Journals & Diaries (part 3)

These journals are pretty special.

I began writing in the first one on the top row the day this little one was born.  Each journal entry is written like a letter to her.  It was filled by the time she finished elementary school.  The tan one with the daisies holds middle, junior, and high school.Then the purple one started when she left home and moved to college.

I began the blue one on the bottom row the day this little one was born.  Again, each entry is written as a letter to him.  The black and brown one began with middle school and continued through high school.  The green one starts when he left home and moved into the college dorm.

A lot of life stories are in those six little books.  

I suppose that someday I'll give them to the kids. I don't know. I don't think I want any advice on when that should happen.  I'll know when the time is right for that.

I am so thankful that I began these and that I've kept them up through every phase of their lives.

I would absolutely encourage anyone to keep a book of letters to their child(ren).  So what if you didn't start the day they were born.  Start when they're three or when they start school or when they begin junior high or when they leave home.  If you do, you'll be glad.

Journals

What's so special about these three books?

I first "finished" this painting four years ago.  Then I put it on a shelf and considered it a failure.  I loved the sunflower that I'd cut from my garden.  I loved the journals.  I hated the painting. I'd notice it every few months and think about painting over it.  I needed a 9x12 canvas the other day, and didn't have one.  

I looked at this one a long time... Should I paint over it?

It was like six separate items with no connection between them... a foreground, a background, a flower, and three books.  Was that what had been wrong all these years and months?

I didn't want to change anything about the books, so I'd just have to tie everything back to them.  

1st -I used a purple wash over the brown table to tie in with the top journal.  

2nd - I used the colors of the bottom journal to create a new background.  

3rd - I decided the leaves and the green journal were pretty good partners.  

4th - Then I just had to get to get rid of the yellow flower.  I made it a purple; t blended with the top journal and made no sense.  I added lots of reds and pinks; it was ugly.  I added the rosy red and orangy color of the bottom book and made extra middle petals to make it kind of mum-like.  

5th - Finally, I got brave and stuck a little but on the leaf that I accidentally put in a weird place.

AND...  Yea! 

So, What's so special about these three books?

The bottom one is my journal.

The green one is the journal I write to my son in.

The purple one is the journal I write to my daughter in.

I started keeping diaries when I was a little.  

These are my diaries from 1973-1983.

That little blue flowery one was the first.

Starting in 1977 I rarely missed a day.

These are my journals from 1985 through the one in the painting.  I don't write daily, but I'm fairly consistent.

(Yeah, I realize 1984 is missing... I was engaged... too in love and busy to bother... but I do have a box of love letters, so that year's not completely lost!)

I also keep a journal for each of my children.  Each has one that goes from birth through elementary school, another from middle school through high school, then the two in the painting.

These are for specific reasons, mostly from my years of participation in the National Writing Project.

Pretty cool, huh?

Original Oil Painting on 11"x 14" Wrapped Canvas
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