My Journal Recap - Homage to Art!

I was so happy to get my Round 4 Journal home last weekend, compliments of Joan!  We're so lucky that we both live in Melbourne (well I do, Joan is a bit further south!) and get together with the Art Mesaj Group once a month on a Sunday to mess around in art journals.  Any other Melbournians are welcome to join us!

Anyhoo, back to my journal.  It's about A5 size, and my instructions read "This journal is about admiring other people's art and wanting to try and emulate it yourself.  Imitation is known as the most sincere form of flattery, and so long as you credit the original artist, it's a wonderful homage to their art!"

My front cover is in the style of Roben-Marie Smith , a wonderful mixed-media artist.  Roben also has a great Facebook group called Claim Your Happy that you should definitely check out.

My inside cover comprises my contract, some texture-paste flowers in the style of  Toni Burt - I adore her gorgeous faces with flowers, and my title page a lá Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  Julie introduced me to art journalling about 4 years ago, and I love her use of bold colours, stamps and stencils.  

My first entry was from Jan, and is based on the gorgeous metallic art of Gustav Klimt , coupled with the flowing trees and backgrounds of Sue Davis.  I love the colours and composition!

Next page in my journal is by Lesley and features the iconic Banksy. Thought provoking, modern street art that is amazing!  Lesley's page is grungy with heaps of Banksy stamps, and I love it!

Next up is Pam's entry, based on the healing art of Bebe Butler and the backgrounds of Traci Bunkers.  Gorgeous colours and textures here, and Pam added a lovely paper flower too.

Next is my entry - my take on Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.  I've admired his work for a long time; such passion in the brush strokes!  I also discovered that Vincent wrote to his brother Theo often, and the letters are beautifully written.  Definitely worth checking out!

The we have Colleen's bright page paying homage to Dyan Reavely.  Dyan's art is fresh and quirky and her Dylusions products amazing!  I particularly love the Dylusions journals and paints, but have yet to try the sprays!  Colleen's page is just delightful. 

Joan chose Ken Done as her inspiration.  His Australian art is bright and certainly iconic!  Joan has done two different pieces; the one on the left is called Collection, but not sure of the gorgeous parrot on the right.  Love the colours Joan!

And that was the extent of my guest journalists since Joanna didn't get a chance to do a page!  At the back of the journal is my sign in page, based on a Rothko print.  His simple colour blocks really appeal to me.  Next to that are my doodles based on Cherie Bitanga's gorgeous art doodles.  Cherie used to contribute to the 52 Week Illustration Facebook Challenge that I was part of, before she became famous. 😀  The quote is by Adam J Kurtz, who I follow on Instagram.  His posts are funny and real, and well, just  make you feel better.  💗

My journal also has a flap that goes over the front cover.  The front part is heaps of flowers done in the style of Alisa Burke.  Alisa does beautiful vibrant art with a lot of flowers.  The inside flap is a girl done Penny Stamper style.  Penny Stamper is Angela Kennedy, and she draws beautiful but often sad girls that I love!

 


My rear cover is based on a Dina Wakley silhouette.  Her art is messy and colourful and I love it!  I have Dina's book Art Journal Courage which is fab.

And that's my journal!  Thanks so much to all the lovelies that contributed to it - and next week it goes off to Jenny so she can add something too!

Looking forward to the next round!   💜💛

Jan works in Pam's 'Inspired by Teesha' Journal

This is such a lovely colourful journal and all the pages are awesome and really go with the theme.
I chose to do one monotone page and one colourful. I have admired Teesha for many years as well and find her really inspiring.
I started by doing my borders and then filling the inside space. I have several Teesha stamps and also some collage sheets so i used these to complete my pages.
I hope you love them Pam as I certainly loved doing them.

This is the monotone one.

And the colourful one.

Joan works in Empowerment

Joans page in Lesley's "Empowerment Journal"

Lesley Journal is A4 and made up of lovely thick paper. The existing pages from other participants are all wonderful and so much better to see them in real life. 

This month I picked a quote I wanted to use first and then made the page to complement it.  I originally envisaged a spread with lots of white space, but it did not turn out that way.  As usual my mind had one thing in mind and my art muse had another.

I started by using a 12x12 stencil which has lots of small shapes randomly placed and translucent texture paste from Tim Holtz,  I used it all over the left page and on top and left side of the right page   I then used some Lindys magicals which are water colours to colour the left page.  As I said before at this point I was thinking lots of white area left uncoloured..I used greens, yellows, blues and pinks from different sets of magicals.  I really just wanted some drips but as usual I was heavy handed with the powers and ended up with lots more colour than I intended. The translucent textured paste took on the colours of the magicals beautifully.

On the right page I imagined a young women with lots of coloured hair making a statement of empowerment. As I can't draw I thought at first that I would cut one out from a magazine and collage on, but then I realised two things, A: as the journal is A4,  finding a face that I did not have to scan and enlarge  and still be able to print out in required size after cutting out was going to be a task in itself.  B: as the page was all about empowerment, should'nt I take the bull by the horn and try to draw my own face and have enough courage to use it. And so it came to pass that I drew freehandly a face on the right side and painted her up with some other watercolors I had.  Apart from vampire like teeth and a long crooked skinny nose, it was passable.  I could live with it mostly but not that nose, so I covered it up and tried again.   The journal then sat on my table for a few days, whilst I decided if I was going to let her live or was going to gesso her out completely.  By the time I had fiddled with her nose and eyes each day she waited, she kinda grew on me and I decided she could stay. I later on  added some feathers and bling to her hair and dress.

After adding some background stamping to both pages, I decided it still needed something. I then added some more magicals, this time some orange and pinks. I also dragged out some gold leaf sheets I bought about 9 months ago but had not yet used.  The foils were a beautiful copper base with green and blue type effects so fitted in with the colours already on the page. The pictures do not do justice to the fantastic sheen and colour of these.  I rubbed on first one colour where I had placed the size and later on when I accepted that I was not going to have much white space and that I should embrace the page that was emerging, I add a heap more in a slightly different colour pattern. I put it on the left page and only on the right page where the textured paste pattern was. I also added a small amount to her hair.

I then stuck on some borders I had in compatible colours to left and right pages.  The left got a multicolour one and the right a metallic pink one. Just as I had decided that it was probably done, and I should print out my quote and put it on, I found a packet of bright gold leaves on a banner. Probably a purchase from an op shop at some time, and I thought I had to add some of these to the page.  As they were gold rather than bronze I painted them with a bronze inka gold paste. I added one to the girl's hair and two to ground my quote.  The quote is from Coco Chanel.

I then sprayed the whole page with a matt protective spray. It is very different from what I imagined when I started out, but I started this year saying that I was going to let the art have control rather than my right brain, so hopefully this is proof that I am succeeding somewhat.  I hope you like it Lesley. 

Inital face

After I change the nose 

Lisa's Favourites in Jan's Journal!

Jan's Favourites journal is a lovely A5 sized one full of deliciousness.  As I looked through it, I realised that getting near the end of a journal swap gives you a bit of mixed emotions - wonder and amazement at what other peeps have done before you, and also a tinge of sadness that it's soon coming to an end.  But then there's also the excitement of getting your own journal back and seeing the gorgeous creations in real life!  But anyhoo, back to Jan's journal.

Favourites is such a broad term.  Favourite what?  Technique? Medium?  Song?  Yes.  To all of these!  While I was still umming and ahhing on what to do, I heard one of my favourite songs on the radio - One, by U2.  So I decided that this would be the basis of my page - the lyrics are really special, so I'll share them here:

Is it getting better, or do you feel the same?

Will it make it easier on you now, you got someone to blame?

You say, one love, one life, when it's one need in the night.

One love, we get to share it, leaves you baby if you don't care for it.

Did I disappoint you, or leave a bad taste in your mouth?

You act like you never had love, and you want me to go without.

Well it's too late, tonight, to drag the past out into the light.

We're one, but we're not the same.  We get to carry each other, carry each other... One.

Have you come here for forgiveness, have you come to raise the dead?

Have you come here to play Jesus, to the lepers in your head?

Did I ask too much, more than a lot?  You gave me nothing now that's all I got.

We're one, but we're not the same.  Well we hurt each other then we do it again.

You say, love is a temple, love a higher law.  

Love is a temple, love the higher law.

You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl.

And I can't be holding on, to what you got, when all you got is hurt.

One love, one blood, one life, you got to do what you should.

One life, with each other, sisters, brothers.

One life, but we're not the same.

We get to carry each other, carry each other... One.

Some of my other favourite things are collage, gelli printed papers, tea bags, and watercolour.  So these things all went together to finish the spread.  

I didn't plan on using all of the lyrics, but... look at them.  I couldn't choose which part I loved the most, so had to do it all.  So the end result is... squishy.  Not quite what I had in my head, but I do like how it all came together.  

And here's a close up of the right hand side.  I thought the colours were a bit too vibrant to write over, so whitewashed the whole thing.  Quite like the effect!

So.  That should have been the end of it, but I decided that while I liked this page, I didn't love it.

What else is a favourite of mine?  Painting bright, colourful gardens, using primarily Dylusions paints.

So I did another page too!  Hope you like both of these Jan!  "They're quite different" remarked my daughter, in her role as Captain Obvious. 😜  Cheers, Lisa xx

Jan does Things with Wings for Colleen

This is a small cloth covered journal that is so beautiful and colourful! I love the bird stencil I have so decided to use that and the page evolved. First I used gesso and Neo Color 11's and baby wipes to create a nice background.

Then I added some elements to create a bit of a frame and then did collage and stenciling. Also added some washi tape for emphasis.

I made a tag in the same vein for Colleen as she made a lovely one for each of the people who worked in her journal and asked us to make one for her.

I hope you like the page Colleen. I love things with wings too.

Lisa working in Pam's "Inspired by Teesha" Journal

When I read about Pam's journal theme, I had heard of Teesha Moore, but didn't really know much about her work.  So I checked out her blog and was blown away by her quirky and whimsical style!

But then I thought, how am I going to emulate this woman's art?  It's so not me!

My word for this year (if I had actually picked one...!) would be CHALLENGE.  So I thought what the hell, just give it a go!

I went through my meagre magazine collection looking for quirky things to cut out, and did find a few that I thought would suit.  I was also lucky enough to win a box of stuff from Kaiser earlier this year, so had a bit of a stash of die cuts.

As we were going away on holidays to Vietnam mid month, my aim was to finish my spread and send it to Lesley early.  So the sensible thing would have been to pick a page without a flap.  Did I?  No...!  So instead of doing two pages I had to do four.  Thus I had to finish it after we got back, so apologies to all!

So here are my pages.  I'm not confident at all that they look like Teesha's work, but they are quirky, weird, and colourful!

First page: duck with attitude.  Whatever you choose to do in life, OWN IT.

Second page - mermaids and scooters.  Take a bite of life!

Third page - Picasso head.  We all have many faces.

And fourth page - Foxy lady - hello beautiful!

Hope you like them Pam, I enjoyed getting out of my comfort zone!

Cheers, Lisa xx

Lesley's page in Joanna's Journal.

Fairytales.

When I received Joanna's Journal it wasn't really a hard decision to work out which fairy tale I was going to do.

" Alice In Wonderland"

I started my pages by doing a small amount of zentangle patterns in the middle of each page.

I then added some color to the background using Distress oxide inks.

and then adding some acrylic inks for an extra splash of color.

I then made a mask of Alice and cheshire cat . I put down the masks and

brayered over the top with some dylusions paint

I then used a stencil to add the heart layer and added the quotes. I also collaged some 

book paper around the edges that I took from an actual vintage copy of

Alice in Wonderland.

"Not all who wander are lost"

"I'm not crazy, my reality is just different to yours."

I hope you like your pages Joannaxx

Lisa - Working in Colleen's Things with Wings Journal

Colleen's journal is a lovely A5 sized, material covered journal with some delicious art in it already.

"Things with Wings" is a great theme because there are so many things you can do!  So, predictable perhaps, but I decided to go with fairies.  And a specific fairy - Tink.  Not the pretty, bubbly Tinkerbell from the Disney cartoon, or the giggly, smiley Tinkerbell played by Julia Roberts in 'Hook'.  The grumpy, mischievous and often nasty Tink from the 2003 Peter Pan movie - a movie that I still love to watch now and then!

I've picked a scene that I love in the movie, where Tink has died after drinking poison meant for Peter....

I started doing this journal page while at our monthly get together with the Art Mesaj group, and luckily Lena took a pic of my progress!

I picked a double page that also had a flap.  This page is between two signatures, so I had to work out how to tie the two parts together.

The paper is a nice thick watercolour paper, so that made my decision to use watercolour and pen easy!

It's not easy trying to draw something from a still frame from a video clip.  But here's my Peter shouting I DO BELIEVE IN FAIRIES, I DO, I DO!  I think he turned out okay!  Though maybe his neck is a bit long...?

And here's the right hand side, with the closed flap.  Whenever doing a page with a flap, I always try to match what's under the flap to what's over.  Which is not really needed, and often difficult, but that's my thing.  (For case in point, check out my entry in Pam's Monochrome journal...!)

Pretty dull really, isn't it.  But I wanted what was underneath to be a surprise!  So here's Tink.

Okay, so I know that Tink doesn't stand out very well amongst all the leaf matter.  Well duh, she is a wood fairy, she's not supposed to...!  She does sparkle though (Perfect Pearls). 😁

And here's the whole double spread.  I hope you like this Colleen, I had a lot of fun doing it!  Still working on a tag for you in the same theme.  Cheers, Lisa xx

Joan Mannix's page in Colleen Mulholland's Journal

Colleen's journal theme is "Things with wings".  It is a lovely little journal made from 2 signatures with only two pages or 4 spreads in each signature.  I thought that others would  probably use birds, fairies, dragonflies or angels in their layout so I wanted to find something else.   When the kids were young they used to love flying their kites and I vaguely remembered that the actual kite bit  is referred to as the wing, so I went with that for my theme. 

I used distress oxide ink pads for my background.  I used about 8 colours all up. The great thing about oxide ink, is that provided you dry it in between layers, you can combine warm and cool colors
without ending up with mud.   I then stamped randomly with a stamp, using back and front which gave me two slightly different patterns.  I  used stazon ink to stamp them.  Using gesso I stamped some circles and using my glue gun I put some circles in the middle of the stamp circles.  This gave it a bit more texture.  I had some clear round stickers in colours similar to what I had used on the background, so I stuck them on randomly. 

I printed a girl  I had in my digital stash for ages and cut and pasted her.  Then I paper pieced 4 kites and stuck some string and the kites on the page.  I also use some scraps to stick embellishments on the strings of the kites.  I doodled etc on the girl to give her a bit of lift.  Whilst I was doing this the words from "Lets go fly a kite" from Mary Poppins kept going through my head, so I wrote sentences from the lyrics around the stickers and the stamped circles.  I finished the page off with  faux stitching around the edge and Distress oxide Vintage Photo ink all around the edges.  Colleen had included tags in her journal for each of us and asked that we make one in return.  I made mine to match my page.  I have made a quick video which wont upload here but I will include a link in the comments on the AASG page, when I post notice of this blog.  Hope it is ok for you Colleen.

Lisa - Working in Joanna's Fairy Tales

Ooh what a theme.  There are so many hundreds, if not thousands, of fairy tales.  How to pick one?

Good question!  Mel still has her old book of fairy tales, so I went through that.  Nothing really grabbed me.  I thought about my favourite fairy tales, at least visually: Hansel & Gretel, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast.  I even thought about 'modern' fairy tales, and was so close to doing a page about Harry Potter!  But that could be another journal theme... 😜

I wanted something bright and colourful, so looked into foreign fairy tales.  The African tales were mostly about animals, and I remembered one about Babaji and the tigers which I liked... but it has many connotations of racism, so I didn't want to go there.  

In the end, some music kept popping into my head.  Not really a fairy tale; more of a musical.  But traditional and oft told, so I went with it - and thus did my spread on Peter and the Wolf.

For those that don't know the story, it's about a boy who lives with his grandfather in the woods.  His grandfather tells him not to go outside the gate, for there is a wolf who lives in the forest.  His duck does not heed this warning, and is promptly eaten by said wolf.  Alive, of course.  Peter's bird decides to torment the wolf, and while it's distracted, Peter climbs a tree, intent on catching the wolf!  

Miraculously, Peter does catch the wolf by lowering a rope around it's tail, and pulling it tight.  Sounds a bit unrealistic to me...  

Two hunters in the woods come upon Peter with the 'captured' wolf, and want to kill it.  

But surprisingly, Peter doesn't want to kill the wolf.  He decides that they should take it to the local zoo instead.  What kind of fairy tale is this, where no-one gets killed?  Well, unless you count the duck, but apparently he can be heard quacking from the wolf's belly... 😁

So here's the whole spread.  I gessoed the pages, then did the sky and grass in watercolour which was applied with a sponge.  It was then painted with Dylusions paints - I just love the luscious colours.  Then finished with black and white fineliners.  

Hope you like it Joanna! 💝

Cheers, Lisa