"Life as I see it".....Gail round 2...........by Lee

You left this pretty open to interpretation so I decided to have some fun with it! Posting on to Wendy Mason soon!

I wanted to get these done and in the mail as I am taking 6 months off to concentrate on painting.

scan is a bit small, cut off the edges and slightly crooked too. My printer is dying!

Tattered and torn for Roz( round 2)by Lee

I was reading the letter that came with your book and noticed you wanted vintage Asian so here's what I ended up with . Hope you like it!

Lisa J - Working in Rose's 'Birds' Journal

After now having made entries in two other people's journals, my trepidation has disappeared!  It's such a thrill to receive each book in the mail, see what's already been done, and then think about what I can  add to the journal.  I think of it as a huge gift we're all making each other, and what a delight it will be for all to receive the completed journals back after 12 or so months!

Rose's journal is a lovely size; a touch smaller than A4, with pages that open out flat to make a nice spread.

We live near a nature reserve with a creek running through it, and apart from kangaroos, foxes and the odd bunny, it's full of kookaburras, magpies, lorikeets, cockatoos, galahs, and the occasional rosella.  So I decided to do my spread on a couple of natives - the cockatoo and galah.

Noisy buggers they both are, but to me the sound is quintessentially Australian.  An old Aunty had a cocky in a cage for years, but I much prefer to see them in the bush, alighting from an old gum.

 I gessoed, then did a simple background with watercolour overlaid with a repeating leaf stencil.

This pic on the left isn't very clear, but he's my galah, done in acrylics.  Growing up in country South Australia we lived next door to a park with a huge population of cackling galahs.  We used to delight in clapping our hands loudly to get them to disperse.

Next to him is my sulfur crested cockatoo.  Being predominantly white, I had to do about 26 coats so you couldn't see the background underneath!  Eye rolling stuff because in Joan's journal I did the background afterwards because I hadn't decided what to do - maybe next journal I'll get it right...

Then on to a bit of journalling.  Interestingly, google tried to tell me that a group of cockatoos was known as a cockfest.  I don't think so!  Didn't think Rose would appreciate that in her journal, so I went with "There is nothing more Australian than the clatter of cockatoos and galahs in the bush!"

I hope you like this page Rose!  I really enjoyed doing it!

Wendys' page in Rachels'Journal

I have finished my page in Rachel's journal. What a gorgeous little journal it was! Much smaller than I thought but never-the-less a pleasure to work in. Going along the lines of the theme of garden and imagination, the first thing I thought of was a 'flower child', so I went with it. Firstly by putting a baby in a hammock on the page itself and then by using a face image of Rachel's daughter and collaging it on a cut out of a princess image....making her a flower child. Just as we have to tend the garden to make it grow, we also need to tend to our children to have them grow strong. So combining the two gave me the inspiration of the 'Flower Child'.

 a clear plastic bag attached to the page so the flower child will slip into it...

Thank you!

2nd Page in EMOTIONS

I've had a very productive day...a little bit of gardening this morning and then spending all afternoon at my art table doing my second page in Natalie's journal. I started with the background, of course...lol...and got it to were I was happy with it.

I found the focal image rummaging around in some magazines and thought it was perfect for one of those "OMG" moments.

Feeling rather at ease with working in Natalie's journal,I decided to do a double layout spread with this "OMG" emotion and that's exactly what I did...I went for it and the other half contains a saying to help you move out of your comfort zone and accept things that happen in your life. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and that reason is there to help us learn and grow as a person.

I think there is a bit too much light in this pic as the wording looks confused, it is clearer in real. So the finished double page is below and now I have it ready to send to the next lovely lady to work in. Hoping you like it Natalie.

Thank you.

AAJS Round 3: Wendy's entry in "Emotions."

Today I had the pleasure of doing a page in Natalie's EMOTIONS journal. Natalie wanted us to share the emotions that made us who we are and of course, I had to pick LOVE! I would say the majority of my emotions do stem from love. I am loving life right at this moment, I love where I am and who I am and even when I get angry with someone, its because I love them...if I didn't love them I wouldn't care, so no emotion would arise. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my page of love and yep,...I had to put my 3D hearts somewhere on the page...lol

Thank you!

Pam's entry in Gail's Journal. Days Gone By.

Ah what a question to ponder as I'm probably older than most in the group, my days gone by may be really ancient history :)  So I settled around maybe the 50s/60s.

My laundry scenes are reminiscent of the days when Mum's stayed home and managed their households like a chief executive of a thriving business.

I hope this is what Gail was looking for and I hope she enjoys my little effort.

These are the dreams of an everyday housewife:

Will be sending this journal on to Natalie very soon.

Jan's Faces Journal

For the past to days, I have had the pleasure to work in Jans' beautiful 'Faces' journal. I really had no ideas as to what I wanted to do, so the first thing was for me to get rid of the white page and get some background colour down. I glued down some torn text papers and then started sponging on bright coloured acrylic paints. I used a few stencils and the result you can see below...

Once I was happy with the background, Ideas started flowing...even though I can't draw a face for the life of me...lol...I decided to cut a mask out of thick watercolor paper and I think this is when the idea of wearing a mask, covering our true emotions came from.

I used a grey blue as a base for the face and I painted and decorated the thick piece of watercolor paper for a mask. I decided to leave the underlying face relatively plain, except for one eye with a tear drop falling from it.

 So when the mask is lifted, you see one of  many emotions a persons can hide when you are staring them in the face.

I really enjoyed working in Jans' journal and am hoping you like the page. Thank you.

Aphorisms by Lee

Aphorisms  arrived just the other day but the knowledge that another is coming soon and a desire to bury myself away from stuff that's happening here prompted me to dive right in and get it done.
I made it too big by far and had to cut it down but luckily (I think) it still works.

before cutting to fit book

Moral of the story measure twice cut once.

cut back to fit

I will be sending this on for Deb Stephens to work in very shortly...................................................................

Deb Stephens' Entry in Lee Hynes Layers - Journal. Feb 2016

Lee's Layers Journal arrived !

I'll admit I was nervous. This was someones art journal. ART JOURNAL. They were trusting me to go into it and create in it. I started to sweat, then just bit the bullet and opened it. checked all the little nook and crannies and read Lee's notes. My head was swimming. Layers, Layers Layers ...

So I decided to do the layers of me. How sometimes I'm confident and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I like to Quilt, sometimes paint, sometimes mosaic, sometimes scrapbook or sometimes colour in. Sometimes I listen to Elvis and sometimes I listen to Lenny Kravitz. Sometimes I'm a teacher and sometimes a student, Sometimes a wife or mother and other times a Lady or a tramp:)

And this is what came out on the paper.
Page one was made with hexagon fabric scraps that I had started a hand piecing quilt project with. I added a Zipper and quote to represent my interest in sewing.. even though I'm not that good at it, it doesn't matter, I just need to keep enjoying doing it.

I then added a cardboard tag with a Prima doll stamped and painted with water colour on one side to represent me being an elegant lady, but only when  I felt like it..the Tape I used to attach the tag came just at the right time from a lovely lady in this very group as part of the napkin swap! it says "Time to drink champagne and dance on the table." The small cardboard Tag with ribbon sticking out of the zipper was part of Lee's instructions to personalise our pages wit our details.

The other side of the Tag, I collaged out with random parts of people I found and stuck on top of Dylusions Paint. I then journals all around it in black pen about my SOMETIMES habits.

 The very last page was made up of another Prima stamp called Catrina from the Bloom Girls range.
I used water soluble oil pastels (that ALWAYS messes with my head) to colour it in and blended with water. I used stickles glitter glue and mini glass beads to adorn her shawl. There is also some blue tule sticking out to make her shawl a bit more 3D. the background colour was applied with Gelatos. I also made my own paper for the leaves using a wash of water colour all over water colour card, then using Tim Holtz Fall Foliage thinlit dies to cut out the leaves with a big shot. I stuck them all on with glossy accents and then dropped a few drops all over the leaves to look like dew drops.

 I added the spares to the travelling envelope at the back of this journal and am going to send her on her way later this week.

Thank You!

Deb Stephens.

Joan is journalling in Rose's "Bird" Journal

As this was the first Journal of the round and as Rose had not done a page herself apart from her introduction, I was going to be the first to do a page in it and I was a bit nervous about that first drop of paint.   I love this little book, it is so cute and neat and not anything like the big recycled journals, I usually  receive in these sort of collaborative journal swaps.

Anyway I dived in head first with some lovely Dylusion paints I have recently bought, but first of all I gessoed both pages.  I had tried the paint on a couple of other items prior to this and I loved the way it blended and dried so quickly.  I used Lime green, another green, a blue and a yellow. It did not blend as easy on the gesso as it does just on paper. Then I stuck on a couple of pieces of paper with some bird related text. When dry I used gel medium to attach a napkin I had made myself using one of the white pieces from a bought napkin . I had  used a some bird relate text and a few small bird pictures to make the napkin. That become lovely and translucent over the paint.  I also attached a piece of a bought napkin with some flowers and one bird on it,on the right hand page.

 

I then added some more paint and some spray dyes  here and there. I did not like the piece of tissue with the yellow bird partly showing above, so I covered it up.  I then drew (very badly) a couple of other birds, The yellow one was a copy of a bird on one of the bird postage stamps  Rose has on the cover. I then added a little more paint and some highlighting etc. I collaged a flying owl on left and covered him with a dimensional glue to protect him and to give some texture to page,  I highlighted the piece of paper that was straddling both pages from the second layer with a coat of thick white gesso and used some stick-ons to repeat one of the sayings that had been on the background napkin.  "Birds of a feather flock together".   I forgot to take a photo at this stage. Next day, I stamped a little flower and used pens to outline. I stuck some beautiful feathers I have had for about twenty years on bottom right hand corner and some text I had typed on a transparency to the right.    I hope Rose likes it, I sent it to Lisa ( next in line) yesterday.