Joans page in Jan's Journal "Favourites"

Jan's journal with the theme of " Favourite" is another lovely small journal.  It already has some gorgeous layouts created in it.  I was going away for a three day crafting weekend and this was one of the things I took with me to do.   I had planned to do heaps of things but actually did not finish one thing.

I started off thinking that I would fulfill the theme  by using my favourite inks and other media and would find a phrase to suit.  However my crafting muse was no where to be found that weekend and after gessoing over the background twice, because I did not like what I had done.  I finally settled on a pale pink background created using distress oxides.  I did no more to it that weekend.

Picking it up some time later in week at home, I was still not sure where I was going with it, so I added to background with some stencils and background stamps.   I then stenciled, drew and painted some flowers and grass along the bottom.  I then decided that some of the flowers needed to be raised so I used clear texture paste to paint on top of some of the flowers.  I still had no idea where I was going, so I thought I would approach it from another direction and find a quote that had something to do with favourites.  I started flipping through some books that were on my table, one of which was an older copy of Winnie the Pooh, which I have used in collage etc, so not much of it left and about two pages in I came across the phrase on the left page,  and a few pages down, the quote on the right page.

Now most of you know that I cannot draw to save myself, but the drawings in this little book were so simple, I thought that I could perhaps copy them.  Now to find a place for Pooh to sit amongst the grass.  I squeezed him in somewhat on top of a couple of flowers and drew Piglet further up the page.
Although no masterpieces, I was pleased with the drawings for me.  I then wrote the quotes by hand in pencil and went over them in gel pen.

After all that it was a very simple page in the end.  I hope Jan will see past the bad drawing and will know that I tried my best.

Joan's page in Pam's "Teesha Moore style" journal

Pam's journal is a lovely almost square journal made from good quality watercolour paper.  It already has some great pages done by Pam and the other artists participating in Round 3 of the circle/travelling journal event.

Pam has chosen the theme of "Teesha Moore Inspired".  When I first got it last month and I was talking to Lisa Jones, I flippantly said to her, that it was my worse nightmare to have to do a layout in this style.  Don't get me wrong, I like Teesha's art journal pages, and have since she first started using Zettiology in her art. It is just that it is not my "goto at anytime" style.   I read the information that Pam included on Zettiology and oohed and aahed over the layouts already in the journal, but I was still not feeling it.  Now I know I could have gone to Pinterest or the web and downloaded some digital sheets to do the layouts but in my mind that is cheating and taking the easy way out and besides I did not want to be unduly influenced by the the examples.

I started by going through magazines and pulling out pages with colourful backgrounds to be cut into strips to make the borders around the two and half pages. Pam's journal has flaps on every other page and the next blank page had the flap. I cut up about five different pages with some repeating colours.
Then I flipped through the magazines to find some interesting faces, legs, arms,and clothes that could be used for putting together some weird creatures. I also remembered I had some great wrapping paper that I have shared with a few of you in the group early in the year that had lots of doodling and colour and some animals, so I got the sheet and cut out some bits and pieces from there.

I still had no idea of what I was going to do, but I put some gesso, followed by dylusions paints in  various colours down on the page.  It was a mistake putting different colours, I should have used only one colour on each page, but I did not realise this till after I had started to collage and by then it was too late to change it. I then stenciled using stencils from Mike Deakin and Tim Hotze and white and gold paint. Anyway now as forecasted the nightmare began.  I must have had about twenty bodies and heads and loose limbs on the table by now and (A) I still had no idea how to begin, and (B) I constantly kept losing the cutout I was looking for on my crowded untidy table and everytime I could not find a piece, I had to turn it upside down even further.  After two hours I had managed to stick a border using the pieces around two sides of all the pages.  Did I like it, was I happy with it?
No, but it was a start.  Five days and nights later, after changing my mind a few times, I actually ended up with most of the pages done.  Now came the second part of the nightmare, I hate my writing and I had to actually write on the pages.  For this I apologise to Pam in advance.  I should have just left the pages with no phrases it would have been better. Unfortunately once I wrote with a black posca pen, it was too late to change it.  I tried going over it a few times with alternating between white and black paint, but I just made it considerable worse, so again I am sorry for the terrible job Pam.  You can always paint over the top when you get it home.  Anyway I managed to invoke my inner Teesha Moore, but maybe it would have been better if she stayed hidden. LOL.
 

My Aphorisms Journal is home to me

My round 3 Aphorisms journal is home to me. 

Thank you to all you wonderful artists for helping fill my little journal....I love it !!!!

 Thank you Louise for hosting the swap. xox..

Thank you all!!

Joan's page in Robyn's  "Travel Journal"

Robyn's journal is a lovely journal constructed of textured art paper, some pages with fold overs.  The previous entries to mine were all beautiful and very colourful.

Robyn requested that everyone do a page about a country.   I decided to do a page about the country of my birth "Ireland" or "Eire" as it is known by those of us natives.  First of all I painted the page with gesso, then painted the colours of the flag, green, white and gold diagonally across the two pages.  I had some difficulty with this page, as I was not sure what I really wanted to  use to depict my country.

Unlike a lot of the other artists participating in the circle journal I cannot draw.  However I did not want to just rely on collarge on the page, so I draw a simple traditional Celtic stone cross, {found on most country cross roads } the best I could.  As I did not want to wreak the page if it did not work out, I drew it on a piece of tissue rescued from a shoe box and then use gel medium to glue it to the page.  As the paint I used were dylusions, the paint reacted with the gel medium and sort of coloured the drawing which help it to meld into the page. 

I was not really happy with the gold (orange) on the page, so I put some orange burlap over the top of the section which was closer to the flag colour and gave the page some texture.  I added a piece of Irish cotton lace on edge.  I printed a picture of an Irish dancer, fussy cut  out and coloured her in and added some sparkle.   I added her to the right side on top of burlap.  I then added another couple of pieces of collage, harp, picture of St Patrick and a couple of shamrock shapes, one with some text.  I cut a heading "Eire" out of a shopping bag from Review.  They were embossed already and a great size.   I added another piece of text on a green backgroup and covered the green shamrock with glossy dimensional glue. I printed out a couple of shapes of Ireland, one with some printed verse and the other a map, where I could indicate the county I was born in (Carlow) and the county I lived it (Kildare).   I used the backs to journal on, about been Irish and travelling to Australia as a teen. I joined them together with a brad and slid them in behind the burlap.  I then did a few bits of hand writing on the page. Sorry Robyn,  I was not really happy with the way it turned out, but I hope you don't dislike it too much.  Then I forgot to take photos before passing it on to Lisa, so thank you Lisa for taking them and sending them to me so I could complete the blog.

Deb's Pinterest - Water Girl by Natalie S

Hi everyone, I've created this journal page for Deb's Pinterest journal. I've used Pinterest as a means to teach myself how to journal with different mediums. In this piece I started out with gesso stencilling a few ferns. Then I watered down blue, green and yellow acrylic paint to create a wash. I used these colors to create my background. Then I drew in my Water Girl using Derwent Color Pencils and markers. I then made thicker mixes of green and blue paints and gave her hair. I hope you like her xx

Blogging about Lee's "LAYERS" Journal

Lee's journal is a lovely size and has a real grunge art appeal on the outside.  I love all the pages created by  the other artists.

I started my page inspired by a saying which my late mother {very Irish}used,  when we or someone else was been judgemental about someone who had upset us, or whom we were talking about and making assumptions.  Mum use to say that regardless of how things seem on the outside that no one knows what really goes on in a persons life or what they were experiencing that we did not see or know about that may be  effecting how they were acting or reacting.  Her saying was, "No one knows what goes on behind the curtains." 

After my layer of gesso had dried, I stuck some a sample piece of lovely pink and green stripped linen across both pages. This was to form the background/wall/ behind the windows.  Then from a piece of watercolour paper that I had used to clean off my roller when playing with my gello plate, I cut the outline of two windows I had in my stash.  On is square and made from wood, the other is rectangle with round top and made from chipboard.  On the pages with the material I stuck three characters, in a postion to be looking out the window spaces.  The one on the right was a whimsical girl which I had printed on a page from an old book, then I had stuck very wide clear tape on top of it  and ripped it off, so that the girl and some of the book text remained on the tape.  On the left were two little characters I had drawn and coloured in with gellatoes.  Originally I was going to put them on an index card I was doing, but they ended up in this page.  I add some layers on the watercolour paper with texture paste, stencils, stamping, etc. I then stuck it on top of the book pages with material, placing it so the window cutout spaces were over the characters faces.  Then I stuck two photo transparencies with phases on them over the window spaces leaving them the full size so that white text would be an adder layer. Then I glued the windows on top in the appropriate places. I added a few more things in line with the theme "Layers" flowers on windows, some homemade stickers to reinforce the centre of page etc.   I then added typed text with my saying, which was a bit of a play on the original phase.  "The eyes may be the window to the soul, but no one knows what is behind the curtain."

As I had wanted to do a double page, and Rose's page had been a single, there was a spare page prior to my layout.  I painted this with dylusions paint using three colours. Coincidentally I had come across a poem some months ago in a book and had copied it down as I like it a lot.  It is called "layers of the face" it fitted exactly with my saying and my layout, so I typed it out on dylusions ink dyed paper, tore it out, and stuck in on the page.  I was going to put some flowers around it, but I liked the simplicity of it and so I just left it as is.  All three pages were edged with black archival ink and a little of the material shows between the edge of the pages.   I really loved how these pages turned out and I hope Lee does also.

Roses Visual Jornaling

Recently, I worked a page in Deb's art journal: Inspired by Pinterest. This is how my page spread came out. As you'll see, I'm becoming very keen on learning to sketch and one day, while browsing for a few hours (days!) on that visual feast of a site (and very addictive!), I came across some Pins of other artists' Sketchbook pages. Some of them were so inspiring and exciting to look at, my brain went into overload with ideas for my own visual sketchbook too. So, when I received Deb's art journal based on Pinterest Inspiration, well, I just had to share my new-found interest in visual sketchbooks. I'm always keen to develop my drawing skills in addition to the painting and mixed media techniques that we all use in our art journaling.

 One of my latest sketches of our little ginger cat, Possum. And I also shared what it was that inspired me on Pinterest that day.

This is a colour chart of my new watercolour pencil set. It's fantastic the way the colours suddenly transform into wet media as soon as you wet them with a water brush. Very portable and easy to use. Hope you like it, Deb.

Lisa G G - Working in Deb's 'Inspired by Pinterest' Journal

Lisa J here blogging for Lisa G G!  

Lisa has had lots of fun with the wonderful roll out of the NBN, so has had internet troubles.  I'm helping out as I have Deb's journal to play in now.

The theme of Deb's journal is 'Inspired by Pinterest', and she's provided everyone with good quality A4 paper to be folded in half, similar to one of the Deconstructed Art Journal swaps we've been doing; only a little bigger!  Deb intends to bind all the pages together when she gets them back at the end of the year.

This means you get 3 pages to do! Front, double sized middle, and back.

For the front, Lisa has gone with a heart theme: Never stop loving...

For the middle pages, more hearts.  The left hand side is a brick wall made using texture paste through a stencil, with the heart drawn on top.  The drips could be in blood... but most likely are paint. :)  The right hand side features a musical background with a luscious heart - Dylusions paint I believe, with the saying "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage..."  Too true!  The heart is a gorgeous magenta colour.

The rear features more hearts, this time done with watercolour pencils. 

This journal has been a great way to try new techniques and mediums!

Journaling in Deborah's "Inspired by Pinterest" Journal

When I first started this journal, I had no  ideas in mind, so I just focused on getting something on the page. I had already put gesso on as that is how I normally start any journal pages.  I experimented with some new Dylusions dyes and got a background down in inside pages.  Then I painted and stenciled both front and back pages, again with Dylusions  this time with their paints.  As I am not much of a user of Pinterest, I though I better go there to gain some inspirations to create this piece, after all that was the theme.  I saw lots of ideas of course, but the one that stood out, was a page on mosaics. We had done a mosaic deconstructed journal page swap this year and I loved some of the results.  I found a pattern for this cat, which I downloaded and cut the pieces from some Creative Memories paper and a few scraps from Gelli plate printed papers.  By this time I had decided I would try to highlight the types of things that are used on pinterest pins. So I stenciled the flowers on front and{ using texture paste) the wall.  Stamps and chalk paint on the inside pages. That is where is sat for 3 weeks, till this week when I could get back to it.  Once I started it again, {3 weeks) down the track,  I decided to do a cluster sample on back page.  I didnt have many flowers left in my stash, and as they were all different, a monochromatic sample came to mind. I used whatever flowers I could find and whatever colour they were, plus some micro beads, some chipboard birds, a bit of muslin and sprayed with dylusion dyes to create the monochromatic look and mood, Finabar eat your heart out. I was really pleased how this turned out.  Then I found some small photos and some wonderful handmade circles made by  Lisa Jones, in my stash, so a Pinterest Board using chalkpaint was born.
On the other page I used some magazines to collage.  I hope Deborah likes the page, this was a great journal to do, as Deborah is keeping pages separate at moment, it is easier to work on piece on a flat background.

Front Page

 Back page

 Inside pages

This was posted off this week to Lisa Jones.