Welcome to Complicated Octopus™.
My name is Kristin Serafini, and ordinarily I am an author & illustrator of environmentally focused children’s books. Here you will find paintings on canvas, pages from my illuminated journals, other creative projects, and the odd octopus fact. As you can see, creativity leads me in lots of directions. Thus, the octopus mascot.

As you can see, I take my journal everywhere – even to the symphony.

Up until now, my journals have remained fairly private. I’d show a page or two here & there to friends, but mostly I filled up these volumes with writings and drawings about my life because I love the challenge of taking a blank page and making something beautiful out of it. And let’s face it: I need something to do when I’m sitting in the airport. My 6th grade teacher told us that being bored is evidence of a lack of imagination. Nobody wants that.

FAQ:

Questions About Journaling

Where did the name Complicated Octopus come from?
Well, since my husband is a web designer, sometimes we play this game where we try to guess what urls are still available. I am pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. The trick is to think of random words that sound good together. I won a round when I guessed www.complicatedoctopus.com. Then I did a drawing in my journal of what the Complicated Octopus might look like. The website just sat there for a little while. I mean what does one make of a complicated octopus anyway? Eventually, it turned into a site where I can share some of my journal art — which can be somewhat of a complicated octopus itself.

Why do you keep a journal?
Ah. There are many answers to that simple question:
I keep a journal because I love to draw & paint, because I love to write, and because I can’t sit still very long without doing something with my hands. It’s how I respond to my environment. I’ve always liked to collect things, I guess. As a kid, it was rocks. I used to make carefully arranged piles of my treasures outside the back door because my mom wouldn’t let me keep them in the house. Collecting observations is much less messy, and considerably more portable. A red liquid sunset dripping into the ocean, a flitting chipmunk nipping at an acorn in a scrub oak bush, the way a certain Indigo Girls song will forever remind me of my senior year in high school — all these seemingly meaningless details find themselves pressed between the pages of my journals. It’s all practice for when I go to make a “real” book or painting. How do you think painters and writers become painters and writers? They paint and write. All the time.

Okay, so that was the long answer. Here’s the short one: like many other writers, artists, musicians, and dancers, I do it because I must.

What do you write & draw about in your journals?
I use my journal to explain the meanings behind my paintings, and what I was thinking while I was making a children’s book. I record important events in my life and interesting details that I want to remember, or story ideas I don’t want to forget. And it all started because a teacher made us do it in school.

How long does it take you to fill up a journal?
Usually about a year. Sometimes 18 months if I am really busy. Lately, I have been journaling faster than ever, and it might be about 6 months.

What type of journals do you use?
About 4 years ago, I found what I consider to be the most marvelous journals ever. The company is called Paperblanks. Their website claims that their journals “present a visual and tactile feast, and are a joy to write in.” I completely agree. The pages are acid-free and the lines are very light so you can paint over them or write sideways if you choose. (There are also Paperblanks available without lines.) Many of the Paperblanks now come with a handy pocket in the pack where you can stow unfinished poems, photos, love notes, directions to a halloween party, or photos that haven’t been collaged into your journal yet. These journals are available on Amazon.com for about $11.00 each (9″ x 7″ size).

What art materials do you use in your journal?
Not pastels. They smear. I have a small bag of supplies that I keep in my backpack that includes pens, pencils, a travel-size watercolor palette, some tubes of acrylic paint, a few kneaded erasers, and archival photo-stickies for adding ephemera such as ticket stubs, photos, postcards, etc. Nothing fancy. I recently learned that if you want to do some pencil drawings in your journal, you can put a light wash of watered-down acrylics over the pencil so it won’t smear.

Do you show your journal to anyone?
Sometimes. I will be putting my favorite pages up on this site and publishing them in future volumes of Words With Wings. Whether your journal becomes public, semi-public, or completely secret is totally up to you. At first I didn’t show my journals to anyone. But that was 10 years ago, and now I am using them to teach workshops, so you never know.