Lisa's 80's journal

The 80s was the decade when we singles became couples, there were marriages, mortgages and lots of dinner parties. 

We worked hard and played hard. We were upwardly mobile. 

It was the decade our music went from Lp's ,vinyl to CD and Olivia Newton John encouraged us to get physical. 

When a shy teenager, Lady Diana turned into a princess and a fashion icon.

There were frills, legwarmers and lace.  Which was quite a lot to convey in one small spread. Hope it works for you Lisa. 

Janie's Australian Nature journal.

Australia is the land of the most extraordinary flora and fauna but if you asked  anyone to name an Australian animal you would probably get one of two anwsers. 

Kangaroo or koala, probably in that order. So I decided to go with the Kangaroo. 

Unfortunately this spread came together so quickly I forgot to take many photos.

The background was a layer of scrap papers which was covered with Atelier green black acrylic paint. 

The lovely kangaroo image ironically came from a children's book about a ladybird. 

( Lazy Ladybird and Greedy bee, by Isobel Finn and Steve Smallman,  Illustrations by Jack Tickle)

I wanted to add a bit more of an Australian feel and give the spread a bit more pop,so painted the letters in various shades of red and added traditional dots.

 

The boomerang was made by my friend Jenny out of some scrap paper and leftover paint. 

And all done. 

Movie Magic for Deb's.

I wanted to do a tribute to Mr Disney, who brought so much colour and magic into my childhood. There was Snow White, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book and many more.But my favorite was Fantasia. Walt Disney brought together the wonders of classical music and fabulous animation. 

If I close my eyes and listen to Fantasia, I'm transported back in time to the dress circle of the Guildford Odeon with my Grandmother and younger brother Peter.

For the background I was going to just paint black but the night sky is made up of so many hues. I used Blue Violet, Prussian blue hue, Diox purple, and Red black. Once dry I had great fun flicking warm white and a very pale blue to create the stars.

I found Mickey in a children's book on manners.

And decided to paint the mops free hand. 

Lastly just to paint the one word that sums Fantasia up for me - magic. 

So thank you Deb's for 

A) coming up with such a great topic. 

B) for allowing me to work in your journal. 

C) bring back such happy memories. 

MAGIC!

Sass Hammant Boho journal

I had quite a lot of fun creating the background for this spread. 

First I thought about what colours said Boho/Bohemian to me. I went with Aqua, Prussian blue and dark red. I put down a few pieces of tissue paper first and just covered the lot with acrylic paint. 

Stencilled a few bubbles for variety. 

Decided it needed more detail on the background. So painted some lacey detail in light gold.

Found some interesting wrapping paper in my stash and cut out some circles, then decided that they needed jazzing up. So distress inked some paper doilies but these were a little to dark. So added some light gold to catch the light.

Found some words on an old calender, added some white dots and all done. Hope you like it Sass. 

Raining on the Rock

It took me a while to settle on an idea for Janie's Australia journal. So many things say Australia to me. One of my clients adores John Williamson and we listen to him at work a lot and he is a pretty iconic Aussie and this song is so evocative.

I visited Uluru in 1996 -97 and it was an amazingly beautiful place.

My page is drawn and coloured with inktense and various other watercolor pencils and I used a signo gel pen for journalling John Williamsons lyrics.

June 2020, Sallyanne Scholefield's "Home" journal by Janie O'Brien

I live in Cairns in tropical Queensland where winters here in the daytime rarely drop below  26º and summers which last from late August to end April are a steamy average of about 33º daily. This climate of course provides the perfect environment for colourful tropical plants which are everywhere your eye rests.
Large plantations form the back-bone of the City and the Fecker Botanical Gardens are world renowned and are said to be the best in our southern hemisphere. For me, the theme of "Home" was a delight to illustrate with paint & collage.

Queenslander homes abound in the older parts of Cairns evoking nostalgia for more relaxed times gone by. My work - encompassed nearly 2 portrait size A4 sheets when open. The first thing I did was to separate the ground with dark green (a mixture of acrylic ink and paint) and the sky. I then formed the mountain range with torn papers and a cut out and placed a stereotypical queenslander home. I added a few cut out palm trees and then set about sticking my tropical plants down; most flowers individually cut from Pinterest illustrations. of course a Cairns' house must have a pool, mine has a hint of the Great Barrier Reef within, as the Reef flourishes parallel to our little city as one of the biggest draw-cards in the world for sightseers to visit.

My super colourful result is almost dazzling and all plants depicted can be seen around Cairns most of the year. I hope you enjoy this representation of "my home" and that you visit our part of the world soon.

Bohemian Rhapsody

 Is this the real life, 

is this just fantasy?

No, it's my offering 

for Sass's Bohemian Floral.

I started with a doodle, added watercolour and more doodles.

I needed something to easily worked on, in short bursts.

Fabulous Flowers by Jenny

Mostly I just sit around all day, being fabulous!

This is my journal page inside Robyn's beautiful book for "World Flowers". It started off as basic shapes formed from Darkroom Door and Tim Holtz stencils with Dylusions acrylic paints, then grew from there.

The big daisy is Darkroom Door's Carved Flowers Stencil used to create the main shape, then I overpainted it, one dot at a time to give it a fuller, more rounded appearance. Some of the spots are heated embossing powder... I was adding it to the bees and couldn't help but add some to the flower as well :)

The main word, Flowers, is created using Dina Wakley Media Alpha Parts Stencils with various colours of Ranger's Embossing Powders. I prepared the area using the clever Ranger Anti Static Pouch, painted on a Clear Embossing Ink then scattered over the colours to create an abstract blend. After melting, I added a light pink for the highlight and used a black marker for the shadow.

The little girl sitting around being fabulous, is one of Tim Holtz's Idea-Ology Paper Dolls, she's holding a bouquet from Tim's Idea-Ology Botanical Layers. A few other elements were collected (some made, some Tim's die-cuts) and glued in place using matte medium. The quote is from the Dylusions Colouring Sheets Borders, a fun set of edges and sayings!

The bees, honeycomb pattern on the edge and faux script in the background are stamped in place using Ranger's Archival Ink with Tim's Entomology and Darkroom Door's Buzzing Bees stamp sets. Some of the bees have Distress Embossing Glaze (translucent embossing powder) over their bodies plus wings and bodies coated with Ranger's Stickles Glitter Glue.

Its a fun colourful page, I hope Robyn likes it! I'm quite happy with it :) Daisies are such friendly happy flowers! What's not to love about gorgeous little bees? They're amazing little creatures!

Thanks for looking! Have a wonderfully happy arty day!
:)
Jenny

Flight of the Hobgoblin

I found this most awesome stamp set by Pink Ink Designs a while ago, perfect for Louise's whimsical theme. A flying hobgoblin with a bee, leaves and a shoe... goes perfectly with my fave Dylusions stamps and stencils!

The page began as black and green plain paper, good for a night day page. After applying a few assorted patterns though stencils with ink, I added some collage crackle medium... who knows what I was thinking! Sort of turned out ok, much better the next day.

Stamps were coloured, trimmed and stuck down with glue... then everyone's eyes redrawn so they looked in the direction I wanted. The quote is a Tim Holtz stamp :)

There's a fine line between genius and crazy!

Its ended up to look like an interesting page, hope it makes you smile!

Happy creative day to you!

Champagne and Roses

Robyn's delightful Flowers journal has arrived and was a joy to play in.

I started with  black gesso and a monochromatic idea. I pulled out an assortment of pink papers and floral dies and decided on collage. Cut out some botanic shapes from recycled foil tops and added them.  Finally I added some doodling in black and then pink posca's.