Janie's Australia

 by Lisa for Janie

Janie's journal theme of Australia is a very broad one! There are some lovely spreads in it, and I had thought to do something to go with Dorothea Mackellar's My Country, but someone else beat me to it!  Not sure who, as they didn't sign their page...😢

Instead, I remembered an Australian song that I LOVE, by Redgum.  Great Aussie folk/political band of the 70s and 80s - even if you think you don't know any of their songs, you'll know I was only 19.  Every time I hear this song about the Vietnam War, it really gets to me.  I had an Uncle who fought there, and returned with PTSD.  I've been to Vietnam 4 times, and have seen what this country went through.  

But this is not about that song.  Another of my favourite songs on Redgum's album Caught in the Act is The Diamantina Drover.  It's just a beautiful ballad about the country, and the old days.

I started by adding recycled teabags to both pages, in wavy strips, to represent the land and sky.  These were adhered using matte gel medium applied over the top of the teabags.  

Once dry, I added teabag strings to represent hills and valleys, again using my trusty matte gel medium.

Next I added watercolours.  Tasman blue for the sky, and Pilbara red, Australian red gold, and yellow ochre for the land.  I love these Australian colours!  The blue ended up too blue, so I added a whitewash of gouache over the top to tone it down.

Next I added the chorus from the song:

For the rain never falls, on the dusty Diamantina

The drover finds it hard, to change his mind

For the years have surely gone

Like the drays from old Cork Station

And I won't be back when the drovin's done.

Lastly an old dead tree in black pen finished it off.

And the complete spread:

Here's a link to the YouTube video of a live recording of the song.  Please watch it and you'll see how beautiful it is! 💚

Hope you like this spread Janie; I really enjoyed putting it together and singing this song over and over again. 😄

Happy Arting all!

Cheers, Lisa xx

For Sass's Bohemian Floral - by Janie O'Brien

I first prepared my spread by making a dark metallic background with Lindy's Sprays. I found a variety of images I was happy with on Pinterest and made a collage I was happy with. I sure hope things are picking up for you Sass, and I hope you enjoy this, cheers Janie

Gypsy Soul for Rebecca-Lee Fisher by Janie O'Brien

I wanted to sew this pretty trim around the end of this work, so I made the entire piece on tyvek and stuck it in Rebecca-Lee's journal.  It is all collaged pieces. I hope you enjoy it Rebecca-Lee.

 

Memorable Movie Time!

 by Lisa for Deb

I really enjoy watching movies and have so many favourites, that it's kinda hard to pick just one!

In the end I thought of a movie that I'd rewatched recently, and could watch over and over again (along with its sequels!) - The Hangover.  If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend it for a good laugh!  Yes, it's inappropriate, and there's lots of swearing and a bit of (funny) nudity - but what a great story!

As usual, no progress pics, except one.  I decided to complete this spread using Derwent pencils - not my usual go to, but a change is as good as a holiday, so they say...

I drew the boys on their adventure in Las Vegas, and added Mike Tyson's tiger that they somehow stole.

Then, while I was adding the background - a failed attempt at night lights and bokeh - I decided that it just wasn't bright enough and needed some zing.  Enter Copic pens.

I ended up going over the whole spread - except the background blue - with Copics, and in the most part I was pleased with how it turned out.

My husband keeps telling me I'm shite at drawing people and should stick to animals... He may be right, but you're never going to improve if you never try, right?

So above are the Wolfpack members - Alan (holding Carlos, long story....!), Phil, and Stu who woke up missing a tooth.  Plus failed bokeh lights. 🙄

And the tiger looked much improved after adding Copics.

And here's the whole spread, including the movie name banner in lights, and that famous Vegas saying: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

Hope you like it Deb!

Happy arting all!

Cheers, Lisa

Bohemian Florals

by Lisa for Sass

This journal is full of lovely flowers, so it was nice to be able to add to it!

I didn't take any progress shots, but I found a great source pic in Pinterest and went from there.

I did my background first in different shades of pink and peach acrylics, then added a flower garland.  I wanted the flowers to have more texture, so added some white gesso with a palette knife.  Once it dried, I added colour to the flowers, and then some greenery in between and around the flowers.

Lastly, I added a lovely quote that I found on Pinterest - Her soul is made of wildflowers.

And that was it!  Hope you like it Sass!

Happy arting all. 

Cheers, Lisa xx

Robyn Osborn's "flower" journal "A garden" by Janie O'Brien

Who doesn't love flowers ! I loved putting together a flower garden for Robyn to enjoy. All fussy cut images; such fun - cheers Robyn.
 

Finding My Gyspy Soul

 By Lisa for Rebecca-lee

When I received Rebecca-lee's journal, I had no idea what Gypsy Soul actually was - so to my trusty Pinterest I went!

I found quite a few images and quotes that inspired me to do my spread.

Firstly I gessoed the pages, then drew a girl sitting in a meadow.  I did take a pic of her, but being pencil it was a bit light.  So I won't share it!

Next I watercoloured her.  Sometimes you get great effects watercolouring over gesso... and sometimes you don't.  I quite like how her dress turned out though! 💗

I also watercoloured the background, which turned out a bit wishy washy.  No matter though, because of the meadow flowers I was adding with acrylic.  Firstly though, I added a black outline to my girl, because I thought she may not stand out enough amongst the flowers.

On the other page I added the quote that I had found:

Wanderlust consumed her; foreign hearts and exotic minds compelled her.  She had a gypsy soul and a vibrant hope for the unknown.

Then I added lots and lots of pink, purple and orange flowers around her, and the quote.  

A big blue sky with some clouds, and a big yellow sun, and I called it done.

Hope you like it Rebecca-lee!  Happy Arting everyone.

Cheers, Lisa xx

My Whimsical Creatures creation in Louise Kirby's Journal - Janie O'Brien

So many creatures travelled through my mind while I was thinking about creating this page for Louise. I moved from absolutely realistic to absolutely abstract and back again, but I knew I wanted colour so I settled on creatures in between realistic and abstract. I hope you enjoy them Louise, I will be sorry to see them go; I really had fun with this. All hand painted with various techniques, apart from the little birds which were a last moment collaged addition - couldn't help myself; they had to be there.

 

Flowers for Robyn!

 by Lisa for Robyn

I've got into the habit of not checking which journal is coming to me next - anyone else doing this too?  It makes it nice to get a surprise in the mail!  

So when I received Robyn's Flowers journal it was indeed a nice surprise.  Inspiration came quickly for this, as I'm currently making some sunflowers for a canvas that I'm doing.  I had extra petals left over so thought, yes!  That's what I'll do!

I even remembered to take some progress pics, woo hoo! 😄

So these petals are made from recycled teabags, that have been dried, emptied, and glued onto either white cartridge paper, or an old school dictionary.  I then watercolour the papers, and cut them out.

For my background, firstly I covered the journal pages with a layer of torn cartridge paper.  Mainly because Robyn's journal is made of signatures, and I wanted the two pages to stay together.

Then I added teabags to the background.  Same method as above, except the empty teabags were cut into circles, and glued directly onto the cartridge paper background.  Overlapping the circles gives a really interesting effect!  

The beauty of gluing teabags is that, because they're porous, you can just plop them down on your page and glue over the top instead of having to glue each piece from the underside.  Genius!  I use matte gel medium for my glue.

After gluing the background, I added a few layers of blue watercolour.  Some colours react better than others, and the colour that you end up with also depends on the type of teabags you've used! 

Next I added the sunflower that I had made.  The centre was cut from another piece of cartridge paper and teabags, then watercoloured, and tea leaves added for texture.

A leaf and stem were also added to the page, created the same way.

My spread was almost done, but I wanted to add some text.  I couldn't find my letter stamps - put them away somewhere during an iso tidy up 😩...  So instead I grabbed a scrap of cartridge paper, ruled it into rectangles, pencilled my letters in, and scribbled them in with a Pitt pen!

After I cut them out, I outlined and smudged them with a water activated pencil.  Easy peasy!

And this is the end result!  I think it's a happy little page, which we really need right now.  High fives to the other Victorians putting up with Stage 4 restrictions, and well done to those living in other states for keeping it at bay - please don't get complacent though! 💜💛

Hope you like this Robyn!  Happy Arting everyone. 

Cheers, Lisa xx

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. 

Boho Floral Daisy Painting by Jenny

I love daisies! So pleased to find some time the other day to grow an abstract daisy for Sass. Its created for the theme 'Bohemiam Floral' :)

The photos show a short visual description on how it was painted. I've used Dylusions acrylic paint with various stencils by Tim Holtz, Dyan Reaveley and Darkroom Door, foam ink blending tools, paint pens, a watercolour pencil and paintbrushes.

It started off with Dylusions Paint in yellow (Lemon Zest and Lemon Drop) blended over the whole page using a Ranger Ink Blending Tool. Once this was dry, I added more layers one at a time (letting them dry inbetween), using a darker colour with each stencil design until the last stencil where I used Black Marble through the Darkroom Door Grunge Borders stencil. Some stencils I painted and then pressed onto the page.

Once dry, I then sketched out a simple but very large daisy design using a blue watercolour pencil. Flower petals on daisies are simple... draw a circle (or trace a bowl) then add elongated loops or long ovals that butt into the circle. 

Don't worry if it doesn't look like a real flower, you'll find our eyes will see it as a flower whatever it looks like. Around the daisy I painted a wash of blue paint so that the background wasn't completely hidden. The watercolour pencil outline was activated with the water and blended into the paint easily. Any pencil marks still showing were washed off gently after the blue paint was completely dry.

Next was the centre of the flower. This is basically hundreds of overlapping dots (often called stippling) using a basic round paint brush (darker on the outside, lightest near the middle to give a rounded shape). Then for the final layer of spotty highlights and shadows, I used the end of my paintbrush (the wooden end creates fabulous spots). All the exes you can see were initially stenciled and then overpainted with white paint pen.

Lastly, I added more white outlines and some thoughts using Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Stickers and Quote Chips over a strip of Idea-Ology Fabric Tape.

I love how much difference a few layers of paint makes to any artwork. Its amazing!

Make Today Count, Trust Your Heart and Tell Your Story!

Jenny James' Paper Doll Journal by Janie O'Brien for July 2020

I had such fun creating this journal. My 'paper dolls' are the old fashioned paper dolls with articulated joints. This was accomplished by joining the 3D dolls legs and arms by brads. They are then stuck to the background with velcro which means the dolls can be repositioned. The backgrounds are a combination of water colour and image strips obtained from Pinterest. The dolls themselves were purchased from Etsy.

A Bit of Whimsical Dancing....

by Lisa for Louise

Louise's Whimsical Creatures journal is a really cute little journal - I guess it's whimsical! The fact that it was Pam's journal, and Louise has put a page together with both of their work - heartwarming. 💛

I wasn't really sure what kind of creatures to do, but Louise's page gave me the idea - it says Australia, home to many whimsical creatures.  So I came up with the idea to do some dancing brolgas! 

Whenever we go used to go to Sydney, we'd usually end up at Darling Harbour - Scott and I love it there.  I've always admired the statues of the dancing brolgas there.

So, as usual, I didn't take any progress pics.  But I gessoed my pages so I could watercolour them - the pages of this journal aren't very thick.  I then added some lovely Art Spectrum Australian watercolours - Pilbara Red, Australian Red Gold, Yellow Ochre and Tasman Blue!  Once dry, I sealed the pages with Micador Matt Spray. Stinks, and I can't stand the smell, but it works... 😑

I found some pics of dancing brolgas on Pinterest, and sketched them onto a scrap piece of paper first.  I then drew them freehand over my pages with pen in a really messy style. 😄

The sun was added after watercolouring - so much easier!  The white bits at the bottom were an attempt to add salt - memo to self, this works sooooo much better on watercolour paper!

I added the words in pen, sprayed it all again with the sealing spray, and called it done. 💜

Hope you like it Louise!  

Stay safe everyone, and keep making art!

Cheers, Lisa xx

Flowers for Robyn.

Daisies are cheerful, roses are posh. 
Weeds are unwelcome but I love the lot.

As they greet me each morning, as I go on my way,
they brighten the garden and make my day. 

I didn't take many photos of my process for this entry in Robyn's flower journal. 

However, basically I put down a layer of gesso followed by soft yellow and turquoise acrylic. Once that had dried I added some Tim Holtz tissue papers and napkin flowers. Once that had dried I stippled it again until it was nicely blended. 

I added an F for flowers, plus a few paper flowers made from an old calender. 

Finally a few words and dots, and it was all done. 

Plant a garden and plant happiness.

Keep well and stay safe.

Playing with Paper Dolls

by Lisa for Jenny

Jenny's Paper Dolls journal has a lovely vintage feel, so I wanted to do a spread that tied into this.

Paper dolls in art journalling are a bit foreign to me, so I didn't really know what to do.  But I have a pic of my mum and her brother from probably the early 50s, when mum would have been around 7 or 8.  I've always loved this photo, and have drawn it before, so thought it would suit this theme!

As usual I forgot to take progress pics... 😖  I drew the figures of Pam and George on brown kraft card - great stuff, thick enough to cut out, but not too thick.  I then inked them in and cut them out.

I then used heaps of vintage look scrapbook papers from my stash, as a base for both pages.  I remembered that I had this great leaf stencil and mask set from Dina Wakley - still unopened!  - so played around with acrylic paints.  The leaves were outlined with brown Pitt pen.

My kids looked like they were floating on the page, so I added a bit of grass to ground them.

I found a lovely sentiment on Pinterest to use on the other page: 

Childhood is the most beautiful of all life's seasons.  I wrote these words out on the remaining kraft paper, outlined them in ink, and cut them out.  After adhering them with matte gel medium, I added white gel pen highlights.

And here's the complete spread!  Hope you like my entry Jenny, and Happy Arting all! xx

Cheers, Lisa

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!

Feeling Comfortably Numb in Wendy's Music Journal

by Lisa for Wendy

I love music.  I love singing.  I do it often in the car, where no one else can hear me.  Unfortunately I'm shite.... 

But anyway.  When Wendy announced that her journal theme was Inspiring Music, I thought yes!  I have so many favourite songs, or pieces of songs, or lyrics.  It was actually a bit challenging deciding on which song to focus on.

In the end I decided on Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb.  This song was released in 1979 as part of The Wall album, and what a masterpiece this album was.  I think I first heard it when I was about 16.  I love music with a story, and this whole album is a story, about a musician called Pink and his struggles with depression and drugs. 

In Comfortably Numb, Pink is drugged out and holed up in his hotel room.  His entourage breaks in and gives him more drugs so that he can get on stage and perform - the show must go on.  During this time, he's thinking of his childhood during WW2.  

This all sounds really depressing and dreary, but it's a beautiful song with haunting music, amazing guitar solos, and great lyrics.  You can check it out on YouTube here! 

So back to my spread!  The lyrics I've chosen to highlight are about a boy, who I've drawn with 2B & 6B pencils on tan Strathmore paper.  I love vintage papers and have heaps of Kaisercraft  scrapbooking paper, so just collaged my favourite bits.  

On the right, more Kaisercraft papers plus some old music paper I found.  I printed out the lyrics using a typewriter font - and then thought, why didn't I just use my typewriter???  This was on white paper, so I steeped a teabag and gave it a tea wash.  Matched perfectly!  Plus I kept the teabag to use in my teabag art at some stage. 😊

So, once I worked out what I wanted to achieve this came together quite quickly.  And I'm really pleased with it.  And thanks Wendy, for making an A5 journal (as I have too) - they're so easy to work in! 💜

Hope you like it Wendy!  I hope that everyone is coping okay with this Covid-19 situation and restrictions.  I'm still working, so am thankful of the Easter break.  Happy Easter everyone, and Happy Arting! 💙🐰🐣

Cheers, Lisa xx