Walk like an Egyptian

my journal is finished and ready to go

I had a few issues getting the rest of the photos on the blog...it dose not like my iPad ah well you will just have to wait until you get it ....a surprise is good

Invitation to Dreams Fantasys

This is very new to me I haven't blogged before Thank You Louise for talking me through it . As a little girl I always wanted to be a princess and wear beautiful dresses I never got my dream so my first page witch I will try and add later, I made my dream come true I cant wait to start I love so much learning from you very talented ladies Thank you Hugs Robyn xx

Round 6. Words of Wisdom. by Pam.

Finally finished my art journal.It was a hard slog but I got there in time. I started with my sheets of stonehenge paper which I tore into quarters and then folded in half to give me a journal approx A4 size. It has two signatures and a cover that wraps around.

I painted some colours over the cover and then stencilled over with white paint.

I then added some black paint through a stencil.

I chose to use the middle spread because there was a gap between my signatures. I painted, reverse stencilled, stencilled and stamped and generally made a messy background with colours that pleased me.

I stencilled my yoga pose with black paint and then stencilled over with white, cut her out and stuck her down.

Opposite page is my quote which reads: If you only have one smile in you, give it to the people you love. 

 Maya Angelou.

This is how the whole spread looks.

On the page next to the inside cover where my contract is attached, I made a flower from tissue paper on a sprayed background with a lovely quote: If the bees only collected nectar from perfect flowers, they wouldn't be able to make even a smallest drop of honey.

 Matshona Dhliwayo.

 

 And next a title for my cover.

At the back of my journal I have included a series of speech bubbles for my guests to say a few words if they choose to about their spread and when they worked in my art journal.

And lastly could I please remind everybody to clearly sign and date their work.

Janie O'Brien's round 6 - Exotic Journal

The first thing I do is spend hours on the internet searching for images that please me and are suitable for my theme "Exotic." I end up with many, many images and finally make a selection of the ones I'll print. I may print as many as 10-20 pages pages, then fussy cut out each individual element. By the time I have completed this I have also created by background below. In this case using gold paint, Japanese stencil with touches of black metallic spray. I then play with the individual collage elements until I have selected those that please me together and will use in my composition.

Background

My finished piece, with all selected elements glued down

This is the second page I created for my theme, Exotic, created in similar fashion to page one. Does anyone recognise the b&w shot of the handsome gent in the middle. It's Rudolph Valentio, the heartthrob of pre-talkie movies 1895-1926.

AASG ROUND 6 JOURNAL BY COLLEEN

My theme for this round is

PAPER NAPKIN ART.

I made my journal cover with 2 manilla folders joined, so I could have a large cover flap. I covered the outside with a gorgeous green floral print napkin, & the inside with a napkin covered in birds. I edged it all with a black patterned washi tape, which I machine stitched on. I made a large pocket for the front, & a diagonal pocket for the back flap with a pretty floral print. They were both machine stitched on as well. The front has a large decorative floral piece on top & the back, has a smaller floral piece on it. Before I added the pages I covered the whole thing with a liberal coating of PVA, so it sort of has a vinyl look & feel. It has 4 signatures of 300gsm mixed media paper.

For my Title page I put a coat of titan buff on it, then covered it with one of the spare layers of napkin to give some texture, then I tore pieces of blue napkin & floral bits, & added them from the top down. I cut the title out on my cricut in black card & glued over the picture, lastly I outlined some of the images with a black paint pen & edged the page with black paint.

For my main page I once again painted a base of titan buff. I layered flowers, butterflys & birds, as well as a border.

I sponged blue distress ink in the bare areas at the top, & proceeded to add more elements. The distress ink just smudged wherever I put glue, so I just mucked it all up to look like a cloudy sky. More butterflys & leaves & torn up text. 

I outlined again with a black pen & edged with black paint. I wondered whether to do any stamping, but decided to leave it as it is.

For the inside back page I had this cool shirt napkin I wanted to use. I made a geometric quilted look background & covered with the shirt & a few floral images.

I made all of this with just manilla folders, glue, napkins, black paint & a few paint pens. Plus some washi tape & machine stitching & the thread used to add the pages. So happy with it.

My Silhouette Journal Returned home

Thanks Everyone!!

My Journal Recap - Homage to Art!

I was so happy to get my Round 4 Journal home last weekend, compliments of Joan!  We're so lucky that we both live in Melbourne (well I do, Joan is a bit further south!) and get together with the Art Mesaj Group once a month on a Sunday to mess around in art journals.  Any other Melbournians are welcome to join us!

Anyhoo, back to my journal.  It's about A5 size, and my instructions read "This journal is about admiring other people's art and wanting to try and emulate it yourself.  Imitation is known as the most sincere form of flattery, and so long as you credit the original artist, it's a wonderful homage to their art!"

My front cover is in the style of Roben-Marie Smith , a wonderful mixed-media artist.  Roben also has a great Facebook group called Claim Your Happy that you should definitely check out.

My inside cover comprises my contract, some texture-paste flowers in the style of  Toni Burt - I adore her gorgeous faces with flowers, and my title page a lá Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  Julie introduced me to art journalling about 4 years ago, and I love her use of bold colours, stamps and stencils.  

My first entry was from Jan, and is based on the gorgeous metallic art of Gustav Klimt , coupled with the flowing trees and backgrounds of Sue Davis.  I love the colours and composition!

Next page in my journal is by Lesley and features the iconic Banksy. Thought provoking, modern street art that is amazing!  Lesley's page is grungy with heaps of Banksy stamps, and I love it!

Next up is Pam's entry, based on the healing art of Bebe Butler and the backgrounds of Traci Bunkers.  Gorgeous colours and textures here, and Pam added a lovely paper flower too.

Next is my entry - my take on Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.  I've admired his work for a long time; such passion in the brush strokes!  I also discovered that Vincent wrote to his brother Theo often, and the letters are beautifully written.  Definitely worth checking out!

The we have Colleen's bright page paying homage to Dyan Reavely.  Dyan's art is fresh and quirky and her Dylusions products amazing!  I particularly love the Dylusions journals and paints, but have yet to try the sprays!  Colleen's page is just delightful. 

Joan chose Ken Done as her inspiration.  His Australian art is bright and certainly iconic!  Joan has done two different pieces; the one on the left is called Collection, but not sure of the gorgeous parrot on the right.  Love the colours Joan!

And that was the extent of my guest journalists since Joanna didn't get a chance to do a page!  At the back of the journal is my sign in page, based on a Rothko print.  His simple colour blocks really appeal to me.  Next to that are my doodles based on Cherie Bitanga's gorgeous art doodles.  Cherie used to contribute to the 52 Week Illustration Facebook Challenge that I was part of, before she became famous. 😀  The quote is by Adam J Kurtz, who I follow on Instagram.  His posts are funny and real, and well, just  make you feel better.  💗

My journal also has a flap that goes over the front cover.  The front part is heaps of flowers done in the style of Alisa Burke.  Alisa does beautiful vibrant art with a lot of flowers.  The inside flap is a girl done Penny Stamper style.  Penny Stamper is Angela Kennedy, and she draws beautiful but often sad girls that I love!

 


My rear cover is based on a Dina Wakley silhouette.  Her art is messy and colourful and I love it!  I have Dina's book Art Journal Courage which is fab.

And that's my journal!  Thanks so much to all the lovelies that contributed to it - and next week it goes off to Jenny so she can add something too!

Looking forward to the next round!   💜💛

Gypsy is ready to roll

I, like quite a few of us took a while to find my mojo and create my journal for round 6, but once I did it was so much fun.

My theme is Gypsy.

To me this word brings so many images to mind but the beautiful horse drawn gypsy caravan and a fortune teller were the strongest.

I used my favourite Stonehenge paper and bound with leather.  My pages are created with inktense pencils, acrylic paint, serviette, lace and scrap book paper.

Im ready to hitch up the horses and send it travelling and watch it gather beauty here on our blog. 

The Chaos Within - Be Yourself for Annabelle

Version no.1 ... with a Dylusions portrait from the colouring sheets.

This was the hardest page I've done so far... mainly because it is mean to be about Me. I struggled with what to create, what to add, what not to include. How to fill the page with Me. A few scribbles later I decided to attempt to describe the inner workings of my mind! lol :) It was going to include a flipped side ... a face one side, the chaos within.

But it was soon finished! Thank goodness :) If Annabelle looks carefully on the back of my page (behind the coffee), she'll see a scruffy erased version of my face. By the time the chaos had been finished, I'd had enough of doing me and it didn't get painted. Sometimes enough is enough, especially when its about me! lol :)

And now, the process begins...

A big white page... overwhelming at first but then I had an idea. As it turned out, it was quite a good idea! lol :) Stamping along the whole of the bottom edge with one of the Darkroom Door Border Stamps, Art Studio, with Archival Ink in Potting Soil (icky brown but its going in the background so didn't matter).

Next was stamping a few of my favourite background stamps everywhere in Archival Ink (Potting Soil and Jet Black). The stamps used were Tim Holtz Halftones and Rings :)

Did you know you don't need to buy separate stamps to create smaller versions of itself? Here I've inked up a section of a Darkroom Door Background Stamp, Polka Dots, with Archival Ink (Black Marble by Dylusions... similar to AI Jet Black but in a mini sized inkpad).

It gives a great rugged look to the background imprint, rather than rectangles with straight edges. Background stamps are fantastic for adding a bit of blah blah blah onto a page... its amazing how that above image gave me direction on how to continue with the page!

fyi... all Background Stamps by Darkroom Door are also available in a smaller version called Texture Stamps. They're exactly the same size design but cut smaller with a rugged edge (instead of the rectangle).

Dylusions Ink Sprays... little bottles of gorgeous inky colours! Tim's Spray Stains are also gorgeous... they both are :) The main difference is that Tim's sets once dry and Dyan's is always able to be altered with water or other inks (for lifting colour, etc). For the background above I used Dylusions Lemon Zest, Pure Sunshine and Vibrant Turquoise, then left it to dry in the 40C summer sun... only took 5 minutes!

I don't use aprons but after spraying the card for the sign (maybe I'm an artist etc), I had kitchen paper in rainbows of colour. The top card is Lemon Zest and spritz of Postbox Red, the card underneath is Pomegranate and London Blue.

In the pic above, I've added the birds, cat, washi, flowers, leaves and Tim Holtz Alpha Tiles (they're white on clear plastic, I've glued brown packaging underneath). The page was starting to fill up at this point and I started to get stuck.

Of course I did a bit of colouring (yes, Mermaid Markers again! lol). I do love to colour in! I've left the birds and cat black and white... even after it was all finished I was thinking the birds might like little red boots, but I didn't :) I've always loved black and white with a splash of colour.

In case anyone is wondering what rubber stamps I used ... Tim Holtz's Haunted House set with Dyan Reaveley's Anatomy of a Page, Everything's Rosy and Flight of Fancy. Just a few of my favourite things! That washi tape is Dylusions too, and the cute little sausage dog is from a set of animal Dy-Cuts.

Above is the page so far... yes, its taking ages to write about it too! I spent a couple of weeks agonising over what to do, then 1 day with the inks and another up to this point. This is when I got stuck! lol

So I added my favourite frog - Tutu Toad from Stampendous... isn't she adorable? Just like me (totally, lol), a well balanced, coordinated prima ballerina! I love frogs, toads and tadpoles... they're beautiful creatures.

I've stamped her onto the inked page, and then using a brush, water and kitchen paper, gently dabbed off the ink. It didn't take all the colour away but enough that I could add blue (London Blue, direct from the bottle with a brush) and let it turn green on its own. The tutu is Funky Fuchsia and London Blue. After she dried, I added a smidge of glitter to her shoes and crown. And also her tutu, dotting it everywhere!

I attempted to do the coffee mug (Tim Holtz Brewed Blueprint) in the same way but the green was too dark and only lifted a little bit... made a great shadow for the blueprint bits and pieces though.

I'm pretty pleased with the coffee, mug and flowers :) All coloured with Dylusions Ink Sprays and Mermaid Markers. mmmmm... coffeee! I can smell it from here :)

Version no.2 ... with a VW Beetle stamp from Darkroom Door

And now it is finished. Finally! It seemed to take a long time but I think that was because it was supposed to be about me. The VW is more me than a pic of a Dylusions girl... even if the saying was perfectly me : My head has too many tabs open! I had an accident, one of many in the creation of this page. So the girl pic got peeled off and a groovy car put in its place. The marvellous thing about art is that there are no mistakes (even if I can see hundreds! lol)... anything blotchy or torn or crooked or smudged is meant to be just as it is.

Thank you so much Annabelle, for this insightful journey into my soul... an adventure that I'm glad is over.
I made Roz's ATCs shortly after finishing this... you can see why I was so limited in my colour choices for the beach scene. lol :)

There are a few parts of this page I'm really pleased with... the greeny yellow background, the frog and a few other bits - and the coffee mug is exactly the same as mine but different! lol :D

Thanks everyone for reading this far and checking out my artwork. I hope it makes you smile :)

Have a happy creative day!
xx
Jenny