I was born in January, my birthday is coming up in one week’s time and this art journal spread turned out to be about January and also the song ‘Both Sides Now”.

I had this image I wanted to use sometime of the woman looking thoughtful…it’s a 19th century  painting by Frederick Leighton called Solitude. I sort of chose colours for the background that I thought would tone in with the image, I didn’t want really bright colours as the painting is quite muted. I used a stencil I had cut a while back with a circle punch and tried to make it look like those lights or orbs that you sometimes get in photographs (some people I know think that they are actually photos of spirit beings but being a Capricorn I’m a bit skeptical!)

Anyway I duplicated the painting and flipped it on photoshop, because Janus, the ancient God for whom January is named, has 2 heads, looking in 2 directions. As I worked on the spread the words of Joni Mitchell’s famous song “Both Sides Now” came into my head, so I printed out the words in a script font, painted and cut them out to roughly look like clouds (“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now…”) The significance for me of this page is that I have always felt that I am someone who is able to see both sides of a situation or argument. Sometimes this means that I don’t have very strong opinions and can be a bit of a fence sitter. On a more positive note though, it gives me the ability to empathise. I don’t know whether this has anything at all to do with being born in January, but you never know!

Happy birthday to me. Blessings to all of you art journalers out there, thanks for visiting.