas of interest because it had been printed when the stencils were in place and paint had been removed from the negative shapes, but not completely, and because the removal of the stencils had removed some paint. I then pressed a new sheet of paper into the plate, burnishing as described above. When I pulled that plate I considered it the "real" print of that run.

Above: On the spread I first brayered rubberstamp ink with a patterned brayer I'd carved a design into. Next I collaged papers down and positioned the face sketch (which you say in the printed papers image above when it was just stenciled with a checkerboard pattern). It was painted with gouache after being glued (with PVA) down into position. (The PVA was allowed to dry before I painted.) The lavender paper was cut and collaged into place and a plastic, articulated figure was arranged and put on the right hand page and stenciled with a stencil brush and rubberstamp ink. I stamped large numbers up the vertical left of the spread. My character, in layering, likes to cover things over, including her drawings. You'll be able to see the completed page in the video flip through I will post soon.

I set that print aside to dry, and if I had been working really quickly I would have time to put another piece of paper onto the plate, burnish, and pull a very light "ghost" print. I would also set this aside.

The paint dried quickly and because of its formulation it had a very matte surface—which was great because in the past when I've used higher quality acrylics in my books the better acrylic binders used in the paint have created a slicker surface which has caused pages to stick. This less expensive paint was actually a virtue in this situation.

Above: One of my favorite painted background spreads in the journal. There were several layers of printing, not only directly onto the spread with the plate and the brayer, but also a printed sheet, top left, that extends across the gutter, which was glued in after the first printing session, and then printed over in the second printing session. Collage scraps that had been printed upon were also stuck down (blue and green strip on the right page). Stencils from other printings were pressed down on top of the page when the collage items were in place.

I would then take a wet paper towel and clean off the plate. (It is very easy to clean.) And I would go over the plate with a clean dry paper towel (which became my messy plate cleaner in the next round) to remove excess water before adding more paint and beginning the process all over again.

Above: Collaged, painted with a brayer, and over printed with stencils that had been lifted from plates in progress.

I found that I could work fast and in a two hour window (including setting up and tearing down and cleaning up my workspace; cleaning the tools took a little longer) I could print not only a number of sheets but pages and pages in the journal. The paint dried so quickly that by the time I had finished with a particular plate anything I had printed in the journal was dry and I could turn the page and begin again.

Above: Besides printing and using the brayer to apply colors here some rubberstamp ink (the maroon color) has been stroked onto this page spread.

During the printing process there would be many sheets that didn't seem like much after a first printing or a ghost printing. They dried so quickly that I could easily use them in another round of printing to create even more layers.

In general, in my regular life, I go with the flow in these types of sessions, or so I thought. But I found that actually I do tend to plan and organize a "line up" of approaches, a series perhaps, or a sequence. It's because I'm after "repeatable" results that can be utilized as "approaches" in the future.

My character on the other hand was not like that AT ALL, and she worked at a speed that even I found uncomfortable. She created things so fast that I couldn't repeat them again if my life depended on it. She went blithely on, not giving it a second thought, but the real me who was standing next to her observing or cleaning up at the end of the session was "Damn, why didn't she take any notes?" Of course slowing down to take notes would have eaten up the paint drying time and defeated the whole purpose of working like this. It was fun, but it was also frustrating. Again I knew I was on the right track and way past my comfort zone.

Left: Another painted spread onto which ink was brayered and into which inked stencils were pressed.

During this process I began to work so quickly that at times I actually picked up the Gelli Arts Plate (no small task as it is a squiggly squishy mass that doesn't like to be held) and press it into the journal to print with it like a rubberstamp. One appealing thing about this approach is that the plate is so flexible that when you press it into a page spread if you are positioned across the gutter of the book you can press and deform the plate to print right across the gutter.

If neatness matters to you I wouldn't recommend it. This is how I ended up getting paint on pages besides the ones I had intended (no problem for this character) and getting paint all over my hands and sometimes then transferred the paint to the book's cover before I wiped my hands.

More often if I wanted to print from the plate in the journal I would pick up the journal and push it down onto the plate. This is a rather tricky maneuver and peeling it back up while not getting paint on the other pages and cover (from your fingers as you pull the two apart) is very tricky. But it's also pretty fun. When you work with a book that is bigger opened than the plate, you just have to wing the placement (if you're working quickly) and hope for the best. If you try this and it bothers you just remind yourself this is only the first layer on the page—there's more to come. Neither the real me nor my character had any qualms about this first layer being exact or "perfect."

This first layer of background was a fun process overall and I'm glad that I tried it in this freewheeling way first. I quickly got a sense for what I might be able to do with the Gelli Arts Plate in the future, and I accomplished my goal of creating very layered beginnings to the journal pages.

I haven't yet had time to set up the lights and video tape a flip through of this completed journal, but when I do you'll be able to see what became of these first layers of background.

Starting My 2013 Fake Journal—Before and After Photos

Above: The sort of before photo, by which I mean, the journal when I'd worked in it for one afternoon on March 21, 2013. Read below for details. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

If you've been reading along so far for the 2013 celebration of IFJM you'll know that I used the Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook for my fake journal this year.

The pages really were too thin for simply drawing on them in ink—all the inks I used seeped through on my test pages more than I would have hoped. But I was already in love with the size of the journal and the dot pattern grid on the pages (which oddly you can rarely see now that the book is filled).

Immediately my mind started working on ways to use this book despite of the paper's limitations for mixed media. By now you've also read how this mind churning happened at the exact time I went to visit a friend who was recovering from surgery and watching Gelli Plate Printing videos on the internet. I realized that I could do a combination of techniques to the pages that would make them more resilient to abuse by the mixed media.

Left: The completed book on April 18, 2013. It no longer really closes, in fact typically the cover just flops open. Two days after finishing this book I made the decision to purchase an archival newspaper storage box for this book and store it in a half open position. It's the only thing I could think of that wouldn't put continued pressure on the already stressed spine. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I began to print monoprints with the Gelli Plate—sometimes on paper I could collage into the journal and other times printing directly onto the page. I did two evenings of printing. The above photo was taken between those two evenings when I had started to stick the papers from the first evening into the journal. I was working with PVA so that water from later painting sessions wouldn't cause the collaged material to buckle up away from the page. Because I was working on several page spreads at a time, and as I worked into April some pages started to have gouache paintings on them, I couldn't weight the collaged material while it dried so that it would dry flatter. (The trapped moisture would have reactivated the gouache paint before the glue had dried and made for interesting pages.) Because the pages weren't under weights when they were drying, and the paper is lightweight, there is a wonderful buckling to every page. The layers of collaged papers are not only buckled across the page but create a stiffness to most pages that makes it a tactile joy to turn these pages. I think you'll see that when I get the video flip through posted.

Left: Detail of the book closed with the book's elastic band positioned around the book. This is the only time I've put the elastic band in this position. The band stretches too much to be useful with this bulk and the front cover is pulled into a curve because of the bulk of the pages. But this image shows how the fore edge of the book is deformed as the thickness of the collaged items keeps the spine from closing properly and pushes the pages out past the cover's edge.

I started working on backgrounds and collage materials on the 18th of March for two reasons. I had a feeling I wasn't going to have the amount of time I had hoped for each day (and in fact that did turn out to be the case) but more importantly my character was someone who was constantly working ahead in her journals and so while she would be finishing up a volume she would be working simultaneously ahead in preparing backgrounds in a new journal.

Left: Detail of the spine now that the book is filled to over flowing. You can see that the ends of the signatures (where paper is folded and sewn together as groups) is now no longer flat against the spine board like it was when I started. Instead it is now convex, creating a circle that is curved outward, pushing the signatures outward. Hence the way the pages jut out at the fore edge. (In my real journals I tend to do only a little collage and I pre-cut out pages, leaving tabs to hold space at the spine. That creates space for the collage materials I do add. Since in this book I wasn't cutting out pages and each page sometimes had 3 layers of collage material there was no way the spine was not going to severely deform. For a description of how and why I cut pages out of my journals you can read "Journaling Superstitions #5: You Can't Cut Pages Out of Your Journal." (About half way through that post I explain my process.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.

If I had waited to work in this journal until April 1 she would not have been in her work flow mode.

When a character speaks so strongly to you, tells you to work on backgrounds for pages she intends to use weeks from now, and insists that you use paper that is unsuitable for mixed media, you simply must listen to the character.

So I printed and collaged and tried to listen to the character as she spoke to me in little bits and pieces during the day. I had hoped to have a "leisurely" month in April where I could take multiple photos of each stage and let you see the gradual growing of the book. But everything happened very quickly—which I learned is what this character likes. You can see some of what happened from photos like the ones in today's post.

I'll have more to write about the interior of this journal and the process. I would like to say this about the Leuchtturm 1917 notebook I used for this year's fake journal—it held up to a phenomenal amount of abuse. Most books would have disintegrated in "pre-production" before April 1, when character  started actually journaling in the book.

Despite the abuse all the pages of this journal are intact and holding firm. No stitches have torn out (this is a sewn book or I wouldn't have tried this approach). The cover of the book long ago lost any remembrance of its hinge space yet even with repeated opening and closing the cover material (which is one of those synthetic coverings that's not paper, leather, or fabric) held up and continues to do so. There is virtually no wear on the cover—except for some acrylic ink that I splashed on it from time to time when I was printing in the book.

I didn't weigh the book when it was new and empty.  By now it must weigh 4 or 5 times as much. It is unpleasant to hold it is so heavy.

I loved working in this book, and if all you do is take notes and you test this paper and love it for that and the pens you use then I have to say you couldn't find a better, more user friendly, and attractive notebook.

And if you want to get all wild and crazy with it and go extremely wild with mixed media—well it's going to hang in there with you.

My character isn't concerned with such niceties. I on the other hand am very, very grateful. And I find myself passing the book as it sits half open on the drawing board, awaiting the arrival of its archival box, and I can't help but page through the encrusted pages and savour the fun of working in this book all over again.

International Fake Journal Month 2013 Is Over…But You're Not Finished Yet

Left: Sketch of me from Anne Bray's 2013 fake journal. I never looked more elegant. Click on this link to go to Anne's fake journal. Thank you Anne for getting me into your journal this year!

It's May 1 and IFJM 2013 is over for most people. If you still have pages in your book, time to spare, and the need to continue by all means keep going. If you started late and want to get a few more entries under your belt before you stop, continue. You get the idea—you get to decide when you stop. Using the month of April for containment is to make things manageable. Do what works for you.

The majority of fake journal keepers will stop today and I would just like to say congratulations for hanging in there and pushing yourself to do something creative each day, in another character. Kudos!

But even if yesterday was your final entry your work isn't over yet.

Take today off. Relax. Reacquaint yourself with the book you were reading and had to put aside so you had some spare time for IFJM. Or do a few pages in your regular journal knowing that you don't have to switch gears at any time today. Or watch a couple of those shows ganging up on the DVR while you've been in character. Definitely get out for a walk (even if it's raining like it is here—hey we did have 5 days of spring!). Do a little completion dance. Take a deep breath.

Tomorrow take a moment to page through your fake journal. Look at what you've accomplished. Jot down what your goals and plans were for the project (a sentence about both is fine). Now ask yourself whether those goals were met. If so, how; if not why not. Don't judge your answers, just write them down.

You want to do this tomorrow while everything is still fresh in your mind, but when you've been a day out of the stream of creating in someone else's voice.

I like to write my comments down on a slip of paper and attach them in the back of my fake journal (or if there is an envelope in the back, put them inside). Sometimes I write this quick review in my regular journal. After that journal is filled and paged and indexed I go back to the fake journal and write in the page and volume number where that write up is located, on the inside back cover of the fake journal.

It's important that you process this project before you get too far away from it. So your initial ending thoughts that you jot down tomorrow are important.

A week, a month, even a year from now you can take this project out and look at it again with a fresh eye. Since you have your goals written down you will be able to remind yourself why you did what you did. (Your future self can't hold you accountable for not doing something that wasn't on the goals list! Remind your internal critic of that!) You'll be able to see, with the distance of time whether or not you've carried ideas, skills, thoughts, or new goals forward into your regular journaling or other aspects of your creative life (maybe your character has inspired a new hobby or use of new media in your real life).

Assessment is a big part of every creative process. It helps us gauge, in a constructive fashion, what we attempted, and what we have yet to attempt. Assessment allows us to set a new course entirely or to simply get back on track.

Now that you've put all this work into the month of April, don't shortchange yourself by neglecting this key component.

Be honest with yourself while you make your assessment, but if your internal critic wants to step up and take over remind him that it isn't for him to weigh in right now. You aren't looking for ART, you're looking at WAYS your creative mind works when you free it from the constraints of your usual conditions and, well frankly that irritating internal critic. (Oh he'll probably put up a big fuss too because he doesn't want to break up with you.) It's all good practice for your regular journaling and other creative pursuits.  In order to move deliberately in creative ways you have to learn to get out of your own way at the same time you stand firmly grounded in a course of action.

If you didn't finish the month out, for whatever reason, don't dwell on the reason and make excuses for yourself in your note to yourself. Simply write down the reason, "New job started," "cat passed away," "ran out of steam," etc. Keep it short. If you go on and on about why that incident stopped you from working in your journal you're giving that incident even more power after the fact. You already know that incident stopped you. The goal is to move past that.

By identifying the incident you acknowledge it and move on. But you also get to discuss with your mind proactively ways that you can make room for creative endeavors in your life in the future. So if you know that work is always too stressful for you begin by looking at work. Getting rid of stress around work isn't just something to do so you can participate in IFJM, it's essential so that you can have a happy life. Look at ways to remove the stress in your life around work—start riding the bus so you don't have to drive in rush hour and can have some reading time, make a push to get extra clients so you can hire the assistant you really need—all that sort of stuff.

If we don't live consciously and see what's going on in our lives we can't stop and adjust our lives and we can't make room for more of what we crave—creative response.

Think about all that too as you dissect your process from the past month.

Then take a couple minutes to focus on what went right. For some people the internal critic might be so loud, or your plan was so large and lofty, that there was no way for you to succeed. Your overview will tell you that quickly. Decide on ways you can change that in the future by making smaller more doable creative tasks.

This isn't just about planning for next year's fake journal (though it would be great if you decided to participate again). This type of planning is about finding what worked and taking it forward into your life.

Maybe this year what worked is that you did something every day. That's huge. Your internal critic might say, "Well, everything you did was shit." And then you can say, "Shut up. I did something everyday and that's huge."

Say it out loud so you hear it. It is huge. You made time for a creative project and you did it every day. This is a template of what you can do in your real life.

On any given day everything we create isn't going to be fabulous, but we have to keep creating so that we have something to look at and some point from which to grow. Skills (drawing, painting, collaging, creative thinking and problem solving) are built through practice. The goal here is to find a practice that you can fit into your life.

If it was easy for your character to find the time ask your character some questions about how he or she values and arranges different things in his or her life. You might learn that you're just a couple steps away from having more of what you crave in your life.

So that's what you need to do tomorrow. Don't think you have to spend hours on this task. It should take 30 minutes or less. Just flip slowly through your fake journal, jot a couple notes as things occur to you (gosh I liked my use of color on page 10; darn that face on page 29 is overworked, a thinner nibbed pen would have worked better). Then do what I suggested above, write your goals and other comments in just a couple sentences each. Date your notes and set them aside (in the back of the journal or wherever you decide).

And then you are finished.

Until you go back to have a fresh look in a week or a month perhaps.

And the day after tomorrow your task is to find what you can carry forward from this project that is positive and healthy and creative, and make a space for that in your daily life.

It might not happen immediately, but let's face it, unless you set your intention it won't happen at all.

Thank you again for trusting the process and jumping in and participating!

I've been away from the studio with meetings and hope to wrestle my journal down in the next couple of days so that I can take a quick video of it. Expect to see that and some still images in the days to come as I share more about my process and experience from 2013.

If you participated in the public posting of your fake journal and you finish your personal review (and that's what it should be, a review that is honest and just for you, because then it will have the greatest value) and you would like to share some thoughts about your 2013 IFJM experience please do so by posting a public wrap up on your site (and sending me a link by May 7 so I can do a group post with those links).

If you participated privately this year but had an epiphany you'd like to share please send me an email at rozjournalrat@gmail.com with the subject line "Private Participant." Include a short description of your project and goals and what happened and of course that epiphany. If you have a flickr account or blog where you can post one or more images that can be public, you could also send me a link to that. I'll post notes about them and the links if you give me permission, and as time allows.

If you have any doubts about making any of your conclusions public DON'T. Just make your notes and keep them for your reference. The point of IFJM is to push the boundaries of your creativity and your process and that can and should be a totally private process if you have any reservations.

Again, thanks to all of you who participated whether it was public or private participation. I have enjoyed receiving personal notes from those of you who are participating privately. I also have enjoyed seeing the public posts and look forward to catching up on your character's final days.

Oh, and one other thought. If you're new to IFJM you may not be expecting this but if you liked your character, well actually even if you didn't, you might find in the days to come that you miss your character and his or her take on things. By all means write notes about this in your real journal and use the experience to ferret out what you might want to keep in your life.

It takes 28 days to create a habit. I tell this to all my "real" journaling students. I even make them sign contracts to work daily for 15 minutes a day in their journals, just so they can have the habit forming experience. What you may experience in the next few days is simple—it's withdrawal. Now what are you going to do about that? Your real journal is right there beside you. Pick it up and start asking some questions, every day.

One Last Plea for an Address of a Contributor

I've got the buttons for the "interactive" portion of my 2013 fake journal ready to mail out, but I NEVER HEARD BACK from the person who posted a "sewing" related item from Texas.

If you are that person please write to me at Rozjournalrat@gmail.com with your postal address. Have the Subject read, "It's Me" or "I sent it" and then in the body of the message tell me what it was you sent.

Don't respond to this post in the comments section.

If I get a note from you still this evening I can have it in tomorrow's mail with the other buttons. If not it will still go out to you but it will have to wait until I find myself able to go to the P.O. (which frankly is rare these very hectic days).

So please let me know.

Thanks again to everyone who sent in interesting scraps and flat tidbits that I could incorporate. I hope you enjoy your buttons.

(For anyone who wants to get a button but didn't participate I'll let you know what the cost will be after I've been to the P.O. I couldn't find any more of the small envelopes I like to use for this and which I'd had weighed at the P.O. so I really have no idea right now how much postage will be—in one of those weird "this just shouldn't be moments" the larger envelopes actually cost a little less, so who knows what is going on.)

Some Sketches Didn't Make It Into the 2013 Fake Journal

Left: A 12 x 16 inch sketch of "Paul Drake," from season one of "Perry Mason" that didn't make it into the journal. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I hope to write a more informative post this weekend about the hows and whys of my 2013 fake journal. But as you know from other posts this year, many sketches for it were done on loose papers.

Not all of those sketches made it into the journal.

Some of you may know of my fascination with "Perry Mason" reruns. I've been watching them since around the beginning of the year. Sketching the character actors in each episode kept me sane through the early months of 2013 when I had bronchitis.

It seemed natural then when I started keeping the fake journal that I might sketch some "Perry Mason." Early in the fake journal process I did the sketch shown today of actor William Hopper as Paul Drake.

The sketch was so large (12 x 16 inches—not including the lettering) I had to keep taping more pieces of yellow legal pad together to keep sketching. When I finished I knew I'd have to paste it on its side across the gutter of my fake journal or if I kept the vertical orientation it would have to fold down. I thought about the latter quite a lot. I glued the image to a piece of sumi paper just for that purpose.

But when it came time to think about adding it into the fake journal, I just couldn't fold it. My character, who likes to destroy and cover over images couldn't even do it. It's not because I think this is a great sketch of Drake. I've done a dozen that capture him more recognizably. It's just that Paul Drake's character had become so important to me by the end of March and beginning of April, when the shit literally hit the fan, that we simply couldn't do it. This pensive stare just had to be saved.

(If you want to see how I feel about Paul Drake read "Don't Worry, You Don't Need To Call the Police. I Let Myself In—Paul Drake: The Hardest Working P.I. on TV")

By April 3 this sketch was taped to the door behind my desk chair—in other words, Drake has my back. And as each new emergency came up I said to myself, "WWPDD?" (What would Paul Drake Do?)

Hardworking, resourceful, able to handle himself in all sorts of situations (but able to not get into situations), Paul also knows when it's sometimes best to just go fishing.

In the past few weeks I have annoyed friends by punctuating conversations with "WWPDD?" It's good for a girl to have a role model.

Originally when I taped the sketch to the wall I thought I would create a painting based on the sketch. But as time went by I realized I liked it just the way it is. Next week sometime I'll be taking it down and gluing the entire sketch and the text to a big piece of mat board. I'm sure I'll stencil and maybe even "Gelli" print on the mat board. Then I'm going to frame the whole thing "just as it is," a reminder of an IFJM 2013 that doesn't have to be folded up, closed, and put in a box (which is actually how I'm going  to have to store the 2013 fake journal because it's bursting at the seams—but that too I'll write about another day).

As IFJM 2013 starts to wind down take a moment to look back over your pages. What do you know now about your character, and your character's approach and outlook? What new directions will you go in your real journaling because of the process? What creative souvenirs (which are carried internally not just externally) will you be bringing back with you? Take a moment to write about that in your real journal.