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

Roses Visual Jornaling

Recently, I worked a page in Deb's art journal: Inspired by Pinterest. This is how my page spread came out. As you'll see, I'm becoming very keen on learning to sketch and one day, while browsing for a few hours (days!) on that visual feast of a site (and very addictive!), I came across some Pins of other artists' Sketchbook pages. Some of them were so inspiring and exciting to look at, my brain went into overload with ideas for my own visual sketchbook too. So, when I received Deb's art journal based on Pinterest Inspiration, well, I just had to share my new-found interest in visual sketchbooks. I'm always keen to develop my drawing skills in addition to the painting and mixed media techniques that we all use in our art journaling.

 One of my latest sketches of our little ginger cat, Possum. And I also shared what it was that inspired me on Pinterest that day.

This is a colour chart of my new watercolour pencil set. It's fantastic the way the colours suddenly transform into wet media as soon as you wet them with a water brush. Very portable and easy to use. Hope you like it, Deb.

Rose worked in Ros' "Maps" journal

Hi Ros and everyone. I'm so sorry about the delay in my completing my "Map" for Ros' wonderful journal. I have had some health issues to contend with, but all is well now, thankfully.
I was intrigued to see the format of this journal: lots of lovely materials, pages and ideas contained within a small folder/pouch. What a wonderful idea!
My first thought was of how I enjoy bird watching and camping beneath the stars at night, so that is what my 'page' is about. I hope you like it.

Gail works in Rose's Bird Journal

This is my entry in Rose's bird Journal,

 I had to force myself to stop, hope you like it Rose.

Lisa J - Working in Rose's 'Birds' Journal

After now having made entries in two other people's journals, my trepidation has disappeared!  It's such a thrill to receive each book in the mail, see what's already been done, and then think about what I can  add to the journal.  I think of it as a huge gift we're all making each other, and what a delight it will be for all to receive the completed journals back after 12 or so months!

Rose's journal is a lovely size; a touch smaller than A4, with pages that open out flat to make a nice spread.

We live near a nature reserve with a creek running through it, and apart from kangaroos, foxes and the odd bunny, it's full of kookaburras, magpies, lorikeets, cockatoos, galahs, and the occasional rosella.  So I decided to do my spread on a couple of natives - the cockatoo and galah.

Noisy buggers they both are, but to me the sound is quintessentially Australian.  An old Aunty had a cocky in a cage for years, but I much prefer to see them in the bush, alighting from an old gum.

 I gessoed, then did a simple background with watercolour overlaid with a repeating leaf stencil.

This pic on the left isn't very clear, but he's my galah, done in acrylics.  Growing up in country South Australia we lived next door to a park with a huge population of cackling galahs.  We used to delight in clapping our hands loudly to get them to disperse.

Next to him is my sulfur crested cockatoo.  Being predominantly white, I had to do about 26 coats so you couldn't see the background underneath!  Eye rolling stuff because in Joan's journal I did the background afterwards because I hadn't decided what to do - maybe next journal I'll get it right...

Then on to a bit of journalling.  Interestingly, google tried to tell me that a group of cockatoos was known as a cockfest.  I don't think so!  Didn't think Rose would appreciate that in her journal, so I went with "There is nothing more Australian than the clatter of cockatoos and galahs in the bush!"

I hope you like this page Rose!  I really enjoyed doing it!

Joan is journalling in Rose's "Bird" Journal

As this was the first Journal of the round and as Rose had not done a page herself apart from her introduction, I was going to be the first to do a page in it and I was a bit nervous about that first drop of paint.   I love this little book, it is so cute and neat and not anything like the big recycled journals, I usually  receive in these sort of collaborative journal swaps.

Anyway I dived in head first with some lovely Dylusion paints I have recently bought, but first of all I gessoed both pages.  I had tried the paint on a couple of other items prior to this and I loved the way it blended and dried so quickly.  I used Lime green, another green, a blue and a yellow. It did not blend as easy on the gesso as it does just on paper. Then I stuck on a couple of pieces of paper with some bird related text. When dry I used gel medium to attach a napkin I had made myself using one of the white pieces from a bought napkin . I had  used a some bird relate text and a few small bird pictures to make the napkin. That become lovely and translucent over the paint.  I also attached a piece of a bought napkin with some flowers and one bird on it,on the right hand page.

 

I then added some more paint and some spray dyes  here and there. I did not like the piece of tissue with the yellow bird partly showing above, so I covered it up.  I then drew (very badly) a couple of other birds, The yellow one was a copy of a bird on one of the bird postage stamps  Rose has on the cover. I then added a little more paint and some highlighting etc. I collaged a flying owl on left and covered him with a dimensional glue to protect him and to give some texture to page,  I highlighted the piece of paper that was straddling both pages from the second layer with a coat of thick white gesso and used some stick-ons to repeat one of the sayings that had been on the background napkin.  "Birds of a feather flock together".   I forgot to take a photo at this stage. Next day, I stamped a little flower and used pens to outline. I stuck some beautiful feathers I have had for about twenty years on bottom right hand corner and some text I had typed on a transparency to the right.    I hope Rose likes it, I sent it to Lisa ( next in line) yesterday.

Lisa's Enchanted Journal

Hiya! I've made my first ever round robin art journal page today, in Lisa's delightful Enchanted journal! Gee, I was nervous...still am, hoping so much that she likes it. I'm pretty new to art journaling so I'm a bit short on confidence about working in someone else's journal!! Shriek!

So, here it is. The paper is a bit on the thin side, so I chose to adhere a page to the back of the first one, behind Lisa's own gorgeous page at the beginning of the journal. I used a cut-out of a fairy and some printed paper, together with some fairy stamps which I coloured in.
On the opposite page I've used a wonderful Wizard image that I've been saving for something special (like Lisa's journal, of course!), onto a painted background, decorated with some 'bling' and paper bits. I had to glue two pages together though, to give it all some stability.

Sorry that the image is a little blurred, I think the blingie bits may have prevented it lying flat enough on the scanner!

Hope you like it, Lisa, and your daughter especially too :)
All the best
Rose

'Birds' journal by Rose

Well, here goes, my first blog entry! My name is Rose and I’m taking part in the Round Robin Art Journal project for the first time. I’m pretty new to art journaling as a creative activity, so I haven’t got many pages of my own to show you yet. This should change soon, as I’m hoping to learn more techniques and to find lots of creative inspiration throughout the year with this and other art projects that I’m committing to.

So why did I choose birds as my theme for this particular journal? Ever since I was a young girl I have loved birds. It sounds so clichéd, but it’s true! As a 7 year old I filled all my sketchbooks with drawings of birds that I copied from a little bird book given to me by my dear Nanna. Her maiden name, in fact, had been Sparrow, hence the little fellow on the front of the journal! Those childhood drawings were given away to many friends and family members.

Throughout my life my love of birds has endured and developed. Nowadays I ‘capture’ many of them with my digital camera, but always, I am watching them wherever I can: in my garden, in nature reserves and at the many wonderful locations that we holiday to. Birds are full of beauty, with their gorgeous varieties of feathers and plumes; their melodious songs and vocalisations (who can resist the sound of a Lyre bird in full throat!); and their wonderful ability to soar and fly with the wind! Yes, I would like to be a bird in my next life! Perhaps I have already done so!

So, here is my first handmade journal, all set to go around Australia, for you to express anything about the wonderful birds that you see near you. It might be a collage of a favourite bird? Or perhaps you’ll focus on their little ‘nurseries’, the nest and eggs? Feathers. Colours. Whatever is right for you. Feel free to text on your page too, if you’d like to write about the bird you have shown, or just about your feelings for birds. It’s all good and, I appreciate that you have taken the time to do it.

My journal was made very simply: I folded watercolour pages and bound them together with some masking tape. The collection of pages were them attached to a folded manila folder. With a little acrylic paint applied (I tried using my Gelli plate, with mixed results!). I’ve gessoed onto this paper with good results in the past, if you need to do that. If the journal gets ‘bulked up’ and distorted with paint and collages, so much the better! And I’ve included a ‘Sign in’ page, where you might like to leave your name, or you could sign your page if you prefer?

Lastly, I want to say ‘thank you’ to Louise for inviting me to take part in this wonderful, artful event. I’ll admit that I’m pretty terrified at the idea of working in someone else’s journal but I’m not one to shy from a challenge, so I’ll give it my best! So, let’s fly!