Natasha's Goddess Journal

Natasha joined our swap group and our journal swap a few rounds back and created a gorgeous journal with the theme of Goddess

I have had the great pleasure of hosting this journal in my home and It has been like a visiting art exhibition! I have shown it to almost every visitor and looked at it many times myself. 

This is the full opened cover- it is just gorgeous!

This gorgeous page dedicated to Lakshmi is created by
 Robyn Osbourne. 

I think we can all do with a little Lakshmi in our lives.

I love how Robyn altered and did her tag for Tash as well-

Very clever Robyn.

Our lovely Roz Willoughby is next and her pages are just beautiful.

Roz worked with Kwan Yin

in line with her deep appreciation and inspiration with all things Asian.
Roz has 2 opening flaps so added her research
and beautiful symbology in those areas. 

Next we are off to Ireland and Jan Mullanes beautiful page for Brigit

I have a personal fondness for the Celtic Pantheon

and I adore Celtic knotwork.

Jan even has Brigit's well I would love to visit one day. 

I love how Jan works, her pages are always gorgeous and I am really thankful to those artists who come back and join another round ( or 2) of the AAJS because it is a real privilege to share their own personal development and in a very different way we get to know each other.

Gail Bourke bought Artemis into the journal 

And Rachel Thomas who loves working with flowers so much

bought the Goddess Antheia to the page

She is the Goddess of Love and Flowers

Then we have these incredible pages!

Jenny James you have outdone yourself. 

This wild and wooly Goddess is Calypso

and she has a host of characters
and quirky details you don't see at first.

Jenny I love this entry. 

Another long term contributor

 Sharon Williams

has bought her own style

 and I alway love Sharon's work,

I cant imagine who else would have Lucille Ball

and I love Lucy :)

as Hesta

but what a perfect domestic Goddess she is. 

This page to Gaia is unsigned but thanks to my co detective Pam Parker we tracked it down to Lee Hynes who also made this amazing hanging Goddess 

I love Wendy's amazing Moon Goddess page

I also love and so appreciate how Wendy will just jump into any theme and create her own gorgeous interpretation, usually generously sharing her process and inspiring everyone else. 

And lastly I got to play as well and created my pages for Demeter and Persephone. 

Lisa J's Summer Journal - Home!

I sent my Summer journal off on its journey some 13 months ago and it returned home a few days ago.  Some of the pages were a surprise as not everyone blogged about their entries.

So here it is in its entirety!   I made the journal after checking out a few videos online, and it hasn't fallen apart which is very pleasing!  Here's the cover:

On the first page I wrote some stuff about me, and my rules/requirements for this journal.  Basically, what does summer mean to you?  

I did the first page in watercolour, from a photo my husband Scott took at dusk, down at the beach we like to frequent when we can get away for a weekend.  Which is not often enough with work and kids' sports!

The next page is a collage done by Robyn.  So bright and colourful!

Gail's page is also a collage, and I think some may be napkins?  I really love the quote, it's so true!

Next is Pam's entry - a mix of painting and collage.  The sand has little tiny beads through it and the water has heaps of texture too.  Love the bathing boxes!

I hadn't seen Nat's entry, so it was a wonderful surprise!  A gorgeous painting of a girl up close with a soldier crab.  And the crab has great features that you probably can't see well enough in a photo.

Next up is Wendy's cool surfer dude!  This page is a mix of painting and collage and I love how it turned out.

Lee's page was another that I hadn't seen.  It's a digital piece that has been printed and it's so different and quirky!

Deb's spread is all about looking out the kitchen window to the view beyond.  Wouldn't it be nice to look out at the beach and see the sun setting down over the ocean!  I love all the elements in this page.

Rose's page is so simple but so effective!  She likes to watch the tennis in summer.

Joan's page is a wonderful mix of painting and collage.  All the elements flow so well in this piece and I really like the composition.  Great waves too!

This page didn't photograph very well.  Each January, the ABC play old Countdown episodes on Rage on Saturday nights!  Unfortunately they often start around midnight, but if you can keep your eyelids open for an hour or two, it's so great to watch!  I've always loved music, especially 80s stuff.  So this page is a homage to Countdown and Molly Meldrum, and some of my favourite songs of that era.

I found this cool saying in Pinterest so decided to use it in my journal.  Who doesn't like ice cream?!  When we go down to Ocean Grove, we'll often go to Queenscliff - to wander the town, and buy a double ice cream from the wonderful Nordic ice cream shop there!  

And lastly I put some blank tags in pockets in the back page so the artists that did a page in my journal could tell me a bit about themselves.  Thank you to those that filled one out!

I went a bit overboard with putting my journal together so I still have heaps of blank pages left.  I won't post it out again; at A4 size it's a bit heavy and pricey, but I'll fill it up eventually!  I've asked my daughter Mel to contribute a page when she doesn't have so much homework (year 11...)

Thanks again to everyone that contributed to my journal; it's a real treasure and something that I can keep and look back on forever!

I know we had heaps of problems with the last two swaps, but I can't wait to participate again!

Cheers, Lisa

Lisa J - Working in Lee's 'Layers' Journal

Lee's journal 'Layers' has a real junque journal feel, and Lee's brief was to "stretch yourself, try something new, don't worry about the result." She said she was "not precious about art, it's all about expression," and "above all, I don't believe that 'tidy', 'neat', or 'pre-planned' have any place in the process."

Great! I thought.  Though Lee also said this journal wasn't so much about physical layers, I did want to try and incorporate some layers into my work.

On Pinterest, I found an amazing quote to use, which I printed using a new font I found:

This quote gave me an idea to do a face with many different layers.  So I drew a template,  

and used it 5 times with different mediums.  

Unfortunately I forgot to photograph each of the faces after I was done!

The mediums I used were: 

• water soluble pencil
• acrylics
• gel pens
• texta with different stencils overlaying it, and
• Micron pen on a scrap piece of paper that was used under whatever art I was working on.

I then tore all of these new faces up (that was hard!) and put them back together again all mixed up.  

It looked weird but I liked it!

I covered the double page spread with different book pages, then laid my new face on the right hand page.  I intended to do the above quote on the left.

But then, I had so many face pieces left that I thought, I should do one on the left side as well!  

So I did.  But then came the dilemma of where to put the quote?  

Easy, I thought.  I'll print it on baking paper and lay it over the top.

But that didn't work; my printer wouldn't recognise the paper as it was too thin.  

So I glued a piece to some photocopy paper, thinking I'd remove the baking paper afterwards.  Still wouldn't go through.

Next I tried a Creative Memories plastic page protector cut to size.  Yes!  That seemed to work - until I realised that the ink wouldn't dry and it just smeared everywhere.  

Must be my el cheapo printer, I thought, so decided to email the word document to myself at work to print there.

The next day at work I attempted to print it, on another CM page protector.... but since it was on a word document, it didn't recognise the font I'd used, so gave me good old Courier instead.  No thanks!

So that night I again sent it to work, this time as a PDF.  Yes, that would work.  

Thus on Thursday at work I again attempted to print it, using the bypass tray (I was a bit worried about the page protector getting stuck in our expensive new copier, and having to explain to the boss why it needed a repair...!)  But again it didn't work, getting stuck half way and smearing everywhere.

I was almost at wit's end then, thinking there must be a way I can do this!  As a last resort, I tried printing again with an A4 heavy duty page protector.  Success at last!  Though it did get stuck again, and one of the lines is very light.  BUT IT WORKED.

This is definitely not the prettiest art I've every made, an my daughter Mel thinks the gel pen face is really creepy. but I'm quite happy with the result.

Here are the two faces:         

And here's the end result, with the quote over the top!

Hope you like it Lee!

Blogging about Lee's "LAYERS" Journal

Lee's journal is a lovely size and has a real grunge art appeal on the outside.  I love all the pages created by  the other artists.

I started my page inspired by a saying which my late mother {very Irish}used,  when we or someone else was been judgemental about someone who had upset us, or whom we were talking about and making assumptions.  Mum use to say that regardless of how things seem on the outside that no one knows what really goes on in a persons life or what they were experiencing that we did not see or know about that may be  effecting how they were acting or reacting.  Her saying was, "No one knows what goes on behind the curtains." 

After my layer of gesso had dried, I stuck some a sample piece of lovely pink and green stripped linen across both pages. This was to form the background/wall/ behind the windows.  Then from a piece of watercolour paper that I had used to clean off my roller when playing with my gello plate, I cut the outline of two windows I had in my stash.  On is square and made from wood, the other is rectangle with round top and made from chipboard.  On the pages with the material I stuck three characters, in a postion to be looking out the window spaces.  The one on the right was a whimsical girl which I had printed on a page from an old book, then I had stuck very wide clear tape on top of it  and ripped it off, so that the girl and some of the book text remained on the tape.  On the left were two little characters I had drawn and coloured in with gellatoes.  Originally I was going to put them on an index card I was doing, but they ended up in this page.  I add some layers on the watercolour paper with texture paste, stencils, stamping, etc. I then stuck it on top of the book pages with material, placing it so the window cutout spaces were over the characters faces.  Then I stuck two photo transparencies with phases on them over the window spaces leaving them the full size so that white text would be an adder layer. Then I glued the windows on top in the appropriate places. I added a few more things in line with the theme "Layers" flowers on windows, some homemade stickers to reinforce the centre of page etc.   I then added typed text with my saying, which was a bit of a play on the original phase.  "The eyes may be the window to the soul, but no one knows what is behind the curtain."

As I had wanted to do a double page, and Rose's page had been a single, there was a spare page prior to my layout.  I painted this with dylusions paint using three colours. Coincidentally I had come across a poem some months ago in a book and had copied it down as I like it a lot.  It is called "layers of the face" it fitted exactly with my saying and my layout, so I typed it out on dylusions ink dyed paper, tore it out, and stuck in on the page.  I was going to put some flowers around it, but I liked the simplicity of it and so I just left it as is.  All three pages were edged with black archival ink and a little of the material shows between the edge of the pages.   I really loved how these pages turned out and I hope Lee does also.

Pathways in Robyn's Garden by Lee

It was necessary to include a small pic of yourself in the spread.

 My i-phone won't upload so I had to make do with the PC cam, not a great shot but you get the idea.

Lee works in "Monochromatic"

inspired by artists I admire

I love the use of see thru plastic and stitching with barely visible words and wanted to try it for myself and love the loneliness of a single person with a long shadow it says so much with such a simple image.