My Book Page Art Journal is home!

I received my journal in the mail a week or two before Christmas, and what a lovely present it was!

Thanks so much to everyone who did a spread in it - it's thick and juicy! 

And thank you to everyone who struggled with ripping up a book.  The first one is always hardest, but old books look fab incorporated into artworks!

So here's my completed journal.  The cover was made with book pages made into petals, and a teabag covered book page in the centre. 

Next was my contract and an example of black out poetry.

Jenny did an amazing underwater spread with lots of gorgeous elements!  The photo doesn't show how shiny and glossy it all is. 💙

Melissa's spread was called Round & Round the Garden and included some great black out poetry, plus a lovely garden scene.  So cute!

Sallyanne came up with a fairytale scene with the requisite dwarves, a wolf, and princess, with music paper and book pages collaged into the background.  Lots of great texture!

Next is Janie's fabulous medieval scene!  Amazing print in the background, with heaps of stamps and imagery, including a lovely tree of life.

I did another black out poetry page in pink. 💗

Sharon did a spread based on Alice in Wonderland which included old pages from the book in the background - she found a cheap copy at a market I believe!  Lucky!  Always love a bit of Alice!

Next page is by - I think, as it hasn't been signed - Amanda.  Lots of cute fairies and toadstools, with words collaged into the background.  Love, love, love the colour scheme in this one!

Just love the colour scheme on this next spread too, which is by Meg.  She's used an old crossword as her base - great idea!  All of the circles really work with this cute spread.

This next page was a joint collaboration by Pam and Louise, using Pam's stash 💚.  Heaps of collaged book pages, with a wonderful sentiment in cut out letters!

Louise's spread is awe inspiring: stained fabric and book pages shaped into a Ghost Ship.  I'm really drawn to the muted palette in this!

Robyn did a wonderful tree with book page flowers and a painted book page background.  It's so cute, and I certainly don't mind that it's upside down!  Think we've all done that at some stage!

Roz did a lovely peaceful beach scene with a book page background.  Would like to be sitting there right now!  

And lastly was a pocket page with some book pages in it (for those who were hesitant to rip up a book of their own!) and the posting order - teabag covered book page flowers.

Thank you all so much for my lovely journal!

I look forward to the next journal round starting soon - happy arting all!

Cheers, Lisa xx

Ghost Ships

Lisa's theme had me stumped for quite a while, I was shuffling through book pages and considering found poetry or various other ideas but nothing was grabbing me.

Then I remembered some book pages I had been working on before I went down to mum's back in March, April. They are stitched and ecodyed and I just grabbed some and stuck them in.

I had been at the beach yesterday and had been doing a lot of deep work around grief and letting go, and I was listening to the Saints, Ghost Ships. It all seemed to fit together.

Pam's Book Art

As many of you know, we recently lost a founding member of the Australian Art Swap Group, Pam Parker. Not only was Pam a wonderfully supportive admin and organiser for our group, but she was also my beloved mama.
I was blessed to spend 4 months by her side this year so some things have had to slide as her needs were my priority, we did try to keep up all the art swaps but in the end, death came quickly and my darling mama was worried about meeting her art obligations, I assured her I will honour them all so you will be seeing posts up until this round finishes by Pam. 

I have been helping my dad go through all of mums stuff and I have about a tonne of her art supplies to bring home and I decided I will use her supplies and as much of her hand in each piece I do for mum. I just worked on this page, playing with all mums materials and listening to her music, I still feel so very connected to her. 

This was the inspiration for mama's page, I found it in one of her stashes of papers as I was gathering book pages and suddenly I knew it was perfect for Lisa's Journal.
I covered the pages in Lisa's fabulous little journal with scraps and torn pages, then I used some of mama's paints to finish the background. While that was drying I started to go through mama's magazines to find the words, mama was an avid magazine reader and collector so no shortage of materials and it took me a long time to find them all. 

It was really lovely to be home and arting and to feel mama close. 

Magic

I had bought a Fairy digi pack which I was longing to use so I decided this was the perfect project. 
I gessoed the pages, then started to add blotches of paint. I wanted to try to create a magical night sky...the sort that Fairies love. 
I next added a stencil to create the sense of a garden...the sort that Fairies frolic in.
I then overlayed it all with a metallic blue to give a shimmer. I tore my images and placed them on the pages. It was really starting to come together. 
I had researched various poems about Fairies but there was one that just stuck. It was a quote from W.B.Yeat's poem, The Land of Heart's Desire. I felt it worked well with the images I had created.
I still felt more sparkle was needed so I added glitter and then used a brush to flick even more shimmer from some Tattered Angel's Glimmer Mist. Finally, I Mod Podged the spread.
I hope my layout takes you out of this, '...dull world' for a short time.

Janie's Book Journal Page.

The first thing was to create a suitable medieval book looking background. This was accomplished with the assistance of Etsy's Medieval Mirage digital papers scrapbooking site.

Next was to add more additional medieval imagery to build up layers of interest. 

Torn papers stuck down strategically, were used to accomplish this.

Finally, focal images were pasted, the page was sprayed with Lindy's Stamp Gang Moon Shadow Mist - Pegleg Pete Purple - to bring the page together and make the page cohesive.

AAJS7 Sharon's Pages in Lisa's "Book Page Art" Journal

Hi Everyone!

 

I'm sharing my pages in Lisa's Journal - I just loved this theme of "Book Page Art" - I always use old book pages in my journal and other creations to add interest to the background!

 

 

I couldn't resist and "Alice in Wonderland" theme for my pages as I had recently bought an old "Alice" paperback novel for 50cents from a second hand book stand!!!!

 

I used pages from the book to cover the entire background - I trimmed the edges once it was all dry.

 

 

Next I used a wording type stencil and texture paste to the background and allowed to dry. Then I added ink sprays to each side and let dry.

 

I used more pages from the book to print the digi images on - before printing I used a spatula to add a thin layer of gesso to the pages so the wording was still visable but dulled off enough for the dig image to be most prominent. I coloured the digis with copic markers. I printed the Alice quotes on plain white card and cut out.

 

I adhered everything to the pages including some added washi tape. I just love the result - who doesn't love "Alice"???

 

 

Lisa I hope you like these pages!!!

 

Sharon



An Underwater Storybook

Book Page Art Journal Page for Lisa by Jenny

I'm not fond of ripping up books, even ones I don't like... so I'm grateful to have been given a few sheets as part of a swap. Plus if I (we) ran out, Lisa has kindly put a few unusual book sheets inside the back pocket of her book for us to use.

To start my page in this fantastic book, I lightly sponged some Tim Holtz Distress Paint in 2 blues (Peacock Feathers and Tumbled Glass) over the page, leaving speckles here and there of the paper. A smart girl would wait for things to dry... I then splattered Dylusions Ink Spray in Lemon Zest and White Linen over the page before misting with water and splattering Dylusions Ink Spray, London Blue. I used the seasponge to mop up the excess liquid.

When it was almost dry, I lightly pressed a sheet of paper towel over the whole page... ours has wavy lines embossed, so any marks left behind would look like waves.
Still not dry, but why wait? Next I used a spiral shaped foam stamp with light blue Distress Paint (Tumbled Glass) and printed spirals over the page.

Now I had to leave it dry or the page would just get soggy! While waiting, I created my scenery and characters.

On one of the pages I drew daisies (because it was going to be a garden until I opened the bottle of paint) and dozens of scribbly circles with blue pencil (a regular pencil so it wouldn't disappear if (when) it got wet). Each circle was cut out by hand with scissors, drawing more circles until I felt I  had enough and putting leftovers to one side (they ended up being rocks and seaweed).

I don't have a before and after photo of the stamped narwhals, crab and books... but this is how they were created ...
I stamped the narwhals and crab in black Archival ink and the books in brown Archival ink. The crab was cut out and had his edges and feet inked with Distress Ink (Walnut Stain, dark brown), while the narwhals had their edges and tummies inked with a grey Distress Ink (Pumice Stone).
The books were blended all over using a warm brown and very dark brown Distress Ink (Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso) and spattered with water, then had black ink brushed over them. The pages of the open book were blended with brown and grey as well, only lightly though as it was really absorbent paper.

FYI, the stamps I used were ... Narwhals by Jane Davenport, Crab by Dyan Reaveley (Under the Sea collection), books by Darkroom Door (Bookworm collection and Open Book frame stamp).

The background was dry and so to add more book themed elements and create the illusion of seaweed, I used stamps by Tim Holtz and a mid green Archival Ink Pad. The writing you can see is the background image from Tim Holtz's Entomology Set (the gorgeous insects collection) and the halftone dots along the bottom is from Tim's Psychedelic Grunge Set (groovy background images).

Using a gel matte medium, I glued down torn pieces of Tim Holtz collage tissue "Melange" (its beautiful, full of butterflies, moths and music, perfect for this page). I then fussy cut and tore some rocks and seaweed out of the leftover book pages and stuck them down before gluing down the crab, books, narwhals and bubbles. All with the gel... thankfully it takes a little while to dry as they moved around a bit until everything was where I like it (or was too stuck to move). I then left it to dry overnight, crossing my fingers that the colour of the pages dried much lighter (and it did, phew!).

The next day... totally dry and the colours were ok again :) The quote on the right hand side are stickers by Finnabair (Sentiments pack), altered to say "Give a Voice to Your Story".
At this stage, I added some of Ranger's Glossy Accents (a 3D shiny varnish) and used Distress Inks to add a bit of extra colour here and there. I also added a tiny paperclip from Tim Holtz's Idea-Ology collection with a Distress Ink stained piece of muslin.

Glossy Accents was added everywhere... even the books have "water" dripping over them!

The narwhals had a pretty glitter glue on their horns then a splash of Glossy on those as well. The crab was given shiny eyes and his book dunked in "water" aka Glossy while the bubbles were coated with a Gloss Texture Paste.

This is when I thought it was finished, ready to post to Sharon... then I had a delivery with a whole new collection of treasures... Tim's Baseboard Dolls and Transparent Wings! The page didn't feel finished anyway! lol :)

The paper doll sitting on the stack of books is one of Tim's Idea-Ology Baseboard Dolls wearing a pair of his Transparent Wings (with glitter glue underneath). The doll has splashes of Glossy (it got everywhere) and a Distress Ink stained hat. I glued the doll down and lifted her to add the wings, then lifted her again to add the glitter glue to the wings... then once more to add the ends of string underneath. I don't recommend this "technique" but luckily she's a tough dolly and didn't hurt her a bit!

The yellow string (some sort of paper twine) was stained with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and sprayed with water to get it to blend. Before it dried, I had it curling around on the table, hoping it would dry how I shaped it. Five minutes later it was still damp but I couldn't wait any longer... I glued it to the page using matte gel medium. Then finally, left it all to dry.

So here it is... my finished art journal page. Its the story of a little crab sharing his books with his fairy and narwhal friends. With the name Tolstoy at the top of the pages that I used to cut up, it could be a real epic!

Thanks so much for reading and checking out my journal page for Lisa. I hope it makes you smile too!

Have a wonderful, happy creative day!
:)
Jenny

Once upon a time in Lisa's Journal

As Lisa's journal theme is Book Page Art, I decided to do a fairy tale page with images from an old children's book.

Once upon a time....

There were magical characters with stories to tell....

We loved them so dearly.... 

We knew them so well....

Who was your favourite ?

A bit of a messy but fun start laying down some old book pages paper and other interesting bits and pieces.

Then went over the lot with some acrylic paint.

And added a few stencils.

Had fun going through some old books looking for images before creating a collage of well known characters. 

No princess is complete without a crown or broomstick.

 With a few words in the side panel and some gold dots here and there, the picture was finished.