Lisa Playing in Sharon's Vintage Circus Journal!

I was very excited to see Sharon's theme of Vintage Circus, because I knew instantly what I would do in it!  As I was fifth in line to work in this journal, I waited with bated breath each month to see what the other ladies would do for their page.  Please please please don't pinch my idea!

Anyhoo, my time came and I was able to do what I had planned - a spread based on the movie The Greatest Showman!  I loved this movie; the costumes, the music, the choreography. 💗  If you haven't seen it I can't recommend it enough!  When I was young, we lived in the USA for a few years with my dad's work, and were lucky enough to see a show of Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus.  An amazing spectacle!

So, back to the page.  Sharon's journal is a ring binder, so you can take individual pages out to work on them.  This means no mess on anyone else's page! It also means that you can work on both the front and back of the page, so two double spreads.

On one side, I wrote down some of the lyrics to the wonderful song from the movie "This is me!"  

Great lyrics, and really powerfully sung by Keala Settle, who played the bearded lady.

It's probably no surprise to anyone that I added the lyrics, as my own journal theme is Music & Lyrics, and I always have a song in my head....! 😊

On the other side of this page I drew Zendaya, who played trapeze artist Anne Wheeler in the movie.  While I don't mind how she turned out, her face colour was all wrong and I just couldn't get it right. Sorry Sharon! 😔

On the other side of the page, I bit off a bit more than I should have, by deciding to do the main scene from the movie, where all of the cast members are posing in the circus ring.  There were just too many peeps to draw and then paint!  I probably only did half of them, but I felt that it was enough in the end!       Here's a taste of it.

And here's the whole spread!

I realised after I took these pics that I have yet to colour in the words on this page.  I'll do that before I send it on to Louise, but didn't want to wait to take pics again as I like to take them outside.  These pages were all done with AP watercolours, Gansai Tambi Starry Colors metallic watercolours, and Perfect Pearls.

Hope you like it Sharon!

Cheers, Lisa xx

Music and Lyrics by Annabelle

wow what a challenge...I had so many songs going round in my head for days. I found it impossible to choose just one, so the names went in to a bowl and picked one without looking.

I went through my stash looking for inspiration. I found a few pictures so I decided to do a collage

I stuck the first pic down and added paint to start the background

For some unknown reason to me this picture is upside down

Anyway I continued to add collage and paint until I thought it was done. I then moved on to the page flap, where I put the lyrics. Thanks Lisa for a great theme and journal to work in.

For July, I tackled Colleen's Paper Napkin Journal and selected an oriental theme, cheers Janie.

I chose a selection of oriental napkins to use

painted the double spread background black 

firstly, the thin top layer was pasted to white copy paper, as it was being stuck on a black background. Then the elements of the napkins were cut out for positioning on the page.

commenced pasting down the elements

final pasting completed

finally, to tie composition together I sprayed all over with a gold metallic spray

Exotic!! by Pam.

I spent some time pondering whatever I could contribute to Janie's Exotic Art Journal.  I had no idea and time was ticking so I just began and played around.  My thought turned to exotic dancers, to flashy birds, wonderful flowers, too many thoughts really.

So I just began a background.  I stuck down tissue paper, and then used some Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays in greens and browns.

Then I thought about leaves.  I had some painted papers that resulted from cleaning off my brayer when gelli printing so I stencilled over them with paint and cut out some leaves I searched through my paper napkins for exotics and found some lovely flowers and butterflies.  I then had a little tryout after I did some stamping with some home made stamps.

Janie's journal is an A4 landscape layout and I found it difficult to fit into my limited work space.  After pasting all my elements down.  I outlined them and then stencilled some dots in the red paint to tone in with the rest.

Here are some close ups from around the spread.  I hope it fulfills Janie's requirements. 

That's all Stuff and Nonsense.

Jenny has created a really lovely journal with a landscape layout around an A4 size so you get a fabulous big area of lovely thick paper to play in.

The theme is 'Stuff and Nonsense' and our fellow artists are doing gorgeous pages, as you can imagine they are really varied with such a broad theme.

I started my pages by just playing with all of my stuff in a nonsensical way. I had no idea where I was going I was just having fun. 

In the play process the lyrics for this old song by Split Enz started playing in my head. I actually know it more from a Missy Higgins album though. 

I do value and love using words in my art journals so the lyrics pulled my page together. 

Colleen's page in Louise's Gypsy Journal

Louise your journal is just devine. So much work & love went into it. This subject of Gypsies had me stumped, but after looking at a lot of images on the net, I chose two & printed them out. One was a black & white gypsy & the other a very colourful wagon.

I glued them onto the pages & added the flesh tone to her skin & a bit of colouring on the wagon as I figured out what to do next.

I wanted to widen the scene around that little bit of water. I had received a napkin in a recent swap & thought it would be perfect for a background. I tore it up & covered the rest of the pages completely with napkins. It looked a bit wishy washy, so I started to add colour to all the scenery. I did something I've never done before. I used distress ink refills to add the colour.

It looked better with the brighter colours

I added flowers & grasses & also used some distress crayons & tombows to some areas. Also rubbed some white paint over the water & sky.

I added words & outlining & thought it was finished , but then I noticed I had left out the wheel from the other side. 

I added the wheel & then thought I don't like her cheek. Then the pain & heartache of ruining a page set in. I stuffed up her face big time & I could not fix it. 3 hours later I decided to reprint it & glue a new face on. I ever so carefully added colour to it.

I really like what I created. Hope you like it too Louise.

Dreams and Fantasy- Debs Entry in Robyn Osbourn's Journal

In true Alice in wonderland style..I'm late.
This entry was inspired because I love to day dream. Daydream about the art I can make out of recycled materials, about the welding course I will one day do so I can join all sorts of junk together to make art, to the successful business I will have selling all my crazy art and the people who are inspired by my work and want to come and create craziness along side me in the wonderful studio and gallery I will build near a beach... Ah dreams.
So for this entry I dreamed in living colour. I used alcohol inks on Yuppo paper and played while it was wet. These are some of my favourite colours to play with.once finished I  applied Rose Gold foil to it it random abstract slashes across the paper.

I then cut it down to fit Robyn's' Journal and stuck it in. I used a chipboard sentiment from Dusty Attic that says "dream with your eyes wide open". Its pretty fitting for me really. 

Now, to look at in daytime, the chipboard sentiment looks pretty boring, it just has a tinge of green. But if you turns the lights off the sentiment glows in the dark! This is to represent me being unable to my brain off at night, that even though all the background colour and distractions fade, at night my attention can sometimes be so focused on an idea or task I am completing, that its hard to turn off and rest.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my entry and explanation in your journal Robyn. Have a great day everyone!

Deb

2 Pages in Sharon's Vintage Circus

My first page is a Digi that I did using elements from The Graphics Fairy and some gadgets in Photoshop. Here it is :

My 2nd page is here:

Once again I used images from The Graphics Fairy. I used Distress Stain for the background and splattered some water droplets on it to add some texture. I also added a metallic distress stain and used a stencil to create some patterning. I stained the fabric with tea dye distress ink and also added the stenciling on the side panels. The top panel was already striped and I tea stained it as well. I stitched the buttons on so that they would stay there.  I also used some black to create a ground for the images and added some outlining to them.
Hope you like what I have done Sharon!!

AAJS6: Sharon's pages in Louise's "Gypsy" Journal

Hi Everyone!

 

 

Today I am sharing my journal spread in Louise's "Gypsy" themed journal.

 

 

I started by adding some texture to the background pages. I used gel medium to add tissue paper to both pages.

 

 

Once the dry I covered both pages with black gesso - such disgusting stuff to use - it seems to get everywhere LOL!!

 

Once the gesso dried I used several metallic coloured ink sprays to cover the pages.

 

I printed out all the collage elements and fussy cut - always a time consuming job but always worth the effort!

 

 

Finished pages with all the elements glued down and lettering added along with a few gems for added sparkle! I like the effect of the black background and curtains!

 

 

A great theme - hope Louise loves the pages!

 

Sharon

 



Robyn's Magic Of Alice

My Page in Deborah's Magic Of Alice Journal .

Hope you enjoy having tea with the white rabbit xxxx