Stuff and Nonsense Art Journal Finale

Thank you everyone for such a wonderful year of creativity! Being part of this journal swap has improved my mixed media skills enormously, helping me understand about the tissue collage multi layering techniques especially. Thanks also to whoever tied on the beads too, they're a little bit awesome as well :)

The following are best viewed large, so I've uploaded them fairly big... such amazing artwork with gorgeous colours, fabulous textures and so much personality within each page. Love them all :)

Sharon : 'Walking on the Moon' - off for a picnic on the moon! A most fantastic way to use washi tape :)

Colleen : 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' but these two peoples are hungry! lol :) - Such a wonderful colourful page with 2 groovy South Aussie birds... a galah and budgie :D

Pam : 'The ballbearing bird never been seen, the ballbearing bird never been heard' ... such a fab flock of steampunk style flamingos... or flamencos as my Mum calls them, cos they always look like they're dancing!

Robyn : I have no words... this is so cool! If I didn't know anything about myself, all I'd need do is gaze upon Robyn's page. Its amazing! LOVE all the gorgeous little frogs, butterflies, lots of greeeeeen and the quotes are perfect too. I didn't notice the pics were of me at first either. A fly on the wall would have lost his grip on the wall from laughing at my reaction! lol :) Love it all <3

Roz : So much to look at in this amazing collage from Roz. Its an incredible amount of work! Lots of stuff and plenty of nonsense. Check out the triangular sign... steep slope ahead with crocs waiting for dinner! lol :) Every time I look at this I find something new!

Lisa : a beautifully handpainted masterpiece featuring a gorgeous hungry lion and his favourite tucker with a Spike Milligan poem :)

Louise : 'Stuff and Nonsense' lyrics by Split Enz (a groovy 80s band I loved) with many layers of fabulous colours and patterns!

Janie : 'Go Bravely' ... lots of wise words and sayings amongst so much crazy! She was tempted to cause a scene, and so she should. Love it!

Annabelle : 'All this stuff and nonsense in my head!' ... the teabags are like little kites! Just like an artist, its calm appearance (sometimes) and chaotic within (always).

Deborah : 'Santa's Journey' ... featuring a city that never sleeps beneath all the trails of hearts and swirls. Beautiful colours and all those little lit up windows are raised (feels really cool).

So that's my book, home and living on my shelf so I can look at it whenever I want :) So grateful for all the work you've all done in my book. Love it all. Thank you!

xx
Jenny

Janie O'Brien: Stuff and Nonsense

September brought me Jenny James, Stuff and Nonsense. I have very much enjoyed creating this double spread, and I hope Jenny enjoys it too.

This month I didn't bother with the steps, as the end result is pretty well a self explanatory collage.

Each of the above pages form the left & right hand sides of a double spread.

That's all Stuff and Nonsense.

Jenny has created a really lovely journal with a landscape layout around an A4 size so you get a fabulous big area of lovely thick paper to play in.

The theme is 'Stuff and Nonsense' and our fellow artists are doing gorgeous pages, as you can imagine they are really varied with such a broad theme.

I started my pages by just playing with all of my stuff in a nonsensical way. I had no idea where I was going I was just having fun. 

In the play process the lyrics for this old song by Split Enz started playing in my head. I actually know it more from a Missy Higgins album though. 

I do value and love using words in my art journals so the lyrics pulled my page together. 

Lisa doing some Stuff and Nonsense in Jenny's Journal!

Lots of interesting and fun things in this journal of Jenny's!

I opted for a Spike Milligan poem that I found; I think it fits the bill of Stuff and Nonsense!  No progress pics, but here are bits and pieces of the finished spread.  It's a long journal!

So here's the poem:

A lion is fierce
His teeth can pierce
The skin of a postman's knee.

It serves him right
That, because of his bite,
He gets no letters you see.













And here's my postman running from the scene!  I opted for no blood.  😁  For the stamps, I went to good old Google images, found African stamps, and printed them, very small, on my trusty colour printer at work.

And here's my lion.  This spread is all in acrylics, mostly Dylusions, with some water activated pencil to add a bit of oomph.

And here's the whole spread!  Hope you like it Jenny, I had fun coming up with something like this!  

Cheers, Lisa xx

My spread in Jenny's Stuff and Nonsense Journal

This is the background using random bits of paper. I went over it with a pearl metallic wax as I thought I was going to do a Steampunk theme!! That is also why I went with the darker colours.
Not to be....I started looking through some National Geographic Magazines and found some images that fit the page and colour scheme. I started with Leonardo and just kept on going. I really enjoyed doing this spread and hope you like it Jenny.

This is the left hand page

This is the right hand page

Stuff n Nonsense

The theme says it all really ... Stuff & Nonsense - basically, create whatever you want that makes you smile. I'm inspired by so many crazy nutty things ... Alice in Wonderland (Mad Hatter, March Hare, Cheshire Cat), Terry Pratchett, Dr Seuss, AA Milne, CJ Dennis, Enid Blyton and so many more. There are so many amazing silly inspirational people in our world :)

I started months ago with the cover. I've used Stonehenge thick art paper (its feels like drawing paper but I'm sure it was labelled watercolour paper), taken off the spiral and threaded elastic through the holes. This way it should be able to be posted thinner enabling postage to be cheaper! Hopefully :)

I drew the lettering by hand and stuffed something up along the edge so gave it a solid black border. Looks ok after I added faux stitches :) The cover was sprayed a few days later with Dylusions ink sprays in Lemon Zest and Mushy Peas, splattered with London Blue and left to dry in the sun - 40C days have got to be useful for something!

I then used the Dylusions 'Its Raining Cats' stencil and splatted watered down white paint over the page.

After the cover I made the inside front page with the contract, order of artists and ideas. I used scrapbook paper and a Crazy Bird by Tim Holtz.

Back to the actual page, I scribbled out my tiny scribble bigger and started stamping.

Then I got colouring with Dylusions ink sprays...

Made such a mess of it, so got the paints and stencils to attempt to calm it down. Didn't work. To me, this page ended up being a total disaster so I left it, uncovered at first but had to hide it cos I really didn't like it!

Its what made this book late... so I continued stamping and colouring (then I got busy, as you do when working for yourself! lol). But then I had a brainwave (it happens sometimes)... and cut up the messy paper into tentacles, leaves, feathers (trees) and other bits and pieces. Yes, Mermaid Markers again <3

The snail is my own drawing and the houses on his shell are from Dylusions Dy-Cuts. They're the hair or hat of one of Dyan's girls. The fairy dog above is one of Tim Holtz's gorgeous nutty Crazy Dogs wearing a glittery collar, sparkly nose and handdrawn spotty wings.

Back to the background, I used Dylusions Ink Sprays in Postbox Red, Bubblegum Pink and White Linen... with a splash of Pomegranate Seed (cos it was looking so pink... didn't help though! lol).
I stencilled over it with Distress Oxide Ink (Fossilized Amber and Tattered Rose) with the blending tool using a "few" of my fave Tim Holtz stencils.

It started fading into the background so I sprayed the whole page with an aerosol fixative. Then I used White Linen Dylusions Paint with more stencils to liven up the page.

Talk about turnaround with liking things --- 40+ years of saying I don't like pink and this is what I create... and like! lol :)

Awwww.. Tim's dogs are just so totally adorable! The octopus flowers turned out pretty cool. I was almost going to put faces on the flowers :) Drew a few extra scribbly flowers and a dragonfly instead.

The snail is pretty happy :)

Its finished and has been tied into the book, already with Sharon for the first stop of its journey around Australia. Can't wait to see what you all create with this theme! Whatever you do... Have Fun!

Thanks for reading. Hope you like it too!

Have a happy creative week!
:)
Jenny