Bee Happy Louise..

Louise's lovely little journal arrived rather late in the month and so I had to rethink what I was going to do. 

After talking it over with my good friend Jenny, I decided to continue with my obsession with Uni Posca paint pens. They are easy to use, dry quickly and keep their colour, which is handy when your in a hurry. 

I went with the flower image I used in Meg's Bucket list journal last year.

Jenny suggested that I use one of my bees. I have been playing with this little bee character in my personal art journals for about five years. There's sad bee, cross bee and queen bee, who went into Jenny's Bees knees journal last year. This one is Sallyanne bee.

The rest was just a colouring exercise, I doodle then I colour.

The wooden bee is just a reminder that in these uncertain times, no matter what, Bee Happy. 

Lisa playing in Janie's Simply Whimsical Journal

I'm on a roll here!  

Janie had a spare page in her Round 5 journal and kindly sent it down to me to play in.

I really like the way Janie has bound the journal; each page is A4 landscape and meant to be folded into the journal, creating a nice chunky book!  

It's full of great pages full of whimsy, and straight away I had an idea of what I would do.

As usual, I didn't take progress pics.  So here tis, my whimsical garden with cats!

Hope you like it Janie!  I'll post it back on Tuesday. 😊

Cheers, Lisa

Simply Whimsical Galahs for Janie

Simply Whimsical is a fabulous choice to use for an art journal page. Thanks so much Janie, for choosing such a brilliantly fun theme.

I'm being totally selfish and blogged all the how-tos at my own craft blog (A Life Less Ordinary) so when I'm sharing it in the Tim Holtz Addicts group in Facebook, everyone who's interested sees my shop! Google will like it too, because then our blogs are linked but not identical :) A win for both of our blogs.

Why do this? Well, I used my favourite nutty adorable birds (by Tim), a host of stencils (by Tim), stickers (more by Tim), the new Sidekick (Tim's) and some of Tim's pretty Botanical Die-Cuts. Lots of Tim Treasures in this one :D

I used other things as well, like Dylusions paints, Dina Wakley Art Sticks (also called Scribble Sticks), and um... Mermaid Markers (surprise! lol).

Above: Rough sketch of my idea. Not bad hey? It finished exactly as planned - apart from them being galahs and not magpies, birds on a wire not a tree and no nest in sight (or pencil or brush or egg). Yep, totally the same! lol :)

The background is Dyan Reaveley's Dylusions acrylic paint in 3 colours (Mushy Peas, Vanilla Custard and Slate Grey) with White Linen splattered over the top. Its amazing how a little bit of white adds life! Love the paper Janie's book is made with too. I added an essay to the cards that are travelling about with the journal... I didn't mean to make it so long, but I was chatting about stuff and it sort of oozed out.

I was thinking of adding Dyan's adorable birds to this page too but they're just too ladylike to hang out with this mob of galahs!

To save me telling you twice, this link will take you to my craft blog (which is linked back to here) so you can see how it all came about :)

Hope you like it Janie!

xx
Jenny

Three Whimsical Owls

Three Whimsical Owls

Wild and Free,

Hung prayers for peace

Up in their tree.

With wisdom and knowledge 

To spare

They pray for us all

Everywhere.

Wendy's Layout in Janie's SIMPLY WHIMSICAL

Before I started work in Janie's Journal, I thought to myself how far I have grown when it comes to working in another artists journal. I remember my very first swap and the feeling of being so very nervous that I would make some sort of mistake in that person's journal. Then I looked down at the blank page in Janie's SIMPLY WHIMSICAL journal and couldn't wait to start experimenting...lol.

I gave the page a light layer of gesso and have wanting to try the 'streaking' or dragging effect for some time, so why not now! I can always paint over it if it doesn't turn out. After the gesso dried, I used a paint spatular to drag a few colours from top to bottom and bottom to top to get the streaking I was hoping for. Not quite happy with the way it was going by using the spatular, I ended up using a dry hard bristled brush and found this gave me the more smudgier look, which is what I was looking for. I then used a few stencils using the same paint colours that had already been placed on the background.

When I was happy with the background, the whimsical feeling arose when I thought about using some of my 'skatter cats'. I had recently used a few of these cats in another journal and as I save all my templates of anything I draw,,,yep!...too easy...I grabbed my skatter cats, gave them a bit more colour with some watercolour paints and they were ready to be placed on the page. I used a tacky glue to adhere them and then went round the cats with a wash on white paint and then highlighted then with a black watercolour pencil. The final touch was to write the word 'FRIENDS' above the middle skatter cats and my simply whimsical layout was finished. I really enjoyed just playing in Janie's journal and hope you all enjoy the outcome as well. Thank you.

P.S. I have also included the video below, if you would like to watch the whole process.

HAVE A GREAT DAY !!!!!

Janie O'Brien's amended post

This the cover. I used inks with stencils. Inside the front cover there is a pocket with file cards for you all to tell your story, and hopefully you will also complete a small whimsical portrait of yourself.

This is the back page. For this page I used water colour and made my own collage elements for the foliage. The little man in the spotted raincoat leading a dalmatian doggy is also a collaged element.

This page is the main journal page. I have done a few changes since my first post. Completely mixed media and with a smile represents my life here in Cairns with a friend looking on who I miss immensely.

Janie's "Simply Whimsical" Journal page June 1 . 2017 "My world"