storytelling Archives

Road Not Taken – How to Include Poems into your Pages

I’ve never written many poems. The Haikus in literature classes in college and high school were about it for me. Maybe I am too wordy or I don’t feel strong enough in my word variances, but I never got into writing poems. Not saying that I wouldn’t like it, but I tend to use inspiring words from others in my creations.

One thing I do enjoy is I’ll make up a story in my mind relating to the image in my journal. For instance, I made up a story about the people on the airplane viewing out the window like on my January Welcome page going on an exciting trip.

In October’s apple orchard spread, I imagined a family going to pick apples and they would look at the wooden signs to find which way to go. On the hello November welcome page, I imagined walking in solitude through a forest enjoying the sunlight streaming through the empty branches and the leaves crunching under my feet.

Poems and Story Telling – Car on a moonshine run?

When I created the car for this week’s spread, I decided that it was a car (maybe on a moonshine run – who knows?) but the route was not their familiar path and they were on a journey of a lifetime. This story in my mind made me think of Robert Frost’s poem so that’s why I decided to include it perhaps I will include some of Atticus’ poetry on a future page.

But the question is: how to include the poem? Just writing it out on the side of my journal seemed boring and didn’t fit with the theme. I decided it would make a great texture for the road so I sketched it in and it fit really well. This month’s theme has not only been about transportation but making things fit (such as the airplane with the monthly calendar or the bicycle as a weekly log).

The Process – How To

I looked up the poem online and started sketching out the words. It doesn’t look long when you read on the website, but when I started writing it onto my page, I realized how long it really was. For a little while, I was afraid that I would run out of room and not include the most important line of the whole poem: “I took the one less traveled by and that made all the difference”.

It Made All the Difference

One thing that made all the difference including this poem on the page is making it part of the design. The car looks like it has just passed over the words, which I think gives significance to them. It is like the car has taken ‘the road not traveled’ and is telling a story that it has now on the course that Robert Frost referred to in his poem “The Road Not Taken”

I am glad I sketched it out with a pencil first, not only for placement but also because I gained a sense of how thin my lines needed to be. I was tempted to leave it in pencil, but I knew how pencil tends to smudge. When I started with the main body of the poem, I chose the smallest pen nib I had – the Micron 005 which is .2 mm and razor thin. I treat this pen very carefully as the least amount of stress on that nib could push it in and destroy your pen. I am happy to announce that I was successful.

Watch the Process Video Below Writing out the Words & Painting the Car

This video is compiled from a live paint with me/plan with me YouTube session. It’s a little longer and I explain my process in more detail. Plus you get to see my plate palette!

The Car & a New Font

The car in the picture was intended to be a Volkswagon Beatle from the 70’s but I could not get the shape to look just right – so I let it morph into an old-timey convertible car with hooded wheels and a long, slanted trunk. This was one of my absolute favorites to paint.

It’s not typical watercolor, this is another watercolor with Crayola SuperTip Markers. So many things I love about that technique. Two big reasons are that I can erase the pencil marks once I’m done painting. Another reason is that I can write over the image if I need to with any pen – unlike regular watercolor.

I’ve been practicing a font to use when I’m not using cursive or brush lettering. The “meals” sign is one thing I am really pleased with. I love the color and the shape of the signs and the font (I think) came out nicely.