Joan's page in Robyn's  "Travel Journal"

Robyn's journal is a lovely journal constructed of textured art paper, some pages with fold overs.  The previous entries to mine were all beautiful and very colourful.

Robyn requested that everyone do a page about a country.   I decided to do a page about the country of my birth "Ireland" or "Eire" as it is known by those of us natives.  First of all I painted the page with gesso, then painted the colours of the flag, green, white and gold diagonally across the two pages.  I had some difficulty with this page, as I was not sure what I really wanted to  use to depict my country.

Unlike a lot of the other artists participating in the circle journal I cannot draw.  However I did not want to just rely on collarge on the page, so I draw a simple traditional Celtic stone cross, {found on most country cross roads } the best I could.  As I did not want to wreak the page if it did not work out, I drew it on a piece of tissue rescued from a shoe box and then use gel medium to glue it to the page.  As the paint I used were dylusions, the paint reacted with the gel medium and sort of coloured the drawing which help it to meld into the page. 

I was not really happy with the gold (orange) on the page, so I put some orange burlap over the top of the section which was closer to the flag colour and gave the page some texture.  I added a piece of Irish cotton lace on edge.  I printed a picture of an Irish dancer, fussy cut  out and coloured her in and added some sparkle.   I added her to the right side on top of burlap.  I then added another couple of pieces of collage, harp, picture of St Patrick and a couple of shamrock shapes, one with some text.  I cut a heading "Eire" out of a shopping bag from Review.  They were embossed already and a great size.   I added another piece of text on a green backgroup and covered the green shamrock with glossy dimensional glue. I printed out a couple of shapes of Ireland, one with some printed verse and the other a map, where I could indicate the county I was born in (Carlow) and the county I lived it (Kildare).   I used the backs to journal on, about been Irish and travelling to Australia as a teen. I joined them together with a brad and slid them in behind the burlap.  I then did a few bits of hand writing on the page. Sorry Robyn,  I was not really happy with the way it turned out, but I hope you don't dislike it too much.  Then I forgot to take photos before passing it on to Lisa, so thank you Lisa for taking them and sending them to me so I could complete the blog.