Colleen's page in Janie's Exotic journal

Janie's Exotic Journal is full of lusciousness from those that worked in it before me.

I wasn't sure what to do, except that I knew I wanted to use tropical flowers.

I started with a painted & stencilled background

& lots of cut out flowers. I temporarily arranged the flowers around the edges & then thought

what will I put in the middle. I searched google for something & came across these gorgeous birds.

I now had a very large pile of cutouts to glue on.

Then I glued them all down, did some outlining & highlights & it was done.

I really like what I ended up with & hope you like it too Janie.

Gypsy in a Sunflower Garden

An art journal page for Louise in her book "Gypsy"

Life of a gypsy has always appealed to me... living in a gorgeous wagon drawn by a huge, friendly Clydesdale horse, with beautiful surroundings and a peaceful lifestyle - nothing but painting, drawing, crochet, embroidery, colouring and reading. A world of happy, friendly animals and wildlife. Of course my cats wouldn't hurt a fly so they're able to hang out with me in the sunflower garden (birds, frogs and lizards feeling totally safe of course! lol).

I started the page by painting a Dylusional Rainbow. I used a Ranger Ink Blending Tool and at first, painted strips of colour across the page but got quickly tired of the long lines. Dabbing made the colours appear to blend (they just overlap) and was easier to fix when I went overboard.
Amazingly enough, I didn't make a huge mess on the backs of the pages (phew!).

The pic to the right is just to show what the ink blending tools look like. They're wooden handles with Velcro to hold the found pieces of dense foam. Washable and reusable :)
I use them just like I use sea sponges - dabbing, smooshing, blending, spotting, dusting, swirling, whatever the hand and paint want to do. I used to also use those house painter's foam rectangles till I discovered the world of Ranger! They were more furry than foam... meant for fast, drip free wall painting.

I used a variety of stencils... most of the designs were lace, flourish and flower related.

Its usually recommended that less is more when using paint with stencils. Too much paint and it can leak underneath the plastic, giving you a less than perfect design.

Above shows how heavy handed I am with paint! lol :) If you saw a closeup of someone else's artwork, you'd see even coats of paint without those edges, borders, bumps and messes.

An overview of the background as its drying. See? Much nicer than my spotty rainbow :) Love the colours!

Inbetween the different layers of the background were drying, I stamped, coloured and cut out my collage pieces. I was itching to use Dyan Reaveley's gorgeous new stamp set of me with my fave flower, I mean of "Sunshine Girl".

I've never felt so attached to someone else's design before :D She's just like me! lol :) I wear shift dresses over leggings and long sleeved shirts, short boots (always wanted red ones), have a beanie that is just like that hat (Mum made it years ago - she called it my Wee Willie Winkie Hat) and I have purple hair (used to be curly and have always loved ringlets). Naturally purple of course :)

So anyway, as usual these days, I reached for those Mermaid Markers of Jane Davenport's. My greens and yellows are running out too! Lucky I know where I can get more :)

The gorgeous dark brown in the centre of the flower is made up of yellow, green, brown and black.
With white spots made using a paint pen.
The petals are the two yellows with a hint of pink and brown for the shadows.
I cut the flower out with scissors and inked the edges with the lime green marker after gluing it together.

I used Google for help on how a wagon should look, making my own a mix of all I saw that had wooden spoked wheels and fillagrees. I like wooden wheels. Many modern wagons I found had car tyres that while practical, are simply not beautiful.

Sometimes things look so much better after they're cut out...
Do you ever find it can take ages to finally decide where everything should sit?

Ink now, worry later! lol :) I find if I fluff about too much with pencil before I put the ink down, I have too many eraser marks on the artwork.
I practiced in my Dyary first (its such nice drawing paper), then used a bit of scrap with the quote scribbled down, as a guide for the size and keeping it straight (ish). Sorry about the 'O' Louise, if I tried to fix it, I would have totally wrecked the whole thing!

The lettering is from an old book I've had since I was in high school "The Lettering Book" by Noelene Morris (top right, its a bit tired). I flicked through a few and settled on an old favourite Noelene called "Mod Ombre".

"She dances to the songs in her head 

and the rhythm of her heart."

The actual quote I found said "She dances to the songs in her head, speaks with the rhythm of her heart, and loves from the depth of her soul." By the time I got to "head", it was clear I was going to run out of space.

Above is my finished page... best viewed large :) The cats seem right at home and my gypsy looks pretty relaxed.
Looking at it now (everyone's a critic), I feel it could do with some tiny flowers, leaves and fallen petals all along the ground, maybe a mouse, bird, lizard, frog, bug... it goes on doesn't it? Those ideas in the head just don't stop. Its up to you now Louise, as its already left here :)

I'm happy with how it turned out and thoroughly enjoyed the whole process, from looking up variations of gypsy wagons to washing my stencils and stamps. Every part of creating an artwork is a wonderful thing... how it turns out is such a fabulous bonus!

Thanks so much for reading about my page for Louise. I hope it made you smile!

Have a happy creative day!
:)
Jenny

Lisa doing some Stuff and Nonsense in Jenny's Journal!

Lots of interesting and fun things in this journal of Jenny's!

I opted for a Spike Milligan poem that I found; I think it fits the bill of Stuff and Nonsense!  No progress pics, but here are bits and pieces of the finished spread.  It's a long journal!

So here's the poem:

A lion is fierce
His teeth can pierce
The skin of a postman's knee.

It serves him right
That, because of his bite,
He gets no letters you see.













And here's my postman running from the scene!  I opted for no blood.  😁  For the stamps, I went to good old Google images, found African stamps, and printed them, very small, on my trusty colour printer at work.

And here's my lion.  This spread is all in acrylics, mostly Dylusions, with some water activated pencil to add a bit of oomph.

And here's the whole spread!  Hope you like it Jenny, I had fun coming up with something like this!  

Cheers, Lisa xx

Janie's Words of Wisdom In Pam's journal, for July 2018

This month there's not a series of photos depicting the development of my collage. My camera is on the blink and did not save any preceding shots. My collage, however,  produced in my normal manner. I first chose the words of wisdom about curiosity which I'll repeat here, as it may be difficult to read them from my spread Note, the top quote is across the top of the page but missing in this shot: 

"A sense of curiosity is nature's original school of education"…Smiley Blanton 

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality"… John Locke

Tea Party with Pam

This is my version of The Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Deb's  The Magic of Alice AJ6 journal.  Once again it was back to my resource centre (Children's Section at local library.)  I didn't want to go Disney and this was the book I borrowed was the only classic illustrated book they had.

My first step was to draw my characters and fit them onto the page.

I did a watercolour background and then started to paint my party guests.  At this stage the table was bare.

I collaged some whimsical trees in the background punched out from a gelli print.  Also collaged a tablecloth and added some tea cups and cake s. I embossed a clock for the March Hare because he is always late and added a flamingo to add to the fun.

All that was then left to do was some outlining and of course add the price tag to the Mad Hatter's hat.  

I hope you like it Deb and that it adds to your art journal and the joy it will bring you.

My spread in Jenny's Stuff and Nonsense Journal

This is the background using random bits of paper. I went over it with a pearl metallic wax as I thought I was going to do a Steampunk theme!! That is also why I went with the darker colours.
Not to be....I started looking through some National Geographic Magazines and found some images that fit the page and colour scheme. I started with Leonardo and just kept on going. I really enjoyed doing this spread and hope you like it Jenny.

This is the left hand page

This is the right hand page

My spread in Colleen's Napkin Journal

I started with the rooster napkin after doing a collaged background with Gesso over the top. I had a great time trying to pull it all together. I used pieces of 2 other napkins and added some fabric and fibers and some inking. Hope you like it Colleen.

Klimpt Napkins.

Colleens very lovely handmade journal arrived this month and had me stumped. 

Paper napkins....

What to do. Most of the napkins I have had already made an appearance in Collens journal and collage is not at all my forte.

I found the Klimpt one and was inspired to create my own Klimpt-ish spread and one of my favourite paintings ever is his Tree of Life.

I added 'the kiss' napkin in place of one of the figures in the Tree of Life and played. Fancy me doing a tree. 

Annabelles Egyptian Art Journal

These are the pages I did in Annabelle Reids journal I decided to do a interactive project I made a Mummy for the sarcophagus by winding fabric around a cardboard shape I added goggley eyes to give him a bit of character I also made some project sheets and games for you to do with your children I enjoyed doing you journal hope you like it Hugs Robyn Osborn xx

Art Nouveau- Deb's June entry. Round 6- Feeling Thankful

Its always good to be challenged and this subject matter challenged me. Research was done and I was no closer to discovering what I wanted to create. So I procrastinated by perusing Pinterest..one of my favourite procrastinating past times and found some lovely art...that was not Art Nouveau! Eventually I worked out elements that I liked about this art like outlines, stained glass and flowing plant like structures. Obviously , my piece is a very broad interpretation of this theme but I hope you still enjoy it Roz.
I started with cutting two die-cuts from a die that reminded me of stained glass in black. I adhered this to some double sided adhesive paper. the adhesive that was exposed in between the die cut, i covered in a green sparkle micro fine glitter. I burnished the piece with my fingers and removed the excess. (I have previously produced a You tube video where I made a card using this technique).

Stained glass like panels.

Using my water colours, I then applied several layers of various greens across the centre of the pages, dried and reapplied until I was happy with the colours.

I then finished up with Stamping some faint textures on the background and some Skeleton leaves and sentiment from a Concord and 9th stamp set that included a positive affirmation about Feeling Thankful. I coloured some of the sections of the leaves in with my markers to add some interest. I then adhered my panels to the outer edges of the pages and flicked some distress inks and gold across the page to finish off. It's simple but I am pleased with it. I hope you are too, Roz.

The Magic Of Alice

Deborah you have a lovely journal & I enjoyed doing this page very much. I actually had no collage pieces I could use for this one (Pam) so I downloaded some colouring in pages.

I started with an inked & stamped background, using distress inks for most of it, then splashed on some water for the textured look.

I coloured my images & arranged them on the path to make it look like Alice was following the Rabbit. I have always loved that sign  & the images were perfect for it as they are both looking at it with confused expressions.

A little more stamping of flowers & it was done.

Hope you like it Deborah