An extra spread in Jan's Journal

I am happy with it EXCEPT it is upside down....grrrr! Sorry Jan ...it is the last  page so that is something to be grateful for!!

2 spreads in Jenny's Ocean Life Journal

Napkin background and collaged images with stencilled bubbles

I had the images printed already so I did this spread.
Inked background  with a little watercolour crayon and handmade washi tape.

Lisa J - Working in Lee's 'Layers' Journal

Lee's journal 'Layers' has a real junque journal feel, and Lee's brief was to "stretch yourself, try something new, don't worry about the result." She said she was "not precious about art, it's all about expression," and "above all, I don't believe that 'tidy', 'neat', or 'pre-planned' have any place in the process."

Great! I thought.  Though Lee also said this journal wasn't so much about physical layers, I did want to try and incorporate some layers into my work.

On Pinterest, I found an amazing quote to use, which I printed using a new font I found:

This quote gave me an idea to do a face with many different layers.  So I drew a template,  

and used it 5 times with different mediums.  

Unfortunately I forgot to photograph each of the faces after I was done!

The mediums I used were: 

• water soluble pencil
• acrylics
• gel pens
• texta with different stencils overlaying it, and
• Micron pen on a scrap piece of paper that was used under whatever art I was working on.

I then tore all of these new faces up (that was hard!) and put them back together again all mixed up.  

It looked weird but I liked it!

I covered the double page spread with different book pages, then laid my new face on the right hand page.  I intended to do the above quote on the left.

But then, I had so many face pieces left that I thought, I should do one on the left side as well!  

So I did.  But then came the dilemma of where to put the quote?  

Easy, I thought.  I'll print it on baking paper and lay it over the top.

But that didn't work; my printer wouldn't recognise the paper as it was too thin.  

So I glued a piece to some photocopy paper, thinking I'd remove the baking paper afterwards.  Still wouldn't go through.

Next I tried a Creative Memories plastic page protector cut to size.  Yes!  That seemed to work - until I realised that the ink wouldn't dry and it just smeared everywhere.  

Must be my el cheapo printer, I thought, so decided to email the word document to myself at work to print there.

The next day at work I attempted to print it, on another CM page protector.... but since it was on a word document, it didn't recognise the font I'd used, so gave me good old Courier instead.  No thanks!

So that night I again sent it to work, this time as a PDF.  Yes, that would work.  

Thus on Thursday at work I again attempted to print it, using the bypass tray (I was a bit worried about the page protector getting stuck in our expensive new copier, and having to explain to the boss why it needed a repair...!)  But again it didn't work, getting stuck half way and smearing everywhere.

I was almost at wit's end then, thinking there must be a way I can do this!  As a last resort, I tried printing again with an A4 heavy duty page protector.  Success at last!  Though it did get stuck again, and one of the lines is very light.  BUT IT WORKED.

This is definitely not the prettiest art I've every made, an my daughter Mel thinks the gel pen face is really creepy. but I'm quite happy with the result.

Here are the two faces:         

And here's the end result, with the quote over the top!

Hope you like it Lee!

Jan's Faces and Figures Journal by Roz

I really liked these images that came from a book published in the 60's. I did the yellow part 1st and then had to make the other side work. I'm not much into doodling but it seemed the thing to do here. Also had fun doing the dots and the word...once again I usually shy away from hand lettering.
All in all I'm happy with the result...hope you are too Jan.
I have another spread almost worked out so will try to get that done on the weekend.

My spread in Rachel's Garden of My Imagination Journal

I took the easy approach and used a napkin for the background and then used stickers and diecuts...I hope you like it Rachel. I enjoyed doing it for you.
 

Blogging about Lee's "LAYERS" Journal

Lee's journal is a lovely size and has a real grunge art appeal on the outside.  I love all the pages created by  the other artists.

I started my page inspired by a saying which my late mother {very Irish}used,  when we or someone else was been judgemental about someone who had upset us, or whom we were talking about and making assumptions.  Mum use to say that regardless of how things seem on the outside that no one knows what really goes on in a persons life or what they were experiencing that we did not see or know about that may be  effecting how they were acting or reacting.  Her saying was, "No one knows what goes on behind the curtains." 

After my layer of gesso had dried, I stuck some a sample piece of lovely pink and green stripped linen across both pages. This was to form the background/wall/ behind the windows.  Then from a piece of watercolour paper that I had used to clean off my roller when playing with my gello plate, I cut the outline of two windows I had in my stash.  On is square and made from wood, the other is rectangle with round top and made from chipboard.  On the pages with the material I stuck three characters, in a postion to be looking out the window spaces.  The one on the right was a whimsical girl which I had printed on a page from an old book, then I had stuck very wide clear tape on top of it  and ripped it off, so that the girl and some of the book text remained on the tape.  On the left were two little characters I had drawn and coloured in with gellatoes.  Originally I was going to put them on an index card I was doing, but they ended up in this page.  I add some layers on the watercolour paper with texture paste, stencils, stamping, etc. I then stuck it on top of the book pages with material, placing it so the window cutout spaces were over the characters faces.  Then I stuck two photo transparencies with phases on them over the window spaces leaving them the full size so that white text would be an adder layer. Then I glued the windows on top in the appropriate places. I added a few more things in line with the theme "Layers" flowers on windows, some homemade stickers to reinforce the centre of page etc.   I then added typed text with my saying, which was a bit of a play on the original phase.  "The eyes may be the window to the soul, but no one knows what is behind the curtain."

As I had wanted to do a double page, and Rose's page had been a single, there was a spare page prior to my layout.  I painted this with dylusions paint using three colours. Coincidentally I had come across a poem some months ago in a book and had copied it down as I like it a lot.  It is called "layers of the face" it fitted exactly with my saying and my layout, so I typed it out on dylusions ink dyed paper, tore it out, and stuck in on the page.  I was going to put some flowers around it, but I liked the simplicity of it and so I just left it as is.  All three pages were edged with black archival ink and a little of the material shows between the edge of the pages.   I really loved how these pages turned out and I hope Lee does also.

Lisa J - Playing in Ros' Maps Journal

I have to say, I struggled with this journal for a while, wondering what I should do in it.  

Ros talks about everyone's Map of Self.  This made me ponder about things like one's personality, behaviours, values and beliefs.  Are we a product solely of our parents, or does where we grow up have a bearing on how we turn out?  

We moved around quite a bit when I was young, with dad's work.  I'd been to 3 other primary schools by the time we moved to Port Pirie in South Australia.  It's always a struggle starting at a new school, and this was particularly so in Pirie - especially for a newbie that was from interstate, with an American accent (yes, spent a few years in the States...)

I grew to love the town, but couldn't wait to leave it when I was older... The song "Flame Trees" by Cold Chisel seemed to epitomise Pirie!  I'm not a country girl at heart...!

I moved to Melbourne when I was 22, and met my husband to be Scott soon after.  I can't imagine ever leaving Doncaster East, but it made me wonder, would I be a different person if I'd grown up in Melbourne instead?

I drew a map of Pirie, and added in the bits that I remember from my teenage years, that made it special to me.

I'm still not sure if I found out anything about myself by doing this project, but it was a lot of fun remembering old times!

Hope you like this Ros!

Cheers, Lisa x