Lisa J's Summer Journal - Home!

I sent my Summer journal off on its journey some 13 months ago and it returned home a few days ago.  Some of the pages were a surprise as not everyone blogged about their entries.

So here it is in its entirety!   I made the journal after checking out a few videos online, and it hasn't fallen apart which is very pleasing!  Here's the cover:

On the first page I wrote some stuff about me, and my rules/requirements for this journal.  Basically, what does summer mean to you?  

I did the first page in watercolour, from a photo my husband Scott took at dusk, down at the beach we like to frequent when we can get away for a weekend.  Which is not often enough with work and kids' sports!

The next page is a collage done by Robyn.  So bright and colourful!

Gail's page is also a collage, and I think some may be napkins?  I really love the quote, it's so true!

Next is Pam's entry - a mix of painting and collage.  The sand has little tiny beads through it and the water has heaps of texture too.  Love the bathing boxes!

I hadn't seen Nat's entry, so it was a wonderful surprise!  A gorgeous painting of a girl up close with a soldier crab.  And the crab has great features that you probably can't see well enough in a photo.

Next up is Wendy's cool surfer dude!  This page is a mix of painting and collage and I love how it turned out.

Lee's page was another that I hadn't seen.  It's a digital piece that has been printed and it's so different and quirky!

Deb's spread is all about looking out the kitchen window to the view beyond.  Wouldn't it be nice to look out at the beach and see the sun setting down over the ocean!  I love all the elements in this page.

Rose's page is so simple but so effective!  She likes to watch the tennis in summer.

Joan's page is a wonderful mix of painting and collage.  All the elements flow so well in this piece and I really like the composition.  Great waves too!

This page didn't photograph very well.  Each January, the ABC play old Countdown episodes on Rage on Saturday nights!  Unfortunately they often start around midnight, but if you can keep your eyelids open for an hour or two, it's so great to watch!  I've always loved music, especially 80s stuff.  So this page is a homage to Countdown and Molly Meldrum, and some of my favourite songs of that era.

I found this cool saying in Pinterest so decided to use it in my journal.  Who doesn't like ice cream?!  When we go down to Ocean Grove, we'll often go to Queenscliff - to wander the town, and buy a double ice cream from the wonderful Nordic ice cream shop there!  

And lastly I put some blank tags in pockets in the back page so the artists that did a page in my journal could tell me a bit about themselves.  Thank you to those that filled one out!

I went a bit overboard with putting my journal together so I still have heaps of blank pages left.  I won't post it out again; at A4 size it's a bit heavy and pricey, but I'll fill it up eventually!  I've asked my daughter Mel to contribute a page when she doesn't have so much homework (year 11...)

Thanks again to everyone that contributed to my journal; it's a real treasure and something that I can keep and look back on forever!

I know we had heaps of problems with the last two swaps, but I can't wait to participate again!

Cheers, Lisa

Joan's page in Lisa Jones's group#3 circle journal "Summer"

I am the last participant in Round #3 of the circle journal to work in Lisa's journal before it makes its way home to her.  It is a beautiful journal and I think Lisa will be very happy with all the lovely pages in it.  The theme for Lisa's journal is "Summer" and Lisa asked for participants to do a page that represented what Summer meant to them.

To me Summer is bright sunshine, water and people in colourful attire been out and about enjoying the nice weather.   I love the ocean but not necessarily the beach.  Been fair skinned, the sun and I have a healthy relationship with each other, but I do love to visit the ocean and watch the boats,birds,people swimming and all the other activities that a nice day in Summer brings. 

This page is a combination of paint, gelatoes,  tissue collage, catalogue collage, diecuts and some minimal drawing. I was quiet pleased with the composition and my minimal drawing prowess.  I think it fulfills the brief and I hope that Lisa will be happy with it.

I am lucky enough to live on the Mornington Peninsula which has beaches on both sides, Port Phillip Bay on one side and Westernport Bay on the other.   I live on the Westernport side and about 10 minute walk from the nearest beach, so very lucky. If we look out across the ocean on a clear day, we can see French Island straight across and Philip Island a little bit further on to the right, so this is not only representative of  my idea of Summer but also representative of my reality.

"Faces and Figures" Guest Post by Joan

Jan's journal was in group 2 of the circle journal swap, which meant that I was not scheduled to do a page in this journal.  However when Jan had her journal returned to her at the end of its journey there were still a few blank pages in it, so she sent out a call on AASG to see if anyone else would like to do a page.  A few of us in group 3 put our hands up and I was one of them.The theme of Jan's journal was "Faces and Figures"

I received this journal towards end of December and I had planned to work in it over the Christmas and New Year period.   However in December, I unexpectedly lost my longest friend in Australia and to make it even worse, she was 10 years younger than me and had not even been ill. Anyway it knocked me back a little and made me look at little more closely at my own future. 2016 was a bad year all round for celebrities of my generation and older and many passed away. In Jan 2017 the Sun Herald newspaper printed an article in memory of most of those celebrities from around the globe and it was accompanied  by a collage of faces and figures of these stars.  When I saw this picture I immediately knew I wanted to use it for my page in the journal.

First of all I gesso and painted the background in similar colours of the collage.  The collage was set around a large swimming pool with the theme been a cocktail party, so there were lots of blue and green colouring.  I then scanned, reduced and printed the picture a couple of times on tissue paper.
I pasted  the tissue one copy on top of the other onto the painted background. That is where it was at until I went to a journal group meetup with Lynne, Lisa, Liz, etc. I took the journal with me to work on and when one of the ladies pulled out a basic face stencil to use, I thought I would like to try and use it also.  My mistake I think in retrospect was using a paste that was too thick, but hindsight is great.  Anyway I stenciled the face outline on the right hand side on top of the tissued faces. Now I cannot draw so this was a big step outside my square, even though I was using a stencil.  With a great deal of help from Lynne I managed to get a basic face but the textured paste was already set and was quiet lumpy in places and could not be removed.  Initially it was a very androgynous face and I was not sure where to go with it, however after painting and removing and adding more paint and taking it off and trying to fix eyes, nose, side of face and lips about 50 times over the next couple of weeks, it eventually turned into female, if  a somewhat scarred and battered one. During this period of trial and tribulation, in my mind she became representative of my friend Vikki, who was a natural redhead, a great horsewomen, a brilliant software developer, a professional photographer and a friend to many especially me.  So she stayed, and after adding some text and some doodled borders, I decided it was finished.  I hope Jan can live with this at least for a little while and then she can give her a fond farewell, before covering it all with gesso.

 

WENDY M. - LAYOUT IN DEB'S PINTEREST INSPIRED JOURNAL

Today, I remembered I had not blogged and shown pictures of my work in Deb's Pinterest Inspired Journal. I found working on the loose pages rather relaxing and after spending hours and then a few more hours going through the pictures on Pinterest, I finally found some inspiration from a few pictures. Mainly a couple that I had wanted to try for a few months and then another that kind of jumped out at me and said..."Do Me!...Do Me !...lol...and of course, I did.

This is the front of the folded page with a saying "Believe You Can". The background, I have used different colours of gellatos as well as a couple of distress paint dabbers. I have done a little bit of stenciling and some stamping. Placed a slither of washi tape along the bottom of the page which gives my little angel girl something to stand on...heehee

My angel girl has been made from a left over gelli print and her legs from black cardboard and drawing  the lines on with a white paint marker. I have painted her face on the page and used a piece of one of my grandsons painting for the wings. I think she turned out pretty cool. I used a credit card to put the black paint markings on the page for added detail.

                                                             "Believe You Can"

When the page is opened this is the center layout, below. I started by laying down some bright coloured paints so when I blocked out the background colours, those colours would show through the images I had drawn. For the flower heads, I used a gelli print and I drew on the stems. The leaves were also cut from a gelli print. I used some flower stamps at the bottom of the page and went over them with a black gel pen and some highlights with a white signo pen. I drew the shape of the raindrops and the background colours can be seen through them. Pretty cool effect, I think.

                                          "You can't make a rainbow without alittle rain"

I was very happy with the outcome of this page and found that I actually like doing this 'blocking' technique and having the colourful background showing through my doodles.

The last half page was my cute little birdie. My inspiriational birdie was actually a lot brighter in colour than mine but I thoroughly enjoyed working through this process. I started with the brightly painted background and then some stenciling and stamping. I lightly drew the little birdie and then tried my hand at dry brushing the colour to fill him. A drawn little crown on his head and he was complete. I was very inspired by the one I found on Pinterest, that I can see myself trying my hand at this one again sometime. I used a white signo to highlight around the little bird and his wings and called it complete.

                                                     "Life Is An Adventure"

 So,there you go, I think you will be pleased with my contribution Deb, I had a lot of fun, especially trying to work out how it had been done in the first place. Thoroughly enjoyed this process in Deb's Journal. Thank you all and hope you enjoy! xox Wendy