Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Deb's entry in Robyn's Travel the World journal

Hi everyone. I have had this Journal for over a month now and only just hammered out this page as inspiration struck. I decided to do a page on Pakistan as that was where I was born. I researched all the stuff I remembered about living in Karachi, but I just couldn't pull it all down together on a page. I printed road maps and currancy and landmarks before the journal arrived and then I saw that it was already in other peoples entry's and I drew a blank...what now? what else did I remember as a kid? Painted trucks, Weddings, the stunning fabrics, jewels and the lavish henna designs on a brides hands and feet. Trucks and Brides????? Hmmm tricky....
I started breaking the blank page with Colour Shot sprays from Lindys stamp gang and then stencilling a Persian (ish) design with paints in brown and coral as a contrast. I stamped a face image from Stampendeous in archival ink and drew in the hair and head covering around it.
I then stuck on some Truck inspired Pakistani art with script as borders that I printed out from Pinterest with Gel medium and covered it all. (sorry about the bad quality pics as my phone camera is on the blink)
 I then used acrylics to paint her face in and liked the idea of the bride looking downwards. I used a mix of acrylic paints, posca paint pens, Silks acrylic glaze and  big brush pens to finish off her face. I heat embossed a silver pattern on her head dress. Accents were liquid pearls, old earings, heat and stick powder with distress glitter for the title.
I finished off the piece with some stamping in a henna type, feather pattern with dylusions archival ink in Calypso Teal. It has a beautiful metallic sheen to it that just doesn't show in the Pics, but I hope you like it Robyn.


Thursday, October 6, 2016

Monochrome by Joan

I started this Journal page at the inaugural real life meeting of  the ArtMesaJ group. (Melbourne Eastern Suburbs Art Journalers) last month. I decided to once again get out of my colour range comfort zone and go with Pink for this journal.  I painted background with dylusions and other paint  ranges of various tones of pink.  Then I used stencils and texture paste to make some flowers in corners. Added some pink  tissue paper on top right of right page which had some inbuilt sparkles.  I did not like the colour that the left page had ended up, so I covered it in white with pink tissue paper. I then used some sprays to drip some different pinks on it.  Then some more stenciling over both pages with some lighter coloured pinks.  Added half a doily coloured with gelatos to edge of left page, added some random text paper pieces , with had been coloured with distress ink. Used some cardstock borders on edges of pages, which had been give to me at the meet, by Lena. Then added some plastic  flowers stickers to background. Also added  a piece of pink, white and black outlined paper to bottom left of right hand  page.  Stuck some button stickers on right hand border and large one on left page. Then I covered all the buttons with glossy accents to give them a 3D appearance. Painted and doodled on some chipboard cogs and stuck some on both pages. Put a 3D plastic butterfly on the right page as the focus point. Wove ribbon through a piece of cane type fabric I had, which frays as soon as you cut it,  but when it is glued to page it works great. Made the ribbon long enough to hang below the page and attached a button to each end of the ribbon.  Stuck this on the left page.Created a paper doll, using some of the same paper to make her dress, and stuck some little bling on her hair, neck, gloves and shoes. Added glittered chipboard alpha to make the phrase, 
"Everything is better in Pink", a saying I had used on a digital postcard a few months ago.  Then lastly stuck my doll on the left page as its focus.  I really enjoyed doing this piece, it has great texture in real life and much more vibrant than the pictures show.   Getting it started at the meet was a great jumpstart to my creativeness.  Hope you like it Pam.








Monday, October 3, 2016

Pinterest for Deb.

I have never really used Pinterest, not at all sure how it works, not at all sure I want to know as I waste enough time already on Facebook  :)

Having said that I do search there sometimes for appropriate quotes for journal pages and ATCs.  So I thought that could well be my subject.

Deb is sending round an unbound journal in the making and has supplied some beautiful paper to use.  So my first task was to bury the white page.  Out came the Dylusions spray, some modelling paste, stencils and gesso.







So that was the beginning.  Then I needed to decide what kind if quotes I would use.  I thought about Buddha, Confucious, Rumi, politicians and celebrities, but finally decided to honour the wise woman Maya Angelou.  Her gentle but strong words are inspiring.

With the words I chose printed and affixed, with faux ATCs and framed Journal Pages, I was done.
Hope it fits your criteria Deborah.





Saturday, October 1, 2016

Aphorisms - Wendy's Journal

Just completed Wendy's journal page, hope you like it Wendy. will mail on Monday.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

A Little Detour for Rachel's Journal.

I received Rachel's journal in error.  I was totally entranced by it as it is so very beautiful. I am not part of the Round 2 circuit, but it begged to be added to.  So I asked Rachel's permission, as it was due back to her, if I may work in it. And she kindly said yes.

I am going to Grafton next week to attend Louise's workshop, to try and learn something and to support her new venture, and she indicated that she would also like to add to Rachel's journal. So instead of heading home to Victoria, it will be travelling north with me.  When Ms L is done it will head back to Rachel and I am sure she will be extremely delighted with all the wonderful works it contains.

So to cut a long story short, I only have a picture of the finished spread, because it was not my intention to blog  :)

Background is sprayed with Lindy's Stamp Gang spray and then I have added collage, Gelly Rool pens, stamps and embossing and stickers.  I do hope Rachel likes it.




Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Lisa J - Working in Natalie's 'Emotions' Journal

Natalie's journal is a nice A4 size binder, though when I received it, I didn't actually know whose journal it was - sorry Nat, your instructions have gone missing along the way!

A check back through the blog showed what Natalie was looking for in her journal.

I decided to base my pages on the green eyed monster - envy, greed, jealousy and all those other unpleasant emotions.  Sometimes the grass does look greener on the other side of the fence, or we try to keep up with the Jones' (easy for me, since I'm a Jones!), but a reminder now and then to look at the positives in your life and be happy is always good!

I started with a gelli-printed background with some collaged bits and some stamped flowers.  


On the right, same background, then I painted a green eyed girl on it.  The writing in the background is the lyrics to Jesse J's 'Price Tag' which I thought went well with the theme.


And both pages:


I enjoyed doing this spread, hope you like it Natalie!

Cheers, Lisa



Friday, September 23, 2016


Joan's page in Nathalie's "Emotion Journal"


In this journal I decided to created a page about RAGE. I thought it would be a fun to do and also I wanted to change it up a bit and use colours I don't normally use when I do journal pages.  Being an redheaded Irish women, I know how to do a good rage on occasions.

I love the quote  "Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd / Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd." which comes from a play called the  Mourning Bride, so my page is based on that quote. 


The background is painted in red and yellow and I tried to create the illusion of flames just like hell is usually depicted. I had also put some texture on page using a zig zag stencil. I printed out two pictures from the internet. The face of the lady screaming I printed almost a A4 size, (this journal is very large) on to a thick white vellum sheet and then applied hot wax to it, to give it a more natural skin colour.  I was really pleased the way it turned out and the transparency of it allowed some of the colours from the page to show through also, which resulted in a nice red splotchy face, just as it would if  she was in a rage.  I cut out some coloured paper strips and placed them on her head to represent flames and then put a kettle and painted steam on top.(Letting off steam)  I then pasted some casino and potato chips on both pages to appear as if she was spitting them out (Spitting chips).
I put the other picture on the  page with a few strips of paper behind (sticking it to the man).  I printed out a copy of the quote in red and in a circle and then glaced it with yellow gelato and red around the edge.  The only letters I could find were plastic domes, so I used them to spell out rage in two places, small ones on the chips and larger ones as a header. Used a chalk marker and white gell pen to write the sayings on kettle and page.  Sprayed the pages with a decoupage varnish, which gives it a really nice overall finish.   This was really fun to make and I achieved my aim of using colours outside my comfort zone.   Hope Nathalie likes it.