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. 

Fairy Tales November 2017

This month I had Joanne Tobler's lovely Fairy Tale Journal. A beautiful looking journal styled in landscape mode.

As usual I hadn't a clue.  At my age the world of fairy tales are long gone and probably polluted by Mr Disney.  I went to the library to see if I could find a book of classic fairy tales...Nada!!

So I traversed into the pre-schoolers section to see what I could find.  Success!!  (I hope.)

The story I chose to do was called The Silly Goose.  The usual fairy tale scenario with a villain and an innocent, with good conquering evil.

I began building a background with book text and acrylic paint.

Next I printed the silly goose on tracing paper and fussy cut her all a'flutter.

 The sly fox saw waiting to trick her by telling her she had lost her ears.  Goose then went on an odyssey to find some ears.  None of her friends could help her.

The fox disguised himself as a peacock and told the goose he had ears to sell.  Goose went with him and then discovered who was hidden by the peacock's finery and madly tried to escape.

And then all of goose's friends arrived in time to chase the wicked fox away.

So I hope this fits the fairy tale criteria, and I hope Joanne enjoys it.

Jan's spread in Joanne's Fairy Tales

Well, when the themes were first announced I had heaps of ideas but then the time came and I had a blank. But i started with some stencils and lighter colours and it progressed from there.

But it got a bit darker after that and I ended up wanting to use a couple of  favorite Stampotique stamps.

A slightly darker theme but i hope you like her and her little companion.

They kind of flow together when side by side. I used several home made stamps too.

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 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

Joan's Fairy Tale

Joan's page in Joanna's Journal.

Joanna's journal is "Fairy Tales", anything from Disney to Grimm is how Joanna describes the content she is inviting participants to create a page on.  She also said that her favourite fairy tale was Snow White and how she favoured Maleficent the wicked stepmother.  In every version of Snow White that there is, the Queen has a different name, ranging from the original Grimm story where she was called Queen Grimhilde to the later versions from Disneyland where she was called Maleficent, so I will just refer to her as the Wicked Queen.  As I too have a soft spot for the Wicked Queen after playing her in a local production as a child which ran for about three weekends, so  I decided to do my page featuring the Wicked Queen.

I painted the background in blues and mauves and a bit of green at the bottom.  Using a stencil I painted some stars in the background at the top of the page.  I also used a stencil with textured paste to do some feathers on the right of the page as a background for the queen and I used a wall stencil with graphic textured paste from Finabar to represent the castle wall on the left page.    I then used some peacock features on top of the stenciled feathers to further embellish the area behind where the Queen cutout was going.  I also used a stencil to create some trees and deer on the page to represent the forest surrounding the castle to which Snow White ran away and where the Queen tells the huntsman to find her and cut out her heart.   I used three different books about Snow White to cut out a couple of versions of the Queen, the mirror and Snow White .   I cut the center out of the mirror and stuck some silver paper in the frame to make the mirror more realistic.  I stuck a small version of Snow White on it.  I then lightly painted some Inka Gold in white over the top of some of the textured wall.  I stuck the large version of the Queen on top of the feathers and the smaller version and the mirror on the left page.

I painted the Queen's dress and Snow White's dress with glitter.  I used Glossy accents on the Queen's  crowns, her amulet and the box containing the heart to give them a 3D appearance.
I then stuck a cut out verse from one of the Snow White books at the top of the left page.





I will be sending onto Lisa Jones on the 1st August.