2014 International Fake Journal Month Wrap-Up: Christine Mitzuk

Above: Journal spread ©2014 Christine Mitzuk. See below for more details. Gouache in the Delta Series Stillman & Birn journal. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

This week I'm going to be posting the wrap-ups participants have sent me about their experience of IFJM 2014.

These posts always make me very happy because we get to see creative work of a daily sort, even if we simply get a glimpse.

Today's artist is Christine Mitzuk. She is an extremely talented artist who trained at The Atelier in Minneapolis. There she teaches the Gesture Figure Study Class and Illustration. I have taken her Gesture class multiple times and hope to return to it as soon as my shoulders are ready. She rounds up great models, gets the best poses out of them, and pushes her students to look carefully and see stories in gestures (so it isn't surprising she also teaches illustration).

She is teaching a week-long illustration workshop in July.

Recently she created art for Llewellyn's 2014 Astrological Calendar. You can see these lovely paintings on her site.

You can also keep up with Christine and her art life through her blog.

Above: Another page spread ©2014 Christine Mitzuk, from her 2014 Fake Journal. Christine was exploring spacescapes and inventing spaceships, drawing from her imagination. Gouache in the Delta Series Stillman & Birn journal. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Christine has put up with my rambling on and on about International Fake Journal Month for some time now, and this year she decided to participate privately. (That means she didn't post her pages.)

At the end of April, however Christine sent me a note telling me she'd enjoyed IFJM. She gave me permission to post these two images which are spreads from her 2014 fake journal. She gave this explanation of her approach:

Since I'm usually drawn to organic subjects instead of mechanical, I opted for doing spacescapes and inventing spaceships. 

I found it useful to restrain my inner critic. Now I'm looking forward to keeping a journal where I draw out of my head...well it seems more manageable now.  

I have to say I'm excited to check back in with Christine and see how she works in her journal going forward, drawing from imagination.

I think one of the fun things about IFJM is that it can point you in new directions you might not have thought of going before, or it can remove any remaining delays in taking those directions. You can have so much fun in IFJM (and work so hard) that there is really no point in waiting to go on other explorations.

I hope next year those of you reading this week's wrap up posts will consider taking an imaginary journal of your own. Like Christine you'll return with some fabulous visual mementos.