The Galaxy Song

My galaxy art journal page ... by Jenny for Amanda

As some of you know, my first attempt ended in disaster after smooshing gesso through a stencil and stuffing it all up... I thought the background was so pretty before I did that. Lesson learnt, use either a foam blending tool with such runny gesso or use thicker gesso...! Or use paint like I'd normally do...

This was actually all watercolours... started off as a wash using blue, then add some purple. Then reverted back to my fave techniques of putting paint to the craft mat, spritzing with water, placing paper onto the ink and lifting upwards trying not to slide. I applied blue, purple and black each separately, drying inbetween using the hot air tool. Then I splattered all that black everywhere and sprayed the edges with water... then waited for it to dry again.

I made such an incredible mess on my mat, on my hands, over the paper! It was so awesome :D

The idea was that the galaxy of stars and spirals would then go diagonally across the page from bottom left to top right, with some of the Galaxy Song words weaving in and out of the stars.

Ah well... the next attempt turned out ok in the end. It was created on the back of the first sheet of paper so Amanda has both versions!

Starting on a messy page, Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stains came to the rescue!

I sprayed the whole page with water, leaving it dryish in the centre (the water and ink blended towards the middle anyway which was fine, just trying to keep it lighter).
Started with Peacock Feathers (blue), then some Candied Apple (red) and splash of Dusty Concord (purple). Then around the outside, some Ground Espresso (dark brown).
I then placed another sheet of paper over the top, lifted off again then. Before it was dry (I had plenty of time as it was so soggy! lol), I sprinkled a sparkly white embossing powder, imagining that it could be visualised as distant stars.

It took a few minutes to dry with the help of the heat tool... mostly drying from underneath so as to not blow away all the powder. This pic is me waiting for the ink to dry showing close up of the embossing powder looking like star dust.

Once mostly dry, I used gel matte medium blended through Tim Holtz Layering Stencil "Falling Stars" to recreate the Milky Way. I made a bit of a mess but put blinkers on and kept going. I think next time I'd use a white paint or ink instead of a clear gel so I could see where the stars appeared!

Anyway, more embossing powder was scattered over the whole page and tapped off. I heated the page from underneath as well as on top as before. You can see I should have waited a bit longer for the ink to be more dry ... I've created a few huge clusters of stars, but they're so far away that they look squashed!

Check out the beautiful colours that are created from layering the inks. Sometimes they don't appear til they're dried completely.

I've featured a song from Monty Python's Meaning of Life... its been flying around in my head since the swap began... The Galaxy Song. Its right at the end of the movie :)
The lyrics were borrowed from the internet, restyled and printed, then sliced into strips.

The first and last paragraph I left straight, but the rest was glued down as if following the Milky Way across the page. I used Dylusions Glue Stick and scissors to stick one or two words at a time, weaving and waving as it went.

Once all the words were stuck down, I used a white gel pen to add a shooting star, few spiral galaxies,  filled in some stars and add the title in groovy starry lettering.

Then decided that I should emboss the lettering as well... so dragged out my embossing pen and wrote over the lettering, added the powder and heated it. Also added a slight shadow with a black fine felt tipped pen.
Then I simply had to draw in vintage fridge... at the beginning of the song, Eric climbs out of a fridge to sing the song to Mrs Brown. Totally looks like a real one hey? lol :)

Being a song all about time and speeding lights, I drew a pocket watch flying across the page...

And added a tiny little mini Earth on the bottom right hand corner...

All finished. It was also going to have a tape measure but I don't know how to fit it in without covering the words. Must be the fastest page I've made but I like it and enjoyed making it. I hope you like it too!

On the right hand side are the legals :) I'll have to find the musical version of this song so you can all have it spiralling around inside your heads too! lol :) I love it, one of my fave songs, along with the Butterfly Ball by Roger Glover, Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog and Movin' Right Along by Kermit and Fozzie.

Happy Creative Day!
:)
Jenny

Galaxy Song by Monty Python ... Songwriters John Du Prez / Eric Idle. Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group.

Twinkle twinkle in Amanda's galaxy journal

There is no easy way from the Earth to the stars. - Seneca

Big topic, with so many possiblities. I really didn't know what to do, I had so many thoughts and ideas. 

Decided to just start. 

Laid down the usual acrylic wash in blues, purple and a little red. 

Then the fun part, flicking white paint all over the page to create a star filled galaxy .

The journal is full of colourful planets and aliens and a little whimsical, so inspired by the cover of a children's book I saw at the library and the first nursery rhymes most of us learn, l made a start. 

The little astral boy slowly took form, surrounded by lots of stars and planets. 

Dancing through the galaxy, is he sleeping or just day dreaming, I don't know. 

But as he plays in his imagination he asks, Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are?

And there you have it, all done in a blink of an eye. 

All yours Amanda, enjoy. 

Looking up to the Galaxy!

by Lisa for Amanda

Okay, wow.  This is the quickest I've ever done a journal page!!! 

I received Amanda's great Galaxy journal yesterday, checked out all the fab pages in it, and thought about what I could add.  For some reason, my mind kept jumping to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy but I didn't go there!  Lots of fodder for another journal page though maybe - love these books and movies!

Then I started googling pics of stars and galaxies, and found some epic pics in Unsplash.  If you've never heard of Unsplash, it's full of amazing photos taken by peeps, on every subject, and all are available to use for free and without copyright.  Perfect for arty inspiration!!!

I found a gorgeous photo by Greg Rakozy of a wondrous night sky, so used this as my inspo.  Here's a sneaky peek.

No process pics!  I used a piece of 300gsm watercolour paper which I will glue into Amanda's journal, since I wanted to use watercolour.  First I used a thick black Pitt pen to draw and colour in the ground and the silhouette of the girl.  The beauty of these pens is that they come in many different sized tips, and they're waterproof.  So no worries about the pens bleeding or smearing!

Then I got out my watercolours and used all the colours 💜💛💚.  I dropped some salt on, but didn't really get the desired 'starry' effect.  So added more watercolour!  

After my watercolour was dry, I gave it all a spray with matte fixative, so I could add gel pens on top.  Then it was dot time - lots of dots.  First, black around the edges, two different sizes.  Then my trusty white Signo, then silver Signo and a bronze pen left over from my Creative Memories days.

Lastly, more black dots using a fine point Pitt pen.  Added a great quote that I found on Pinterest: 

Look at the stars, instead of the dark.

And then I was done!  There's a link to the original photo I used here .  

Hope you like it Amanda!  I had real fun with this one. 😍

Happy Arting!

Cheers, Lisa xx

Galaxy with Pam May 2019.

Amanda's Galaxy art journal is developing well and becoming very pretty indeed.  I had some thoughts about what to do and my mind went back to a favourite subject which includes some traditional Indigenous knowledge.

 The story of the Emu in the Sky is part of the traditions of many Indigenous groups and as it changes it indicates differing seasons and gatherings, one being the gathering of emu eggs.

And so.....may I present to you, The Emu in the Sky.

The beginning.

On the job.

Amanda's Galaxy Journal

This is my page in Amanda,s Galaxy Journal

 I did the star  face 

in Photo Lab Pro and put it all together in Scrapbook Max

  it's a digital program I bought

 hope you like it Amanda xxxxx

There's a starman in our galaxy

Amanda's Galaxy journal arrived this month and as is usual its been a full on crazy month and I can't believe we are half way through March already.
We are house painting again- it seems to be an ongoing thing with us- another house and another colour scheme but the main issues atm are everything is once again packed away so I have very minimal art supplies accessible. I have some pens, a small tin of inktense pencils, a set of caran dache neocolour 11's and a dribble of white paint left in the bottom of a box I used to teach a workshop with recently. All good- Amanda has very light paper so I couldn't get it too wet anyway. 

As I was mulling over ideas I kept coming back to the ultimate star man for me :) David Bowie and eventually decided on the lyrics for Space Oddity and the page came together fairly quickly once I settled on the theme.

I googled Bowie street art as I had a memory of Australian street artist Jimmy C and his mural tribute once I found it I knew it was the perfect inspiration for my galaxy page. 

 I lightly drew on the paper and then added colour from my pencils 

It came together OK but needed something galactic to pull it together
so I dug out a bottle of blue spray ink and added stars with black and gold dots. 

Megs beautiful Galaxy

Galaxy 

I received Amanda's Delightful journal with the theme Galaxy.

Then think of what I like about the outreaching sky above us at night.......

I love the Milky Way and the Aurora sometimes referred to as Polar lights,

Northern lights of the Aurora Borealis

I Started adding Layers of paint to bring the Aurora to life

Continued adding colours to build background up

Then added the Milky way with splatter technique

Then used the Toothbrush Strainer technique for the finishing touches indifferent colours to bring the mystical galaxy to life 

And finally, heat embossed the word galaxy on the page!
 and added a wink of Stella to the Aurora.

Thank you Amanda for the opportunity to play in your Journal almost time to send it on its way.

Galaxy Journal Round 7 AASG

Sunday, 21st January I began finishing my Galaxy journal cover. I had been contemplating what I would do since joining Round 7...I like to let ideas stew in my brain and then when I'm really convinced, I put them into action.

I chose the theme of Galaxy as I've always been fascinated by the night sky. As a child visiting my Pop's property in far north Queensland, I'd sit, fascinated, listening and watching carefully as my grandfather pointed out the major constellations.

My journal cover process began with using some blackboard I'd got from Reverse Garbage, gessoing it, then stencilling. This was all done before Christmas, 2018. My first idea of painting the cover purple, then with black chalkboard paint with wiping it off over the stencilling so the purple showed through was a disaster.

 So, after two coats of black paint,  I used metallic pastes and paints to create starbursts. Synchronicity...I had seen the December issue of Womankind and it was full of fabulous images so I bought it. I used the picture of Saturn, a large hand and collaged letters to complete my cover. I also used more images from the magazine to help me create my pages.

I love the results and am excited to see what you talented people will add to my journal. This has been such a steep learning curve for me. I am so proud to take part in this Journal Round. The Australian Artists' Swap Group has been supportive, fun and encouraging...thank you all xox