Flying Fox

I am the last artist to work in Roz Willoughby's lovely silhouette travelling art journal.

My page is inspired by the 20 000 flying foxes we have on Susan and Peanut Islands in the mighty, mighty Clarence river in Grafton NSW. 

They are such a magnificent sight filling the sky at sunset, swooping down to the river to skim the surface wetting their furry chests so they can get a drink after a long hot day sleeping in the trees before dispersing for their evening of foraging and pollinating.

These colonies are native to the east coast but innocently inspire quite a bit of contention in human communities. Personally I admire and appreciate them and I am a keen gardener and fruit tree grower and spent 2 years living right next to a huge colony further down river. I like to live and let live and tread lightly upon this earth. 

Lesley's Empowerment Journal Finished!!

I was so excited to receive my journal home after many months of working in everyone's journal

it was great to finally see the amazing pages everyone had completed.

The cover of my empowerment journal.

The first page of my journal completed by me

  " I am bold, brave, 

fearless and strong "

 The next page in my Journal was created by Jan Mullane.

" Listen to your inner voice, you really can do whatever you want "

I love the background on Jan's page and the different women on the page especially the silhouettes.

Pam Parker has completed the next page in my journal.

" Look at the stars, 

look how they shine for you and everything you do."

I love how simply using two main colours has such a big impact.

The next page is by 

Colleen Mulholland .

       "Believe you can and you will."  &  " So she danced with her heart and soul."

I love everything about this page, the bright colors, the carefreeness of the dancing lady and all of the  little details she has put into this page.

The next page was completed by Joanna Tobler.

 " I can and I will, watch me."

The photo of this page really does not do it justice it has a beautiful texture to it that is very sparkly.

    Lisa Jones's page really speaks for itself, it's amazing I just love it.

  

" I am strong, I am invincible,

 I am WOMAN! "

     The final guest page in my book is by Joan Mannix.

    " A girl should be two things, who and what she wants"

    This page is full of beautiful layers of collaged pieces, the colors are amazing.

      The last page in my journal was inspired by Dina Wakley.

 " You have to make room for growth."

The back cover of my journal.

" Empowered women, 

empower women."

And

 " Admire someone else's beauty without questioning your own."

 Thank you so much to Jan, Pam, Colleen, Joanna, Joan and Lisa for making my Journal and something I will always treasure xxxxx

MY JOURNAL IS HOME !!!!!..... eeeekkkk!

Thank you to all you fabulous ladies in the round 5 journal swap. My journal is now home and your work is just amazing.

Here is a flip thru of all the contributions in my journal...

I really appreciate all the time and effort everyone has put into making my journal look fabulous.
 Wendy Mason xox

Wendy’s Journal

I didn’t really have a plan when I started so I gathered some supplies and started by putting a layer of collage, I used some old book pages written in Italian and some copies of old Sydney Morning Herald newspaper

I don’t know how I managed to get this picture upside down, I am clever that way 😂

I then used Dina Wakley acrylic paint in lime and turquoise. I then just got in the zone and forgot to take photos of the next few layers of stenciling and painting my girl. After finishing her I knew just what she wanted to say to Wendy

I then went on a hunt for my words and decided to use a sticker from the book Sticker Nation 2 . I’m sorry that I forgot to take photos of my process but I think you can see what I have done from the final photo. I hope you like it Wendy!

DANIE'S UNDER THE SEA BY WENDY

This is my last layout in a journal for this round and it's my interpretation of 'under the sea'. I have been going through a bit of a slump with my creativity lately so I was browsing through pinterest for some inspiration and finally came up with an idea of what to do.

I sketched a border in pencil around the outside of the page which was to represent coral or seaweed in the sea and then in the center of the pages started with white paint to try to make it look like light from above. I used two shades of blue, a light blue for the fresh clean water and a darker blue showing for more depth in the sea. Then painted black around the edges of the page in a silhouette style. I also used the silhouette style to paint in a turtle, a squid and a little fish.

To me it's as if I am sitting on the bottom of the sea looking up but others have said it's like they are above the sea looking down. I suppose it's open to everyones own interpretation.

You may like to watch the video of the process of this one here..

Danie had a few empty pages in her journal so I decided to have a play and do another layout. This time I ripped up a few text papers I had painted in shades of blue and glued them across the pages. I drew three mermaid tails onto some painted brown paper and cut them out. I then placed the tales in a few of the strips of blue paper so the idea is you just see the tails out of the waves. I had fun playing with this layout. I hope you like my layouts Danie.

I haven't added any words or phrases to these two pages, I really wasn't in a wordy kind of mood, so I just left them as the were.

I know my journal is making it's way home to me now and I'd like to thank each and everyone of you that worked in my journal...cheers!!!

Flowers the Seeds of Yesterday Spread in Roz's Journal

I am not the greatest at remembering to take photos or blog about my creations in our Journal Swap, but am here with a look at my Silhouette Spread in Roz's Journal I had the pleasure of creating in last month. 

I started by coloring the pages with Distress Oxides.  And once I had smooched the color across both pages I took a stencil and a spray bottle with some water and sprayed this through the stencil to add some interest and pattern to the page.

I used some Wildflower Stamps from Darkroom Door and a Quote Stamp from Paper Artsy.

I was keeping it simple as I often tend to do but I think that suited this Silhouette Shape.

Only one more journal to go and we will be receiving our own journals back which I am really looking forward to.  It's been fun being a part of this and seeing all the wonderful inspiration and beautiful pages everyone in both rounds of this swap have been creating. 

Danie xx

Louise playing in Pam's Teesha journal.

I was thrilled when mum sent me her journal from round 4

 as I love theme and I wanted a good sticky beak 

at all the lovely pages done by everyone. 

We are very close and love to live near each other

 but I live in hot humid Grafton 

and they cant cope with the weather 

so they live hundreds of km away in the central west.

But mum loves Grafton and the jacarandas 

and the Jacaranda Festival 

so I wanted to do a page about Grafton and of course 

it had to be purple. 

Working in Teesha style to me means bright and busy

 with lots to look at,

 colourful borders, interesting words 

and unexpected quirky characters. 

So my jacaranda queens

 are not quite like any I have seen at festival time

 but they sure were fun to create. 

The next page I created was inspired by bugs- 

its summer time here and they are loving

 all the heat and rain we have had lately. 

Mum had 4 pages left and generously said I could play in all of them :) 

So I unearthed so much 'stuff'

you know all of that stuff we hoard for art?

This style of journalling is really good for using it all up. 

My girlfriend Kathy visited Paris a couple of years ago

 and shared some of the incredible exhibitions

 she saw with me through photos and bought back flyers and catalogs. 

So these pages are about Picasso and Paris as an armchair traveler.

As I was making my way through the piles of above mentioned stuff

 I came across some fashion mags. 

They have fabulous fonts and great imagery

 but I was a bit upset at the extravagance

 of it all and this page became a bit of a rant. 

I saw all of these shoes and shoes and shoes

 and knew I had a fabulous big die cut 

somewhere so they formed the basis of my last pages. 

However I was shocked at the ridiculousness of it all

the prices!

and where could you even wear them?

So many ways in my opinion that could better use those dollars. 

I should also say I own very few shoes 

and the most expensive are my well worn,

 paint splattered  redback work boots. 

Colleen's Journal THINGS WITH WINGS

This was my first ever experience of a Journal swap & I enjoyed it very much. It is also the very first journal I had ever made & I was a bit unsure what to do.

I made a cover out of cardboard & covered it with a piece of fabric that I adored. The inside had a loose page for my bits, & 2 signatures tied in with ribbon.

The inside cover had a small pocket to hold some tags that I had made for everyone & I used a gelli print to create the frog with wings & lots of other winged creatures.

The other side of the Gelli print has the contract & list of participants. The 1st page of signature1 I used a print of some butterflies over a painted background.

Then I did a very colourful spread

of an angel & a mouse who was learning to fly. Then I posted it all off to Joanna.

Joanna did a lovely spread with lots of texture paste over her background  & some beautiful butterflies.

On to Joan who did a gorgeous spread of a delightful little girl flying a kite, plus more kites on a pastel background.

Lisa's had a large flap to contend with. She did an amazing drawing of Peter Pan & on the top of the flap beautiful leaves. When the flap opened there was a fairy in all the leaves.

Lesley did an amazing 3 page spread in Dyan Reavely style. She added the wavy pages into the middle of her spread. Such a lot of work & absolutely stunning.

 Jan Mullane did  a gorgeous spread of birds on wires, just like they do everywhere.

Pam's spread was adorable & she included a chook which delighted me ever so much.

The next 2 pages were mine in the back of the book.

Jan, Joan, Pam & Lisa did the above tags, which I will treasure. I will also treasure this journal. I am so lucky to have had this opportunity & I thank you all ( Joanna, Joan, Lisa, Lesley, Jan & Pam ) for your contributions to it

MY SPREAD IN JENNY's GRIMMS FAIRY TALES

I chose THE SEVEN RAVENS and started with gesso on the background. I added Pixie Powders while the gesso was still wet. I used Midnight Sky and Sun Yellow which is more gold than yellow. I activated the powders with diluted PVA glue and also created some drippage with spayed water.
Here is a close up of the background.

I searched for some pictures to use and also printed out the story to get some inspiration. I also knew that I had a picture of a Raven saved so that is where I started. I cut out 7 ravens and didn't think to reverse some of them. The sun, moon, and morning star (Venus) feature in the Tale so I searched for pictures of them also. The girl in the tale goes to search for her brothers who have been turned into the ravens so I needed a girl. I finally found her courtesy of The Graphics Fairy. The raven is also from there. So I decided on the layout and proceeded to collage the elements. I also decided to add the printed story and I made a cover/folder for that. I printed out the title and clipped it to the page with a heart paper clip. Here it is...

I drew the sun and added yellow tissue paper and gold marker to it.

I also did some shading around the ravens,etc.

I edged the page with gold metallic marker

HOPE YOU LIKE IT JENNY!!

 This is a close up of the cover for the story...it is painted paper that I had on hand.