The Great Gatsby Party

Janie's collaged creation in Roz's Art Deco journal; my theme is a Great Gatsby Party.

This is the background paper I chose which was printed for me by Spoonflower. Roz's journal was a most unusual size as each page was approximately 7 x 11 inches, making a double spread about 22 inches wide. I decided to make separate but similarly themed pages. 

Left hand side page; spraying with Lindy's iridescent sprays and adding collaged elements sourced from Pinterest.

Left hand side completed; "The arrival"

Right hand side completed: "The dance"

Janie Under the Sea

Janie O'Brien' spread in Danie May's Under the Ocean Journal. I didn't have a preconceived idea for my spread but instead fussy cut numerous pleasing pieces to suit the theme and placed them on the paper until I received a satisfactory result.

Sprayed the pages with a mixture of metallic Starburst inks and let air dry.

Next I added some pale aqua tissue and pasted down over page encouraging wrinkles.

Sprayed with darker blue, dried, then sanded down to reveal texture.

Commenced adding fussy cut collage elements.

selecting from collage elements and creating seaweed.

The finished product with a final metallic spray to give uniformity to the art and to absorb cut collaged items into the background.

Fairytales and Mermaids & Seahorses.

I have been a little slack at the blogging so am in catch up mode today bringing you few photos of my creations from the last two journals I have been working in.

I chose Rumpelstiltskin as my theme for Jenny's Tales by Brothers Grimm Journal. 

This theme was going to stretch me so I decided to push even further outside of my comfort zone. I decided to play with some Gelli Prints and other papers and pieced them all together to create my scenes, and I drew some quick somewhat scribbly characters.

I chose to depict two parts of this tale.  I apologize for the quality of the first few photos as they were rushed and not checked prior to sending the journal on its way..

The first being where Rumpelstiltskin appears to the Millers Daughter whilst she was locked in a room in the castle claiming he could turn the straw into gold for her.  My straw bale was created by me cutting and sticking down bits of paper cord. 

The second when one of the men who the Millers Daughter now Queen sent out to find out all the known names of man in the region stumbled upon a small man dancing around the fire in a clearing in the woods.


The second Journal was Sharon's Mermaids and Seahorses Journal  For this I started with a quote I love and went from there. 

I layered paint and gelatos to create my watery background.  Then concentrating on the sea floor I used a little texture paste and some stencils and stamps to add the seagrass, shells and starfish  To create that mysterious feel in line with my quote I chose to work with Distress Oxides and added some stenciled mermaids and more sea creatures  before adding a few extra fish and my seahorses stamped with black ink to give them the appearance of being closer as we look out through the water.

I am getting excited as this was my first journal swap and it won't be long now until we receive our own journals back and I get to see all the beautiful art in this as I have totally loved seeing the wonderful art in everyone else's as they have arrived each month. 

An Octopus's Garden for Danie

I do love Dyan Reaveley's adorable critters with their cheeky attitude! One day I'll create something different to bright colours, pretty plants and happy creatures but its not today :) Having been brought up with Alice in Wonderland has had a huge impact on my life, so much that my Mum calls me Um and I use pepper in everything! lol That said, there are no talking roses or daisies bitching to each other on this painting ... its all seaweed (it didn't, its a clean ocean) and coral.

Ooooh, I'm hilarious today! Must be all the sidekicks that arrived - their adorableness has leaked into my typing...! lol

Back to Danie - for her beautiful journal I added a page full of vibrant colours and new friends with an Aussie twist. You'll see :)

Wise words from Tim Holtz by way of a stamp... the world of reality has its limits; but the world of imagination is boundless. Suits this page perfectly :)

Starting with stamps from the Tim Holtz Sea Life and Dylusions sets, Under the Sea and Flight of Fancy, I printed out more than I needed of all my favourite critters using black Archival ink.
I toyed with the idea of inking with colour but it didn't suit what I wanted to do. The seahorse and lobster (or crayfish) are from Tim's set. Everyone else is from Dyan's.

After deciding that I probably had plenty of critters to choose from, I left them to one side while I sorted out my ocean.

This I created using acrylic paint and a 2" soft rubber roller - squirting and rolling until I liked what I saw, then dabbing with a sea sponge to break up all the lines.

The seaweed, coral and other underwater plants started off as stamps from Dyan's Ocean Backgrounds stamp set (so this page can be done with just stamping easily enough). Using my new bestie (black pen), I added a few extra lines and scribbles. They were then painted with yellow acrylic paint.

I probably should have waited for the page to dry further or sprayed it with fixative but I went straight on with it and used Distress Inks with an ink blending tool and a bunch of different stencils - all of which disappeared unless they were on the yellow paint. I was having a lovely time, layering and inking so while you can't see anything, it wasn't totally wasted!

Still not waiting for things to dry, I added a few patches of hearts and bubbles with Transparent Gloss Texture Paste. Not waiting caused all my texture paste to get a yellow and blue glow, proof that the Distress Inks were definitely on the page.

Transparent Gloss Texture Paste ... wet.

Transparent Gloss Texture Paste ... dry.

It was cool watching the texture paste dry as I painted all the scenery... magical almost!

I painted the plants using a brush with just the basics, white yellow, red, blue, diox purple and black acrylic. The sea floor was sponged using a homemade mix of browns and greens (whatever was left on my plate after painting the plants).

It was a couple of days before I could get back to it, so by the time I gathered my critters and started colouring with Mermaid Markers (gorgeous waterbased ink in a waterbrush), the background was well and truly dry.

I also used the beautiful shimmery Gansai Tambi watercolours of gold and silver then clear iridescent medium that got painted over everything that "moved". I always colour before I cut out shapes, then ink around the edges hiding the white paper.

Placement was fun... they kept moving around when I bumped the page! Above pic is while I was deciding if I needed to colour more or start cutting out.

Its all coming together nicely :)

Finished page for Danie's Under the Sea journal.

Well, its taken a fathom of text (I know but it couldn't be helped! lol) but here it is, the finished page of my octopus's garden for Danie.

The eyes were repainted to look in the directions I wanted and I used white and black pens to redraw some of the stamped areas of the fish that were covered with paint.

These little guys are blue ringed octopus all the way from South Australia, friends of the giant octopus who claims this garden as his own. Dad came along while I was taking these pics, looking for the yellow submarine...

As the little fish swim around the giant octopus tentacles, they have to change colour so as to stay hidden from being someone's lunch!

The sandworms like to hide in their bright green tubes and watch the others swim about in the octopus's garden. Now you would think a small fish would be smarter than to go after something as big as this octopus...

Well that's it... thank you so much Danie for this magical journey into the world under the sea. I hope you love it as much as I loved creating it.

Have a happy day!
:D
Jenny

AASJ 5: Tree as Spirit for Louise...

Hi!!

Sharing my pages in Louise's "Tree" Round Robin Journal.

At first I was a little unsure how to tackle this theme but I found a great quote that gave me some inspiration and I had some digi stamps that I thought were just perfect to make this page in "my" style of journaling so I hope Louise likes what I have done - I'm really happy with how it turned out!

I started by coating the pages in gesso and then adding some acrylic paints in tree and sky colours and I used my brayer to move the blobs of paint around on the pages to cover them.

I added some stencilling to both the top and bottom of all the pages using white paint - I love the effect this gave - nice and subtle.

I printed off the digi stamps I wanted to use on the pages - they are from Vera Lane Studio - I'm on the DT so I really love creating with these great designs!!

Quite a bit of colouring with my pastel pencils - then sprayed with fixative - took awhile and then had to fussy cut everything out!!!!

I also printed the quote out on kraft coloured paper, tore each word out individually and arranged on the front flap - adhered everything and added a few paper leaves as well.

Some close up pics of the main images:

And here are the pages - I loved having the flap to work on as part of the pages - it made a great place for the quote to then open out to the full pages with the characters and TREES!!!

Happy Journalling!!!

Sharon



Believe AAJS5 - Wendy's Word Journal

I got to work in Wendy's Word Journal to kick off Round 5.  I chose the Word Believe and a fairy came to mind.  I decided to play with some of my new stamps from Carabelle Studio and Distress Oxides for this spread also.

I started by Painting my background with a mix of acrylic paint colors.

Next I used my Distress Oxides with a Circle Stencil from The Crafters Workshop and a little bit of mark making with the Union Stencil from Stencil Girl.  This was followed by some stamping around the edges and a few circles.  This was the first time I had played with these Carabelle Stamps.  My fairy however also from Carabelle has graced a few projects before now.

I stamped out, colored and cut out the fairy and stuck her down.  The Inktense Water Color Pencils used to color the fairy were also used to color in my stamped word Believe (I think this was a Rubber Dance Stamp).

I wanted to keep things simple, but felt something was missing.  A bit more color perhaps?  I took out my yellow Posca Pen and added a touch more color around the stamped borders.  I still felt a touch more magic was needed and thought a touch of shimmer was the perfect touch for a fairy.  I smeared and smudged it around the fairy and stamped circles.  The last finishing touch was some stamped butterflies using stamps from Darkroom Door.