Welcome to International Fake Journal Month 2013!

What is IFJM?
Please read the page "What Is IFJM" for details.
Learn the difference between Faux, Fake, and Fake Historical Journals.

2019 IFJM Celebration
IFJM has been suspended indefinitely. Please read the pinned post about this below.

Participants who Post Their Journals
A list of 2018 participants who are posting their fake journals this year will appear near the top of the right side bar of this blog around April 6. Lists of participants who posted their pages in 2010 through 2017 appear lower in the same column. Please pay them a visit and check out their fake journals.

View a Couple of Roz's Past Fake Journals
Roz's 2009 fake journal takes place in an alternate Twin Cites, where disease has killed the human and bird populations. (It ends up being an upbeat tale of friendship.) Watch a video flip through of Roz's 2009 fake journal here.

Read an explanation of Roz's insanely complex 2011 fake journal.

Tips on Keeping a Fake Journal
Click on "tips" in the category cloud.

Remember, "Life's so short, why live only one?"


Monday, May 19, 2014

2014 International Fake Journal Month Wrap-Up: Christine Mitzuk

Above: Journal spread ©2014 Christine Mitzuk. See below for more details. Gouache in the Delta Series Stillman & Birn journal. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

This week I'm going to be posting the wrap-ups participants have sent me about their experience of IFJM 2014.

These posts always make me very happy because we get to see creative work of a daily sort, even if we simply get a glimpse.

Today's artist is Christine Mitzuk. She is an extremely talented artist who trained at The Atelier in Minneapolis. There she teaches the Gesture Figure Study Class and Illustration. I have taken her Gesture class multiple times and hope to return to it as soon as my shoulders are ready. She rounds up great models, gets the best poses out of them, and pushes her students to look carefully and see stories in gestures (so it isn't surprising she also teaches illustration).

She is teaching a week-long illustration workshop in July.

Recently she created art for Llewellyn's 2014 Astrological Calendar. You can see these lovely paintings on her site.

You can also keep up with Christine and her art life through her blog.

Above: Another page spread ©2014 Christine Mitzuk, from her 2014 Fake Journal. Christine was exploring spacescapes and inventing spaceships, drawing from her imagination. Gouache in the Delta Series Stillman & Birn journal. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Christine has put up with my rambling on and on about International Fake Journal Month for some time now, and this year she decided to participate privately. (That means she didn't post her pages.)

At the end of April, however Christine sent me a note telling me she'd enjoyed IFJM. She gave me permission to post these two images which are spreads from her 2014 fake journal. She gave this explanation of her approach:

Since I'm usually drawn to organic subjects instead of mechanical, I opted for doing spacescapes and inventing spaceships. 
I found it useful to restrain my inner critic. Now I'm looking forward to keeping a journal where I draw out of my head...well it seems more manageable now.  
I have to say I'm excited to check back in with Christine and see how she works in her journal going forward, drawing from imagination.

I think one of the fun things about IFJM is that it can point you in new directions you might not have thought of going before, or it can remove any remaining delays in taking those directions. You can have so much fun in IFJM (and work so hard) that there is really no point in waiting to go on other explorations.

I hope next year those of you reading this week's wrap up posts will consider taking an imaginary journal of your own. Like Christine you'll return with some fabulous visual mementos.

2 comments:

Dana said...

Goodness! I NEVER could have imagined her art being so abstract!!! That is EXACTLY what's fun about creating a fake journal.

Christine, thank you for letting Roz share your journaling experience!

ellen said...

Beautiful passages! Wonderful work! Makes me want to paint next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!