Lisa Playing in Sharon's Vintage Circus Journal!

I was very excited to see Sharon's theme of Vintage Circus, because I knew instantly what I would do in it!  As I was fifth in line to work in this journal, I waited with bated breath each month to see what the other ladies would do for their page.  Please please please don't pinch my idea!

Anyhoo, my time came and I was able to do what I had planned - a spread based on the movie The Greatest Showman!  I loved this movie; the costumes, the music, the choreography. 💗  If you haven't seen it I can't recommend it enough!  When I was young, we lived in the USA for a few years with my dad's work, and were lucky enough to see a show of Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus.  An amazing spectacle!

So, back to the page.  Sharon's journal is a ring binder, so you can take individual pages out to work on them.  This means no mess on anyone else's page! It also means that you can work on both the front and back of the page, so two double spreads.

On one side, I wrote down some of the lyrics to the wonderful song from the movie "This is me!"  

Great lyrics, and really powerfully sung by Keala Settle, who played the bearded lady.

It's probably no surprise to anyone that I added the lyrics, as my own journal theme is Music & Lyrics, and I always have a song in my head....! 😊

On the other side of this page I drew Zendaya, who played trapeze artist Anne Wheeler in the movie.  While I don't mind how she turned out, her face colour was all wrong and I just couldn't get it right. Sorry Sharon! 😔

On the other side of the page, I bit off a bit more than I should have, by deciding to do the main scene from the movie, where all of the cast members are posing in the circus ring.  There were just too many peeps to draw and then paint!  I probably only did half of them, but I felt that it was enough in the end!       Here's a taste of it.

And here's the whole spread!

I realised after I took these pics that I have yet to colour in the words on this page.  I'll do that before I send it on to Louise, but didn't want to wait to take pics again as I like to take them outside.  These pages were all done with AP watercolours, Gansai Tambi Starry Colors metallic watercolours, and Perfect Pearls.

Hope you like it Sharon!

Cheers, Lisa xx

The Rogers Vintage Circus!!!

This is my page I did in Sharon Rogers Vintage Circus Journal you might recognise the circus performers if you look closely.

 I had fun doing it

 hope you like it Sharon xx

Lisa J's Guest Spot in Sharon's Vintage Circus Journal

Sharon's Round 2 "Vintage Circus" journal came home to her late last year and, as she still had a few blank pages in it, I was able to do a spread!

Sharon's brief was no bright colours.  Trying to limit your palette to softer vintage colours is quite challenging!  But that's where good old Pinterest comes in.

I found this amazing black and white photo of a clown.  I'm not sure why, but it spoke to me.

Perhaps because the circuses of yesteryear are no more, and we look back wistfully in remembrance...

When I was about 7 or 8, I was living in the USA and got to see the Barnum and Bailey Ringling Bros 3 ring circus.  

What a spectacle!   So much going on under the huge canopy of the big top.  So much to see in the 3 rings - too much really!

So I created my own big top, with the old elephant balancing on a ball, the tightrope walker balancing en pointe above him...

And the strong man wielding his 300lb weights with ease, to the amazement of the crowd...

And the sad clown, about to join the party.  "Send in the Clowns".

Here's the whole scene!  

Painted this in acrylics with some water soluble pencil added.

Beautiful journal, thanks for letting me have a play Sharon!

Cheers, Lisa

Deb's "Guest entry" In Sharon's Vintage Circus Round 2 Journal

Firstly, I have to tell you what an absolutely stunning piece of art this journal is, Sharon and I am so thankful you let me have a "Guest Spot"  in it as I am a Round 3 Blogger/Journal entrant. She's ready to come home!

I started with Distress paints in Fossilized Amber and Candied Apple which I applied to the paper with baby wipes, blending it all. I also stamped a vintage globe/map stamp in Archival Ink randomly across both pages.

I had already cut out my images in Black and red plain card-stock using my Pazzles Inspiration machine. The Circus tent image I resized several times and cut out block silhouettes of a bear, monkey and unicorn as well as a Signpost. I left out the Hippo insert, crossed out the sign and then wrote "Unicorn" on the signpost , as we would all pay money to see one of those! I then shuffled these images around the first page till I was happy and stuck then down with gel medium. I also used on eof the Admit One coupons that I was asked to include in my spread, after I crumpled it and then covered it with Distress inks in Vintage Photo and Black Soot . I then applied a coat of Prima Clear Crackle texture paste over it all and let it dry. it looked a bit bare still, so i stamped some background texture stamps in archival coffee and some stars in pink.

For the right page I stuck down the large red circus tent with gel medium. I then filled in a piece of watercolor paper with some Lindy's Stamp Gang Colorshots Sprays in Lump'o'coal and green. These are such gorgeous metallic colours that have a lot of pigment to them. I then had a Kaisercraft stamp and die set that I absolutely adore (funnily enough named Elephant) and stamped it onto my prepared water colour paper using archival ink in black. But it turned out light gray so you couldn't see all that lovely Zentangle detail on the elephant. So I decided to re stamp with embossing ink and used gold embossing powder to create raised texture on the elephant. It didn't work out as nice as I had hoped but it is still lovely to see. When I recreate this for my own journal, I think I will use a Black pigment ink to stamp with and then use clear embossing powder so it should hopefully stand out more. Anyway. I then journaled in my own writing (which I am NOT a fan of) on the left and finished off with the quote that came with the stamp set on the right. I used Stampers anonymous Mini Circque Alpha Stamps to stamp the title and a flattened beer bottle cap that I had saved from some beer my husband tried at the start of the year when I first started thinking about this entry. It says "3 Pub Circus Australia" which I LOVE! to make my gorgeous elephant pop some more I stuck on a mixture of small and large iridescent sequins around the page and finished off with small spots of glossy accents.

In conclusion, I have really enjoyed this journal spread and I hope you do as well Sharon. I will post her off back to you on Monday! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone from our Journal swaps. Wishing you all the best for today and the year ahead.

Deb Stephens. 

Wendy's page in Sharon's circus journal

I had a lot of fun doing this page in Sharon's beautiful vintage Circus journal. Although, I never went to the circus as a child, I did see a huge elephant in their parade down our main street when I was younger. I was in absolute awe of it's size which is why I have based my page on the elephants, the gentle giants of the circus.

Round Two. Welcome to the Circus

I have always loved the circus. 

When I was growing up, the circus and carnival used to come to town every Summer. I think it is partly the memory of the anticipation and sheer wonder of it all that fuels my enjoyment of all things circus today. 

In order to further wallow in these memories, I have chosen vintage circus as my theme for round two journal swap. It is only a small journal with two signatures and a pocket at the back. I have put some 'admit one' tickets for everyone to include on their page.  Either use it in the background or somehow really creative. 

Please keep the colours a bit muddy in the vintage theme. 

Feel free to draw or collage or both. 

If you are stuck, check out the early part of the movie "Water for Elephants ". I love that film. Sad but so beautiful. If you are not movie fans, think of the strong man, the merry go round or the prancing ponies.  

I even love clowns. 

I hope you have fun

Sharon