To Focus or Not to Focus - What Was the Question?

 

I read lots of blogs and lots of blog comments (some  comments are pure genius and many are just so darn funny).  I read a comment recently that started me thinking about my own posts.  The commenter was on a bit of a rant , listing all the things she didn't like about blogs, and her main gripe was "blogs that go off-topic".  She thinks that a blog should have a theme and the writer should stick to the topic - no other stuff - no personal interest stories, and, gasp! NO pictures of family. 

Give me someone who can write a few interesting paragraphs and add some visual interest to them and I'm likely to read about all kinds of stuff I didn't even know interested me.  How else would I know that people are making dryer balls out of old wool sweaters? Or that there are many grandparents with good ideas about being part of a far away grandchild's life?  Or that in France, end of season sales are regulated by the government?   This is all good stuff and happily someone decided to share it. It seems to work like this for me - interesting people say interesting things about all kinds of things and there's usually something to learn or find funny.

Truth be told,  even my  favorite bloggers sometimes post things that don't get me all whopped up, but I just move on and come back the next day.  Pretty sure it's OK to click on the next one if the current read isn't doing it for you.  Personally,  I'm not a fan of scrolling through posts full of pictures pulled off the Internet, but again, that magic mouse clicking saves the day !   According to Wikipedia, there were 156 million blogs in 2011. That's a whole lotta posting goin' on, so bound to be some duds on occasion.

Which brings me to my point - the long way around, I know - I admire people with many interests as I find them more interesting.  It must be great to write with total authority about something, but frankly, I'm more of a "jack of all trades" kind of person.  I'm interested in all kinds of things, but not an expert in any and my blog posts definitely reflect that.  Sometimes I think I need a focus, but my attention span is too short to allow that to happen! 

So my posts reflect what I am dubbing my "panoramic" focus - encompassing a whole spectrum of things - wide sweep, not much zoom detail.

And the perfect segue - more experimenting in the journal, with a quote appropriate for today.  I started with a swipe of gesso, then ran a zig-zagged cut credit card through the wet gesso for texture.  I wiped on some lime  acrylic paint and then removed some with a baby wipe.  It still needed something, so scraped on some turquoise chalk, dribbled some gesso over it and smooshed the color around.  That's a fun way of adding some color and a bit of texture at the same time.

Journal pages need words, so I listed some of those things that interest me.  The writing, with a fine Sharpie, was too pronounced, so more gesso over it to tone it down and some random words scrawled over it in white ink.

I glued down some random papers and a few pieces of Tim Holtz tapes, stamped some circles with white acrylic paint and the clocks around the edges with a dark ink.  This is the part where the experts tell you to just keep going, without thinking too much.  So I added the image of the dresses and not sure I like it, but it's staying.  Some of stamped clock images didn't work, so I wiped some gesso over them and stamped white flourishes instead - -much better!

I'm beginning to be more comfortable in my journal.  I'm learning to  just keep moving ahead, reworking it and going in whatever direction the piece goes.  This page is not at all what I had in mind, but this is where we landed!