Wreck This Journal: Make a Paper Chain

I have a passion for music and I love a few heavy metal bands, so I thought the lyrics 'Breaking the Chains' by Dokken, seamed kind of perfect for this page.

I sketched the heart with a blue ballpoint pen and I did the shading with a blue pencil. The background was done smudging a brown pencil.

To make the chain, I cut the strips, folded and twisted them to give a more realistic look. And then I painted random strokes of silver, copper and black.

A simple page but it has a lot of meaning for me..

Wreck This Journal: Fill this Page with Circles

When I thought about circles instantly came to mind Victor Vasarely (op art), Georges Seurat (pointillism) and Pop Art.

And because I couldn't decide which way to go, I combined everything in a single drawing.



So this is a 'pop art' girl visiting the museum.
I did everything with markers and free hand, no sketching involved that's why it's a little bit bumpy.

If you don't know Victor Vasarely I'd recommend to check him out, his art blew my mind when I was 14 years old and that's what got me into creating things and later into studying art history.

Wreck This Journal: Create a Drawing Using a Piece of Your Hair

This is one of my favourite pages,  I used my cat Satan as a nude model. I sketched him quickly, I covered the drawing with PVA and gradually I added small pieces of my hair. 

But don't worry, I have an undercut so I do this on weekly basis. The good thing is that now I've found a fun thing to do with my discarded hair.

To colour this in I used acrylic paints because it dries rapidly and it covers everything.

For the cat I used:

• Burnt Umber
• Burnt Sienna
• Cadmium Yellow Deep
• Titanium White 
• Phthalo Green
• Black pen

Background: 

• Phthalo Green
• Titanium White
• Pencil for shading

I like to combine unusual colours to experiment and make something that it's not expected.

Wreck This Journal: Trace Your Hand

I drew this page while having a conversation via skype, I live far away from my family and most of my friends, so I can easily spend a few hours chatting. 

The polaroids you see, are actually doodles of real pictures that we were talking about that day.

The last holiday with my friends, my first flat in London, etc.

I used a pencil to sketch everything, a blue and a brown regular color pencils for shading, purple and silver metallic pens for the nails and a black pen to trace the final lines.

I've always had difficulties to draw hands, even to the point that I would leave every single drawing with unfinished arms. But I realized that it was more of a mental block rather that lack of ability. And this happens to a lot of people, we need to forget about the object and just focus on drawing lines, sometimes it helps to draw the negative space between objects.

Wreck This Journal: Cover this Page Using Only Office Supplies

This is supposed to be a giant raising to the surface and blowing some trees, hehehe.

I cut the giant out of thin cork board, the eyes are made of yellow thumb pins, I glued staples for the hair and elastic bands for the clothes. And I used white clips to simulate the wind.

The trees are made of silver clips and pieces of pencils. I used an eraser for the sky. And a mixture of clear tape, pencils shavings and plastic from a double sided tape to form the terrain.

To glue it all together I used PVA and all purpose adhesive (UHU).

Wreck This Journal: Crack the Spine

At the beginning I was a bit lost, I didn't really know what to do with the journal. So I decided to choose every day a page at random and 'force' myself to work only on that page and focus.
But, as you may now know, that didn't last long...



I'm the kind of person who starts a 100 projects at once and then gives up each and every one of them little by little, that's why it was so important to focus.

So the 'Crack the Spine' page, I did a quick sketch of a (anatomically incorrect) broken spine, I know, very original... But I did crack the spine of the book, I opened it to the middle and pressed hard.

Wreck This Journal: Instructions

The instructions page... where do I begin? The tittle of this journal appears often in the comments, usually to remind me that I did it wrong. But I think this people seem to have overlooked the 'Instructions Page'.

1. Carry this with you everywhere you go. 
2. Follow the instructions on every page.
3. Order is not important.
4. Instructions are open to interpretation.
5. Experiment. (work against your better judgment)

And we shouldn't forget about the author Keri Smith, who is a conceptual artist who makes this books for people to experiment, even if they think the can't.

Thanks to this book, I used methods and materials that I wouldn't think of using before, I gained confidence in my drawing skills and I don't worry anymore if a drawing is missing or if I screwed up, because what is important is the process of making something out of nothing.

So there is no right or wrong way, just do what you want and enjoy it.