Trees - the Last Page in Louise's Journal

Louise's Journal arrived safe and sound after a short vacation via the South Pole I think, even though I didn't find any penguin feathers attached.  Louise visited just after it arrived so she was able to see it was safe and sound but had to wait a little while longer for its return.

My page started with my desire to use a favorite leaf stamp around the edges of the page and a quote I had seen online.

The background was just a gentle touch of color using my Pan Pastels and a little bit of stenciling, before adding the leaves, some of which were stamped and colored directly on the page, others cut out and stuck on.

I roughly drew and painted a border to frame my main imagery and quote.  The poem/quote took up a entire page and I drew a simple tree on the other side coloring it in with Posca Paint Pens.

I am planning on delivering this now completed journal back to Louise in person in the coming weeks.

Thanks to everyone who was in this round and worked in and on my journal which I also have back safe and sound, I loved seeing the imagination of each of you and taking inspiration from all these beautiful pages.

I look forward to joining a round again with you all some time soon.

Danie xx

Flowers the Seeds of Yesterday Spread in Roz's Journal

I am not the greatest at remembering to take photos or blog about my creations in our Journal Swap, but am here with a look at my Silhouette Spread in Roz's Journal I had the pleasure of creating in last month. 

I started by coloring the pages with Distress Oxides.  And once I had smooched the color across both pages I took a stencil and a spray bottle with some water and sprayed this through the stencil to add some interest and pattern to the page.

I used some Wildflower Stamps from Darkroom Door and a Quote Stamp from Paper Artsy.

I was keeping it simple as I often tend to do but I think that suited this Silhouette Shape.

Only one more journal to go and we will be receiving our own journals back which I am really looking forward to.  It's been fun being a part of this and seeing all the wonderful inspiration and beautiful pages everyone in both rounds of this swap have been creating. 

Danie xx

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.

Annabelle's Under the Sea

I really enjoyed working in this journal. I started out doing a background using Gobal high flow paints as they are transparent 

I went from light to dark then put a sandy colour on the bottom and went over some of it with blue paint. I then added my collage pieces

I am sorry that this post isn’t very well done but Blogger isn’t very iPad friendly 

This isn’t  in the journal but it was my inspiration for the spread

I just couldn’t seem to stop lol I found so many whale pictures in my stash , I just had to use them all. The tiny diver is in scale to the whales. 

I found this picture of Neptune and I couldn’t leave him out, then my warped sense of humour kicked in

I finally added my quote and I was done with my fun !

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

Simply Being Me in Annabelle's Journal

It was my turn to Be You (Me) in Annabelle's Round 5 Journal.  I usually approach my art projects with a K.I.S.S. attitude, plus my time was a little limited this month.  Nature is one of my biggest inspirations so of course there would be color, leaves, flowers and butterflies.  Collage, Stencils, Stamps and my favourite color mediums made the mix too.

I started by printing out a butterfly collage sheet and adding some base color to the journal pages using my Pan Pastels.

Next some randomly chosen Stencils from The Crafter's Workshop and more Pan Pastels.

Dylusion Stamps were used to add some leaves and a border to the pages.  Once more Pan Pastels were used to add some Color.  Once finished playing with the Pan Pastels I sprayed with a Fixative/Sealant.

Next I stuck down some butterflies to the middle of my journal spread.

Still wanting more color I turned to some Paper Artsy Flower Stamps and my Distress Oxide Inks bring in more elements of nature and I used a Posca Paint Pen to add a touch of color to my stamped border and finishing with a few more butterflies and a Quote from Tim Holtz.

Annabelle's Journal will hit the post and head South on to it's next contributor Louise tomorrow!

Danie xx

AASG Round 5: Danie's "Under the Sea" Journal Pages by Sharon

I am sharing my pages just completed for Danie's "Under the Sea" Journal - loved working in this journal and there are certain "special" additions that Danie will "understand"!!!

 

Here's a pic of the completed pages with little tag I made to accompany the journal as well:

 

 

I started the pages with a layer of Gesso - quickly used my brayer to spread the Gesso. I also used the brayer to cover the page from bottom to top with several colours of acrylic paint plus a glitter paint to add a subtle sparkle - like the light shining through the water to what is below!!

 

 

Once the background was dry I grabbed some homemade stencils (made with Cameo Silhouette Files) - firstly a "fishy" one which I used my new Nuvo Mousse - a nice soft shimmery green!

 

 

I also wanted some "bubbles" LOL so used some white paint through a circle stencil.

 

 

Then I started to place my fussy cut collage elements and embellishments - all collage elements are from a great Etsy Store "Art Tea Life" - great quality sheets!

 

 

And just a little pic here of "MY" hand with my red thread - now Danie will understand this - bet she didn't think I would still have it on - but it was still on and I finally removed it today to use on these pages - I used it to tie the charms to the little fishing barrels and you will also see it on the tag I made!!!!!

 

 

Now the sticking down bit - quite fiddly with all the bits and pieces and the fishing net has to be stretched out and secured and held in place til the glue dries - LOL you can imagine my fingers were almost glued together by the time I was finished!

 



 

And Danie will also recognise this wording from the "Secrets of the Deep" - I thought it was the perfect saying for the pieced mermaid and also has "meaning" to Danie!!!

 

I had lots of little collage pieces left over and as Danie has tags for us all in the back of her journal I decided to make one to replace the one I have taken to match my pages - front and back pics shown below!!

 

And here are some more pics of the completed pages - I LOVED working in this journal - love underwater themes and mermaids.

 

 

Hope you like it Danie & the special little additions that have meaning for us!

 

Created by Sharon!!