Self Portrait Journal Page

Okay, so this isn’t technically a self portrait, it was taken by a professional photographer. Here’s the story:

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m working on finding my own art journal style and Dina Wakley is the artist I’m currently using as inspiration. She frequently uses photographs of herself in her journal pages, so I figured I could make at least one page that features me.

The story behind the photograph is that I’ve wanted to get some professional head shots taken for about two years to put on my blog and other business social media accounts. But I’ve always been terrified to do it. I eventually met a great photographer called Sid Ceaser and I plucked up courage to go have them taken with a friend. I was awkward and uncomfortable (and probably very difficult to work with), but after many tries Sid got a few shots that I liked, and this is one of them. I look quite serious but that’s probably because I’m serious kind of person, so it represents me well.

Some details about the page.  As you can see there’s a lot of white space. The page was originally much smaller and there wasn’t enough white space – it felt claustrophobic – so I tore and inked the edges of the original page and mounted it to a larger journal page.

The background is all acrylic paint and includes some images stamped with acrylic paint too. I was playing with idea of frames because it’s a picture and created multiple frames within the page using the painted yellow border, pencil marks around the photo and the yellow border, and the 2 stamped flourishes.

To make sure the photo wasn’t just floating on the page I grunged it up with sandpaper and blended it into the page with some paint marks and stamping.  The journaling was written with an old fashioned fountain pen.

I got to say it felt weird making a page featuring me, and I don’t think I’ll do it often, but going outside our comfort zone is the only way we’ll grow, right? Have you ever created a journal or scrapbook page featuring yourself? How did it make you feel?  I’d love to read your thoughts.