Deb's "Guest entry" In Sharon's Vintage Circus Round 2 Journal

Firstly, I have to tell you what an absolutely stunning piece of art this journal is, Sharon and I am so thankful you let me have a "Guest Spot"  in it as I am a Round 3 Blogger/Journal entrant. She's ready to come home!

I started with Distress paints in Fossilized Amber and Candied Apple which I applied to the paper with baby wipes, blending it all. I also stamped a vintage globe/map stamp in Archival Ink randomly across both pages.

I had already cut out my images in Black and red plain card-stock using my Pazzles Inspiration machine. The Circus tent image I resized several times and cut out block silhouettes of a bear, monkey and unicorn as well as a Signpost. I left out the Hippo insert, crossed out the sign and then wrote "Unicorn" on the signpost , as we would all pay money to see one of those! I then shuffled these images around the first page till I was happy and stuck then down with gel medium. I also used on eof the Admit One coupons that I was asked to include in my spread, after I crumpled it and then covered it with Distress inks in Vintage Photo and Black Soot . I then applied a coat of Prima Clear Crackle texture paste over it all and let it dry. it looked a bit bare still, so i stamped some background texture stamps in archival coffee and some stars in pink.

For the right page I stuck down the large red circus tent with gel medium. I then filled in a piece of watercolor paper with some Lindy's Stamp Gang Colorshots Sprays in Lump'o'coal and green. These are such gorgeous metallic colours that have a lot of pigment to them. I then had a Kaisercraft stamp and die set that I absolutely adore (funnily enough named Elephant) and stamped it onto my prepared water colour paper using archival ink in black. But it turned out light gray so you couldn't see all that lovely Zentangle detail on the elephant. So I decided to re stamp with embossing ink and used gold embossing powder to create raised texture on the elephant. It didn't work out as nice as I had hoped but it is still lovely to see. When I recreate this for my own journal, I think I will use a Black pigment ink to stamp with and then use clear embossing powder so it should hopefully stand out more. Anyway. I then journaled in my own writing (which I am NOT a fan of) on the left and finished off with the quote that came with the stamp set on the right. I used Stampers anonymous Mini Circque Alpha Stamps to stamp the title and a flattened beer bottle cap that I had saved from some beer my husband tried at the start of the year when I first started thinking about this entry. It says "3 Pub Circus Australia" which I LOVE! to make my gorgeous elephant pop some more I stuck on a mixture of small and large iridescent sequins around the page and finished off with small spots of glossy accents.

In conclusion, I have really enjoyed this journal spread and I hope you do as well Sharon. I will post her off back to you on Monday! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone from our Journal swaps. Wishing you all the best for today and the year ahead.

Deb Stephens. 

Emotions.

Natalie's Emotions journal is spectacular. Everybody's entry shone. The artists in this group have excelled themselves in every journal I have worked in.

I chose to depict Pleasure  along the lines of indulgence, but as usual for me, I had an idea but had to work out how to go about it.

 I have recently started to dabble with prompts from Mission Inspiration and I really liked a recent background method, so I started there. I covered the page with fragments of book text and lightly gessoed.  Added some texture paste and a dash of colour.

Next I found some pictures from magazines to use as a focal image and some embellishments.  Printed the word Pleasure.....after a lesson in adjusting font size and glued it on.

Added some outlining and doodles and the some bling because what is pleasure without bling?

I hope you like it Natalie and I will get your journal back to you as soon as I can.  It was a good challenge.

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.

Deb's entry In Lisa Jones- Summer Journal- Round 3.

I'm late with this entry (story of my Life lol!)

For someone that loves Summer this one was hard for me as I always think Beach when I think of summer...but Lisa's journal was full of gorgeous beach scenes already.

So I actually asked my students to help me do a "summer in Perth" brainstorm on my classroom blackboard when our content was sending them to sleep:)

So..my perspective is looking through my imaginary Art Studio window, in my imaginary home where the family and I will retire (which will be on a beach somewhere in beautiful W.A....Hey! Dreams are free right??) We are looking out the window at my dream backyard with green lawn and an opening in my fence (made from corrugated cardboard, complete with bore water sprinkler stains) so that I can just walk down to the beach whenever I want. There will be a tree house, cricket,  BBQ's (with Shrimp cocktails) and cold drinks and all my family and friends are welcome to come and visit any time they like! A bit of nostalgia is the lace and crochet curtains framing my window.

the sunset and background was painted with water colours. The paper piecing and title was designed and cut on my Pazzles Inspiration machine.  the tree house was a chipboard embellishment I have had for so long that I no longer know where I got it from.  The 'tiles' on the windowsill were paper scraps, and the tap was hand cut. I have put 2 small shells my son, Jake, collected on that windowsill as decoration too. I hope this mixed piece survives future travels and that you enjoy it as much as I do Lisa.

                                                       

                                                                           Perth Summer
                                                                         By Deb Stephens

Face it!

Hi Everyone

Today I am sharing a double page spread I have done as a "fill in" person to help complete Jan's "Faces & Figures" journal which is nearly done and will be able to make it's way home! I noticed it has been "travelling" for a whole year!!!

I've used my Gelli Plate to cover the base pages with paint - using stencils and acrylic paint - always love the effects you can get with the plate - fun to play around with! Added some washi tape and scraps of muslin cloth, scrabble type letters plus the collage elements and a few sparkly gems!

Collage "paper dolls" are from a fantastic & quirky Etsy Store Art Tea Life - I LOVE this store - collage sheets are perfect for journaling and this sheet was perfect for Jan's Faces & Figures theme! Lots of fussy cutting involved obviously but well worth the effort!

FACE IT WE ARE ALL UNIQUE!!!

This gorgeous journal is filled with such amazing pages by the members of AASG that I am sure Jan will be blown away when she receives it back and gets to "peruse" it!! I really enjoyed working in it!

Welcome to the Circus

Hi everyone :)

This is my page in Sharon Williams' Vintage Circus and Carnivale art journal... I tried to keep the colours antiquey and vintagey as much as I could. I do love using bright colours though :)

My ideas as usual went around in my head, spiralling out of control... that was, until I drew them down (then it was a dull roar! lol) - many drawings later I decided upon a circus train with steam engine and cheeky monkey.

I erased the draft and drew the pic in full scale only to find I drew something different again! Gotta love how our minds do whatever they want even when we think we're in control :)

The following is just before the lion arrived... Leo was late cos he was busy chasing his tail.

I used my groovy smooth luscious Tambai Gansi watercolour paints for the main background and most main features. Then waited (impatiently! lol) for it to dry before painting more details. So hard to wait when you're in the zone!

A while later I got out my Distress markers (watercolour textas) and Derwent Graphik paint pens (acrylic paint) and had some fun :) As you do! Finer details were added with a white Sharpie and Graphik sepia and graphite markers.

This is my gypsy wagon... built on the cheap - windows were really expensive back then!

Here is Holly the horse trainer and her two friends practicing their dance moves. Later on they'll be dressed in pretty sparkly sequins and stardust for the show. 

The mostly completed left hand page :)

Frannie the elephant is having a wonderful time showering herself with water. Must be so hard to keep from splashing Charlie (clown) as he juggles. I know I wouldn't be able to resist as easily! I bet she's just waiting for me to close the journal then will give him a good soaking...!

Luckily, as eveyone knows, any water that is thrown at a clown automatically turns to confetti. Thank goodness! Imagine how soggy the book would be by the time it reached Sharon if that didn't happen! lol :)

This is Charlie, juggling beanbag balls. He'd much prefer to be dancing with Holly but as you can see from the ground, he needs more practice before the night's performance.

The mostly completed right hand page :)

Then arrived Leo the Lion... if you wait quietly, he'll come out from behind the tent to say hi. But not before he's finished chasing his feathered friends!

Here is the finished page...

Hope Sharon likes it!

Thanks for reading :) Have a happy day!

:)

Jenny

BIRDS, mummy and babbies in Rose's Journal by Wendy

It was an absolute pleasure making a layout in Rose's Bird themed journal. I hadn't had a swap journal to work in for quite awhile and strangely enough, I actually was missing working in one. So, I was very excited to receive two at the same time. The other pages from the ladies are beautiful and the first thing I did was spend near an hour going through my bird pictures. Yes, I do have a lot of bird images...lol...

I also decided to use my gelatos for the background, as I haven't used them in some time. I grabbed out all the blue shades and scribbled on the pages, then activated them all with a baby wipe. I then used the same baby wipe to remove some colour through a beehive shaped stencil and I really liked the way the background turned out.

The bird images were from a calendar, a mother looking down at her babies. I had to rearrange the images to fit on the page (it was a rather large calendar) and at the bottom I spliced and diced...to make a branch and to bring the branch out to reach the other corner. I have done some stamping of birds in opposite corners and also stamped an image of eggs in a nest on my extended branch. I think the page turned out rather well and added the quote..." The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation"..a quote from APJ Abdul Kalam. I hope you like the layout Rose as much as I did doing it. Thank you xox

Flowers for Wendy

I love painting, drawing and making paper flowers so the hardest thing about this theme was choosing what to create!

The other pages in Wendy's journal are so beautiful, I had to make something worthy :) so with daisies on the brain, I started...

Of course, my hands said otherwise and I ended up with a background of blues! Waterlillies then... don't you love how our art makes up its own mind? I love those gorgeous flowers, and lotuses too!

I used Distress paints and stencils with a blending tool for the water background and handpainted the leaves. Those blue shiny highlights and water ripples are nail polish.

The petals were all handcut from scrapbook paper, edged with Distress ink.

I found a journal tag and altered it, then chopped it apart when I realised it was way too big! The ladybug and word 'celebrate' were painted over with clear shimmery Wink of Stella, not that you can see it here... but Wendy will see it!

The finished page needed smaller buds so more petals were cut out. Then some more shimmer was added... just a little :)

Mum and I had a bit of discussion about the difference between a waterlily and lotus... aside from the petal shape and those groovy pods of the lotus, they're similar and both are in lots of stunning colours... even purple and yellow! Simply gorgeous they all are :)

Enjoy celebrating all the big, little, tiny, large and enormous things of our world! Hope you like it Wendy :)

Happy Creative Day!

:)

Jenny

Deb's Pinterest - Water Girl by Natalie S

Hi everyone, I've created this journal page for Deb's Pinterest journal. I've used Pinterest as a means to teach myself how to journal with different mediums. In this piece I started out with gesso stencilling a few ferns. Then I watered down blue, green and yellow acrylic paint to create a wash. I used these colors to create my background. Then I drew in my Water Girl using Derwent Color Pencils and markers. I then made thicker mixes of green and blue paints and gave her hair. I hope you like her xx

Aphorisms as I see them.

Wendy's journal is a delight.  I love the feel of it, it's very light and very colourful.  Thank heavens for Prof Google, as I had never really heard the word before.

So armed with all the knowledge I could gain from said Prof G I set to work. I decided to base my work on being kind and so, here it is.

While I had Wendy's journal I decided to photograph the other pages to share as not every post gets blogged.  I will include names where I can read signatures.

Cover and Wendy's spread.

Not sure who did the Picasso.

                                     

 This is Robyn's cleverness

This spread is from Gail Bourke.

Can't see a name on this luscious spread.  It is wonderfully detailed and textured.

From Lisa Griffin-Gledhill

This lovely piece is from Rose Bosse/ Rose/ Possum.....not sure which name :)

Lisa Jones has worked her magic.

Some lovely work here from Joan Mannix.

Lisa J - Working in Jan's Faces and Figures Journal

Jan's journal is in Round 2 and her baby arrived home last month, with a few empty pages.  So I jumped at the chance to fill one of those blank spots, and Jan was happy to oblige!

I love drawing/painting faces and trying to improve on my techniques, so knew this is what  I wanted to do.  I found an interesting face in Pinterest to use as a guide.  

For my background I laid down part of a French diary I have, a beautiful peacock feather serviette, some gelli printed papers, and an old book page.  The remainder was given a pink wash with watercolour.

I painted my girl in, and used water soluble pencil for her features.  I love the way Toni Burt does this, and in my next life I want to be able to paint like her! :)

Her hair was done with modelling paste, and didn't quite turn out how I had hoped.  Oh well, art is all about experimenting after all!  To go with the pink background I decided to give her purple hair.

I added a few pink stencils and stamped images to complete the background.

The journalling came from a song that I love - Iris, by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Hope you like it Jan!

Lisa J - Working in Pam's Monotone Journal

Pam's Monotone journal is a lovely hand made A4 journal, beautifully covered.  

Her brief was to create a page using only a monochromatic scheme - only one colour, but you can use all of its shades and tints too, plus black and white.

Hmmm.  What colour to do? Purple and pink were already gone, along with teal and blue-green.

I decided to go with blue, since it has lots of variations (and it's one of my favourite colours).  I had lots of blue paint sample cards, so thought I could incorporate them in some way, plus I gelli printed a stack of different blue papers.

I picked a page that had an extra flap on it, just to push myself a bit further, and decided on a little town on the edge of the water.  

The background was simply rolled on with a brayer to create a messy effect, then I built up layers of collaged bits to represent the countryside.  The water was created by adding scrunched up bits of paper tissue with gel medium.  I like the effect, though using matt instead of gloss would have been better.  Oh well.

The houses were then added, with windows and doors drawn in with white Uniball Signo (my favourite white pen!).  The lighthouse completed the page.

I also wanted the same scene to flow to the page underneath, when the flap was opened.  This was a bit of a challenge, getting everything to match up, and flow well!

Underneath I added a castle, again using paint sample cards.  Then, added a couple of quotes that I liked.

Hope you like my interpretation Pam!  I also did another page for you since there was a single page that was blank - but I'll keep that one as a surprise for when you get your journal back... ;)

Cheers, Lisa