Welcome to International Fake Journal Month 2013!

What is IFJM?
Please read the page "What Is IFJM" for details.
Learn the difference between Faux, Fake, and Fake Historical Journals.

2019 IFJM Celebration
IFJM has been suspended indefinitely. Please read the pinned post about this below.

Participants who Post Their Journals
A list of 2018 participants who are posting their fake journals this year will appear near the top of the right side bar of this blog around April 6. Lists of participants who posted their pages in 2010 through 2017 appear lower in the same column. Please pay them a visit and check out their fake journals.

View a Couple of Roz's Past Fake Journals
Roz's 2009 fake journal takes place in an alternate Twin Cites, where disease has killed the human and bird populations. (It ends up being an upbeat tale of friendship.) Watch a video flip through of Roz's 2009 fake journal here.

Read an explanation of Roz's insanely complex 2011 fake journal.

Tips on Keeping a Fake Journal
Click on "tips" in the category cloud.

Remember, "Life's so short, why live only one?"


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

A Note from Carol Bonomo

Left: Paper Lunch Bag Avatar of "Roz" created by Carol Bonomo. Click on the image and view the enlargement. (Don't you love how my hair comes up into little horns? I think this is totally me!)


Carol Bonomo participated in past IFJM celebrations but decided since she was traveling for part of April she had better give it a miss this year. (I think that's a wise thing, especially since she was traveling where there would be burros!)

But before she left for her trip she created the manga lunch bag avatar for me, seen at the left. (She'd done this just in case there was going to be another project journal infiltration—that's careful planning of the type I love!)

She was making bags like this with a group of volunteers she'd trained to raise money for her buddhist temple. They finished 60 for the Hanamatsuri festival, which is weekend of April 25, and pre sold $38 worth to proud grandmas who gave them to their grandkids.

The group had so much fun they are already asking Carol what they'll be doing for their next fund raiser.

Left: Carol Bonomo's self-portrait on a lunch bag, part of her manga avatar project. 

Carol was kind enough to send this bag to me, along with the fun one of herself (see the second image in this post). I wanted to share them with you not only because I think they are great, but I think it's a fun idea for fundraising. 

Carol also shared a insight she had gained from previous participation in IFJM with me:
The point to me—which I actually "got" the first year I did IFJM - was not staying captive to a book for visual journaling.  That year I did painted postcards from my character, and it was the first time I didn't do something in a book,  I saved them in an exotic envelope I made for the occasion.  I saw the lunch bags we were making and said, "now THERE'S visual journal potential," so thank you for offering the opportunities to force us to think out of the book!
So often we think about journaling as something we can only do in a book. But not everyone's mind or method follows that pattern and structure. I know people who journal on scraps of paper. I love to make prepainted journal cards and journal on them during trips or special events. Right now I'm doing a memory-composition-drawing everyday on 5 x 7 inch cards and it has become a journal of sorts. I had hoped to do my fake journal on an iPad this year—perhaps next year?

Let your mind expand to journal in anyway that makes sense to you. And what better way to try something out than a project like IFJM or a two or three week intensive? Give it a shot. (And draw burros whenever the opportunity arises.)

Carol posts her artistic pursuits at Painted Photos. I don't see any burros up there yet, but she has promised me that some are coming. Pop over and she what's she is up to. 

4 comments:

Miss T said...

With that red hair, you bear a remarkable resemblance to Pippi Longstocking!

Roz Stendahl said...

I didn't think about that until you mentioned it. It does! I read those books when I was young. I can't remember them at all really. In graduate school I went to a Halloween party as Pippi. Wire (and a lot of hairspray on the ends!) helped me get those upturned pigtails. (I couldn't wait to wash my hair.) Roz

Joan Tavolott said...

I like your new hairstyle!

Great idea for a fundraiser!

Michelle Himes said...

Ha ha! Pippi Longstocking was the first thing that came to my mind too. I love it!