Page in Ros's "Maps" Journal

Ros's journal, is a collection of loose pages, that she will actually keep in a decorated box when it is complete.  She provided lots of different things to use if you like either as the base or to embellish your page. The theme was not so much physical maps, but how a person mind maps different events, places or procedures in their mind.

I was really stumped by this theme and was not sure what I was going to do.  Then I thought about how really this described my life and me perfectly. I compartmentalise my life always in my mind.  Also I have never been known to use a diary.  I am one of those people who gets one every year and at the end of the year it is still empty.  I keep all my schedules and appointments in my head. Even at work I am hopeless at putting stuff in the calendar, I just schedule it in my mind map and I very seldom forget or double book.  The rest of staff are always amazed at how I do that, and say I am more reliable that all their diaries or calendar when it comes to knowing not only what my day holds, but all of the other staff's schedules also.  So my "Map" is all about my mind scheduling,  it is not very graphically artistic, but more visual journalling.

I used a map of the area I live in, "Mornington Peninsula" as my page.  On the map side, I drew an outline of a head I had cut from a magazine.  I used the area of the map which contained or was near some of the places, to which I am connected in some way, ie where I live, where I have worked etc.  Then I used stickers to highlight these places.  On the other side of the map where all the locations and advertisements are listed, I blocked out approximately the same area with black chalk paint so that it represented a blackboard.  Then I stuck the cutout from the magazine which I had covered with thick layers of gesso on to the blackboard area.  Then I divided the head into 4 to represent the four main areas of my mind mapping, ie work and business, home and family, friends and activities and artistic pursuits.  I then drew lines to allow for mapping items within each of those sections.  I painted each of these in different coloured water colour paint. When dry I wrote on it to represent a typical day or type of mind mapping that would go on in that compartment of my life.   On the right side of the page and in the body of the cutout, I journalled somethings about my mind mapping and my reasoning behind the page. On the left side of the page I added some famous quotes about the mind.  I added a bit of washi tape and some stamping to complete the page. It has now been sent on its journey to Lisa.  Hope it meets the criteria.

Roses Visual Jornaling

Recently, I worked a page in Deb's art journal: Inspired by Pinterest. This is how my page spread came out. As you'll see, I'm becoming very keen on learning to sketch and one day, while browsing for a few hours (days!) on that visual feast of a site (and very addictive!), I came across some Pins of other artists' Sketchbook pages. Some of them were so inspiring and exciting to look at, my brain went into overload with ideas for my own visual sketchbook too. So, when I received Deb's art journal based on Pinterest Inspiration, well, I just had to share my new-found interest in visual sketchbooks. I'm always keen to develop my drawing skills in addition to the painting and mixed media techniques that we all use in our art journaling.

 One of my latest sketches of our little ginger cat, Possum. And I also shared what it was that inspired me on Pinterest that day.

This is a colour chart of my new watercolour pencil set. It's fantastic the way the colours suddenly transform into wet media as soon as you wet them with a water brush. Very portable and easy to use. Hope you like it, Deb.

Lisa J - Playing in Deb's Pinterest Journal

Deb's theme is Inspired by Pinterest, and when I saw this, I was thrilled.  I have been a Pinterest devotee for ages and agree with Deb; you can stop for a quick look and still be there hours later.  Yes, it's even worse than Facebook!

Despite the addictive qualities, Pinterest is fantastic for finding inspiring things.  For those that haven't checked it out yet, you can set up your own 'pin board' of things that you like (e.g. art journalling), and pin pictures, recipes, links to websites there for future reference.  Pinterest gets to know what you like, and you'll see more of those things on your home page - your feed.  I use Pinterest regularly to find ideas for journal pages or illustration challenges, recipes, and inspirational (or just funny) quotes.

Deb has not made an actual journal, rather she has provided a stack of good quality A4 watercolour paper, to be folded in half - similar to a Deconstructed Art Journal but a tad bigger.  This means 3 opportunities to make art on - the front, double sided middle page, and back page.  Woo hoo!

For my front page I decided on an old book page with a tree on it.  The idea is to paint out the background, so the words on the page become your focal point.  I'd seen a few of these on Pinterest and thought it looked fun, and I love painting trees, so voila!  This page was done with acrylic paints and a Micron pen.

My middle page was a labour of love.  I'm (pardon the pun) drawn to faces; I love drawing and painting them and trying to improve.  The work of Australian artist Toni Burt has always interested me, so I decided to use one of her mixed media pieces as an inspiration.  Well, I like how her face has turned out, despite my daughter insisting that her eye is too big.  Bad luck!  I always find it more difficult to do a face when you're only doing half of it for some reason...  

I'm not sure what Toni uses to draw her faces, but I like experimenting with water soluble pencils, so had a go with that.  The flowers are painted with acrylics and modeling paste, with some white gel pen.  Bit of collage in the background, and more water soluble pencil.

For the back page, something different.  As I've said, Pinterest knows what you like, so recipe wise, my feed is full of delicious but fattening sweets - primarily things with chocolate, peanut butter, and/or caramel in them.  My downfalls.  So scrumptious but so bad for me...  So instead, I decided to do a drawing of a luscious looking fresh fruit tart, compliments of Sally's Baking Addiction.  So decadent but - it's fruit, so it's not bad for you, right?  Right?!

I recently splurged (birthday money - yay!) on some arty stuff, including gelatos (which I haven't tried yet!) and a new Koi watercolour set, which I used for this page.  Tiny pans of colour but the colours are so vibrant!  Love them.  Can definitely see why I should move on from my kiddy palette...

Thanks so much Deb for thinking up the Pinterest theme - I had such a great time doing these pages and will definitely do some more experimenting!  Hope you like it! xx

Deb's entry in Pam's Monochrome Journal for Round 3.

The ocean has always captivated and entranced me. I love watching documentaries and I love trips by the seaside where we can snorkel and wonder at the sheer enormity and wonder of it. I have been drawn to the blue and turquoise and sea green so this was a natural and easy colour scheme for me to go with for this project. I used Kaisercraft double sided paper, and water colour paper I painted in matching tones and cut these into  squares and rectangles that I stuck down with gel medium.this was a page that had an extra fold to it, kind of like a hidden inside panel. I painted that section with Dylusions paint and a baby wipe.

I then drew some mermaids and enhanced them with Lyra water colour crayons and Faber Castell Pitt Big brush pens and smudged them. I added Sequins in coordinating colours on their tails (a labour of love.) I also added some Impasto medium with an underwater reeds stencil. Once that dried I applied more Big Brush Pens, Distress ink and Dylusions paint and water spray to spread it around. Some Kaisercraft Stamps of seahorses, shells and starfish were hidden away in the reeds. The quote here reads "Don't wait for the perfect moment,take the moment and make it perfect."

I then finished by journaling/handwriting a quote on the panel that covers the mermaids when closed.  "

"Colours are the same as people yelling too loud,

saying too many things at the same time,

and not half of it gets heard.

Monochrome is the person that does not shout, says less and gets heard.

Colours are in a constant battle,

screaming for more attention, 

It is nowhere near flattering.

You could learn a lot from monochrome colours."

Andre Supa.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy this page Pam.

Lisa G G - Working in Deb's 'Inspired by Pinterest' Journal

Lisa J here blogging for Lisa G G!  

Lisa has had lots of fun with the wonderful roll out of the NBN, so has had internet troubles.  I'm helping out as I have Deb's journal to play in now.

The theme of Deb's journal is 'Inspired by Pinterest', and she's provided everyone with good quality A4 paper to be folded in half, similar to one of the Deconstructed Art Journal swaps we've been doing; only a little bigger!  Deb intends to bind all the pages together when she gets them back at the end of the year.

This means you get 3 pages to do! Front, double sized middle, and back.

For the front, Lisa has gone with a heart theme: Never stop loving...

For the middle pages, more hearts.  The left hand side is a brick wall made using texture paste through a stencil, with the heart drawn on top.  The drips could be in blood... but most likely are paint. :)  The right hand side features a musical background with a luscious heart - Dylusions paint I believe, with the saying "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage..."  Too true!  The heart is a gorgeous magenta colour.

The rear features more hearts, this time done with watercolour pencils. 

This journal has been a great way to try new techniques and mediums!

Things that live in Robyn's garden journal By Wendy

I don't really have a garden at our place. We have bush out the back yard full of trees and a small garden out the front with ferns and cactus plants in it, so I decided to go with my imagination with what lives in Robyn garden journal and make the page very colourful and whimsical. I used quite a few stickers, which I don't nornally do but I did enjoy sticking them down. I've placed some fairies around, some dragonflies, some butterflies and an assortment of little insects. I also used some dimensional flowers which have a little gem on them. All in all, I think the pages came together so lovely. To finish it off, I made up a little peom about the garden and wrote it on a tag.

 Hope it gives you some enjoyment Robyn. Thank you.

Journaling in Deborah's "Inspired by Pinterest" Journal

When I first started this journal, I had no  ideas in mind, so I just focused on getting something on the page. I had already put gesso on as that is how I normally start any journal pages.  I experimented with some new Dylusions dyes and got a background down in inside pages.  Then I painted and stenciled both front and back pages, again with Dylusions  this time with their paints.  As I am not much of a user of Pinterest, I though I better go there to gain some inspirations to create this piece, after all that was the theme.  I saw lots of ideas of course, but the one that stood out, was a page on mosaics. We had done a mosaic deconstructed journal page swap this year and I loved some of the results.  I found a pattern for this cat, which I downloaded and cut the pieces from some Creative Memories paper and a few scraps from Gelli plate printed papers.  By this time I had decided I would try to highlight the types of things that are used on pinterest pins. So I stenciled the flowers on front and{ using texture paste) the wall.  Stamps and chalk paint on the inside pages. That is where is sat for 3 weeks, till this week when I could get back to it.  Once I started it again, {3 weeks) down the track,  I decided to do a cluster sample on back page.  I didnt have many flowers left in my stash, and as they were all different, a monochromatic sample came to mind. I used whatever flowers I could find and whatever colour they were, plus some micro beads, some chipboard birds, a bit of muslin and sprayed with dylusion dyes to create the monochromatic look and mood, Finabar eat your heart out. I was really pleased how this turned out.  Then I found some small photos and some wonderful handmade circles made by  Lisa Jones, in my stash, so a Pinterest Board using chalkpaint was born.
On the other page I used some magazines to collage.  I hope Deborah likes the page, this was a great journal to do, as Deborah is keeping pages separate at moment, it is easier to work on piece on a flat background.

Front Page

 Back page

 Inside pages

This was posted off this week to Lisa Jones.

 

Wendy's Layout in Gail's Days Gone By.

I have finally finished working in Gails beautiful journal.

The title of her journal is 'DAYS GONE BY". With this double spread I have tried to blend the outdoors with the indoors with the background colours

I chose to recall my childhood where I would be out on my bike riding around all day with friends and I would always put some food in a brown paper bag and place it in my bike basket, for when I was hungry or to share with friends.

On the right side, I was recalling our watching television which was a black and white set. We were allowed to watch about an hour in the evenings and my two sisters and myself loved watching Skippy, The bush Kangaroo. While we watched the telly, mum would be putting our hair in rags, to curl our hair...and we would sleep with them in. It was so uncomfortable but made beautiful ringlets in our hair. Thank you.