Feeling Comfortably Numb in Wendy's Music Journal

by Lisa for Wendy

I love music.  I love singing.  I do it often in the car, where no one else can hear me.  Unfortunately I'm shite.... 

But anyway.  When Wendy announced that her journal theme was Inspiring Music, I thought yes!  I have so many favourite songs, or pieces of songs, or lyrics.  It was actually a bit challenging deciding on which song to focus on.

In the end I decided on Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb.  This song was released in 1979 as part of The Wall album, and what a masterpiece this album was.  I think I first heard it when I was about 16.  I love music with a story, and this whole album is a story, about a musician called Pink and his struggles with depression and drugs. 

In Comfortably Numb, Pink is drugged out and holed up in his hotel room.  His entourage breaks in and gives him more drugs so that he can get on stage and perform - the show must go on.  During this time, he's thinking of his childhood during WW2.  

This all sounds really depressing and dreary, but it's a beautiful song with haunting music, amazing guitar solos, and great lyrics.  You can check it out on YouTube here! 

So back to my spread!  The lyrics I've chosen to highlight are about a boy, who I've drawn with 2B & 6B pencils on tan Strathmore paper.  I love vintage papers and have heaps of Kaisercraft  scrapbooking paper, so just collaged my favourite bits.  

On the right, more Kaisercraft papers plus some old music paper I found.  I printed out the lyrics using a typewriter font - and then thought, why didn't I just use my typewriter???  This was on white paper, so I steeped a teabag and gave it a tea wash.  Matched perfectly!  Plus I kept the teabag to use in my teabag art at some stage. 😊

So, once I worked out what I wanted to achieve this came together quite quickly.  And I'm really pleased with it.  And thanks Wendy, for making an A5 journal (as I have too) - they're so easy to work in! 💜

Hope you like it Wendy!  I hope that everyone is coping okay with this Covid-19 situation and restrictions.  I'm still working, so am thankful of the Easter break.  Happy Easter everyone, and Happy Arting! 💙🐰🐣

Cheers, Lisa xx

You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth ... Meatloaf

It was a hot summer night and yes, I took the red rose from the wolf - but only because I thought it was Michael J Fox as Teenwolf :) lol It must have been while he was kissing me! :)

I don't think we need the lyrics here because I'm sure, just like me, you all already have the whole song dancing around in your head! This is one of my favourite songs :) 

Also bouncing around as I painted was Lambsy squeeling "it's the wolf, it's the wolf" ... then, because it just happens, I hear Mutley sniggering and Penelope calling "hyelp, hyelp" :) lol #thenuttyinsidesofmymind - I love all the old cartoons <3

So anyway, back to Lisa's beautiful book...

The background started as two colours of Distress Inks, Peacock Feathers and Salty Ocean. Its created from blending over and around each other using the Mini Ink Blending Tool, taking the ink straight from the inkpad.

I then spritzed the page with water (spray bottle) and let it dry in front of the heater. When its not so cold I use a heat-tool and when its summer, leave it outside in the sunshine!

I repeated this layer a second time, blending around and around until it was like a pretty blue sky.

For the third layer, I used Distress Oxide Inks in Broken China and Faded Jeans, blending everywhere, then splattered (flicking with wet fingers gives bigger drops than a spritz!) and let it dry again.

Next I blended around the outer edge (and a bit in the middle) with Distress Inks in Chipped Sapphire and Blueprint Sketch, spritzed and splattered more water, blended some more - then lastly, blended over more Peacock Feathers along the bottom and Chipped Sapphire along the top.

Jane Davenport Gesso was used to block out the two characters of my page... animals are always so much easier to do than people!

The rest of the painting happened without the camera witnessing the process!

The girl was painted using Jane Davenport Acrylic Paints. Having the fleshtone premixed helps alot...   I used to waste so much paint trying to mix skin colours (everyone would end up being orange or pink).

The moon was dry brushed using gesso and the wording was drawn by hand using a black marker.

My lovely wolf (oooh, I've just noticed I missed putting his tooth back in) ... he was mostly coloured using Derwent Inktense pencils, with some layers painted using a waterbrush as well as paint to get the thick fluffy fur.

The rose and its stem was painted with JD acrylics with highlights on the petals added using gesso.

Thankfully its art, so it didn't stress me out too much when my rose didn't look like a real one (not even close!), and my wolf, while still looking rugged and furry, lost his wild streak somewhere between the pencil sketch and giving him green eyes.

It was mostly enjoyable to create and as long as Lisa likes it, its all good :)

Thanks for reading my blog post :) Hope you have a wonderful, creative happy day!

:D

Jenny

My Round 6 Journal - Music & Lyrics

My theme for the next journal swap is Music and Lyrics.  I love music and have the radio on all the time.  Much to my kids' disgust, I love to sing, especially in the car.  That I'm no good at it certainly doesn't stop me!

I'm not one for classical music, though I do appreciate the gift that these musicians have.  I like a lot of different music - if a song has great lyrics that 'speak' to me, I love it.  And will usually learn the words.

So for this journal swap, I'd like participants to come up with a spread about their favourite song, and include a line, a verse, chorus, or the whole song on your page!

I made the journal around A5 size, same as the previous swap, as I like this size to work in.  Some pages have flaps and some don't - pick whatever suits you, or cut the flap off!  The paper is 225gsm so will stand up to whatever you want to throw at it.

I put some silver elastic around it, and here's the front cover - painted, collaged and stamped.  

The piano keyboard on the right is actually a flap over the cover, and I like how this turned out!

I even made a couple of music note stamps out of kids' erasers that you can see on the left hand side.

 

The left hand page is my first page, which basically states what I've said above!  And the right hand page is my rear cover.  This was simply gessoed, flowers doodled, and painted with watercolours.  I love the effect you get when you watercolour over gesso. 💜

And  here's my entry in the journal - Flame Trees, by Cold Chisel.  This is watercolour with faux calligraphy.  This song is my favourite song ever, and whenever I hear the opening stanza, I can't help but sigh with pleasure.  It's the wonderful music, but also the amazing lyrics.  I've chosen to include the chorus.  I grew up in country South Australia, and this song brings back the bittersweet memories of being a teenager in a small town.  It's also my funeral song. 😃

I look forward to learning about other people's favourite songs, and how they bring them to life in my journal!  

Cheers, Lisa

Music Is You Journal.

It's home!!  Thank you all.  All you wonderful artists who added their contributions, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I really did not expect this and I feel very overwhelmed.  I made a little video, never done it before :)  Maybe if it doesn't work very well I will post photos like a proper blogger.  Once again thank you all and blessings to you.

My pages in Pam's Journal

I did 2 double page spreads with Collage and Quotes

The Music is You

This page is based on the many happy camping trips in have this year.  When I began to think about music types and what would I put in the journal that represented me, I stumbled for a while. Then I realised that since the kids have left home, live music or recorded music hasn't featured strongly in my life and I missed it.

But then I realised that I am surrounded by music every day, that of the bush.  Every morning I hear the morning chorus and each night I can hear the birds singing in the wetland behind our house.  

then I found an article in the Smithsonian about some studies from Cornell University  that piqued my interest.

Apparently there are a lot of simarlarities between human and bird song.  Some birds choose to sing in tune!  they are even fussy about what scale type they sing in. 

Anyway it just seemed like something interesting to put in the background. There isn't a lot of it visible in the finished piece. It's hidden, just like the birds that sing such wonderful songs, hidden from casual view but definitely there if you bother to look with care. 

There is also a added extra. I did a quick extra spread in a spot everyone was avoiding. There was an empty spread where one signature finished and there is a gap between the start of the next signature. It screamed out for a simple entry.  Rhapsody in Blue has long been one of my favourite pieces of music. So here is a little entry inspired by that piece of music and the colours of the ocean over Summe r

Mon's page in Pam's "The Music Is You" journal

Pam's beautiful journal titled "The Music Is You"was one I had an idea of what I would be doing in it for a long time.
I love Samba music, it lifts my spirit and makes me happy so I knew I'd be basing my entry around that. But I had no preconceived idea of how I was going to go about it.

It started out with a pencil sketch of a Samba dancer and then days passed before I started painting the dancer. I then added various Samba instruments before adding the writing.

To finish it off I put on some lovely Brazilian Samba music and started on the dots with toothpicks and various kebab sticks. This proved very relaxing and meditative.

I used pencil and acrylic paints.

 

The Music is You-

I manged to get 2 pages done this month in Pam's lovely music journal.

Janene's pages in The Music in You

Janene has done a gorgeous spread with a lovely vintage feel in Pam's journal.

The title of this journal is

The Music in You

Using a soft and moody monochromatic colour scheme,

she has beautifully captured a past era.

My Journal......The Music is You.

I would like to share where I am up to so far with my journal.  As I have said before I am very unsure of myself and am a bit daunted by the responsibility of adding to everybody's precious journals.

There have been plenty of doubts and dramas so far, but my trusty mentor Louise has been there to hold my hand virtually. Thanks xxxx

So here are the steps I have taken so far.

1 Cover

2 Inside cover

3 Step 2 Inside cover and Opening page

 4 And my first page

So I am feeling much happier now I have got to this stage.  I hope everybody enjoys adding to my journal and expressing themselves through a musical theme.  Let the journey begin.