Welcome to the Circus

Hi everyone :)

This is my page in Sharon Williams' Vintage Circus and Carnivale art journal... I tried to keep the colours antiquey and vintagey as much as I could. I do love using bright colours though :)

My ideas as usual went around in my head, spiralling out of control... that was, until I drew them down (then it was a dull roar! lol) - many drawings later I decided upon a circus train with steam engine and cheeky monkey.

I erased the draft and drew the pic in full scale only to find I drew something different again! Gotta love how our minds do whatever they want even when we think we're in control :)

The following is just before the lion arrived... Leo was late cos he was busy chasing his tail.

I used my groovy smooth luscious Tambai Gansi watercolour paints for the main background and most main features. Then waited (impatiently! lol) for it to dry before painting more details. So hard to wait when you're in the zone!

A while later I got out my Distress markers (watercolour textas) and Derwent Graphik paint pens (acrylic paint) and had some fun :) As you do! Finer details were added with a white Sharpie and Graphik sepia and graphite markers.

This is my gypsy wagon... built on the cheap - windows were really expensive back then!

Here is Holly the horse trainer and her two friends practicing their dance moves. Later on they'll be dressed in pretty sparkly sequins and stardust for the show. 

The mostly completed left hand page :)

Frannie the elephant is having a wonderful time showering herself with water. Must be so hard to keep from splashing Charlie (clown) as he juggles. I know I wouldn't be able to resist as easily! I bet she's just waiting for me to close the journal then will give him a good soaking...!

Luckily, as eveyone knows, any water that is thrown at a clown automatically turns to confetti. Thank goodness! Imagine how soggy the book would be by the time it reached Sharon if that didn't happen! lol :)

This is Charlie, juggling beanbag balls. He'd much prefer to be dancing with Holly but as you can see from the ground, he needs more practice before the night's performance.

The mostly completed right hand page :)

Then arrived Leo the Lion... if you wait quietly, he'll come out from behind the tent to say hi. But not before he's finished chasing his feathered friends!

Here is the finished page...

Hope Sharon likes it!

Thanks for reading :) Have a happy day!

:)

Jenny

BIRDS, mummy and babbies in Rose's Journal by Wendy

It was an absolute pleasure making a layout in Rose's Bird themed journal. I hadn't had a swap journal to work in for quite awhile and strangely enough, I actually was missing working in one. So, I was very excited to receive two at the same time. The other pages from the ladies are beautiful and the first thing I did was spend near an hour going through my bird pictures. Yes, I do have a lot of bird images...lol...

I also decided to use my gelatos for the background, as I haven't used them in some time. I grabbed out all the blue shades and scribbled on the pages, then activated them all with a baby wipe. I then used the same baby wipe to remove some colour through a beehive shaped stencil and I really liked the way the background turned out.

The bird images were from a calendar, a mother looking down at her babies. I had to rearrange the images to fit on the page (it was a rather large calendar) and at the bottom I spliced and diced...to make a branch and to bring the branch out to reach the other corner. I have done some stamping of birds in opposite corners and also stamped an image of eggs in a nest on my extended branch. I think the page turned out rather well and added the quote..." The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation"..a quote from APJ Abdul Kalam. I hope you like the layout Rose as much as I did doing it. Thank you xox

Flowers for Wendy

I love painting, drawing and making paper flowers so the hardest thing about this theme was choosing what to create!

The other pages in Wendy's journal are so beautiful, I had to make something worthy :) so with daisies on the brain, I started...

Of course, my hands said otherwise and I ended up with a background of blues! Waterlillies then... don't you love how our art makes up its own mind? I love those gorgeous flowers, and lotuses too!

I used Distress paints and stencils with a blending tool for the water background and handpainted the leaves. Those blue shiny highlights and water ripples are nail polish.

The petals were all handcut from scrapbook paper, edged with Distress ink.

I found a journal tag and altered it, then chopped it apart when I realised it was way too big! The ladybug and word 'celebrate' were painted over with clear shimmery Wink of Stella, not that you can see it here... but Wendy will see it!

The finished page needed smaller buds so more petals were cut out. Then some more shimmer was added... just a little :)

Mum and I had a bit of discussion about the difference between a waterlily and lotus... aside from the petal shape and those groovy pods of the lotus, they're similar and both are in lots of stunning colours... even purple and yellow! Simply gorgeous they all are :)

Enjoy celebrating all the big, little, tiny, large and enormous things of our world! Hope you like it Wendy :)

Happy Creative Day!

:)

Jenny

Deb's Pinterest - Water Girl by Natalie S

Hi everyone, I've created this journal page for Deb's Pinterest journal. I've used Pinterest as a means to teach myself how to journal with different mediums. In this piece I started out with gesso stencilling a few ferns. Then I watered down blue, green and yellow acrylic paint to create a wash. I used these colors to create my background. Then I drew in my Water Girl using Derwent Color Pencils and markers. I then made thicker mixes of green and blue paints and gave her hair. I hope you like her xx

Aphorisms as I see them.

Wendy's journal is a delight.  I love the feel of it, it's very light and very colourful.  Thank heavens for Prof Google, as I had never really heard the word before.

So armed with all the knowledge I could gain from said Prof G I set to work. I decided to base my work on being kind and so, here it is.

While I had Wendy's journal I decided to photograph the other pages to share as not every post gets blogged.  I will include names where I can read signatures.

Cover and Wendy's spread.

Not sure who did the Picasso.

                                     

 This is Robyn's cleverness

This spread is from Gail Bourke.

Can't see a name on this luscious spread.  It is wonderfully detailed and textured.

From Lisa Griffin-Gledhill

This lovely piece is from Rose Bosse/ Rose/ Possum.....not sure which name :)

Lisa Jones has worked her magic.

Some lovely work here from Joan Mannix.

Lisa J - Working in Jan's Faces and Figures Journal

Jan's journal is in Round 2 and her baby arrived home last month, with a few empty pages.  So I jumped at the chance to fill one of those blank spots, and Jan was happy to oblige!

I love drawing/painting faces and trying to improve on my techniques, so knew this is what  I wanted to do.  I found an interesting face in Pinterest to use as a guide.  

For my background I laid down part of a French diary I have, a beautiful peacock feather serviette, some gelli printed papers, and an old book page.  The remainder was given a pink wash with watercolour.

I painted my girl in, and used water soluble pencil for her features.  I love the way Toni Burt does this, and in my next life I want to be able to paint like her! :)

Her hair was done with modelling paste, and didn't quite turn out how I had hoped.  Oh well, art is all about experimenting after all!  To go with the pink background I decided to give her purple hair.

I added a few pink stencils and stamped images to complete the background.

The journalling came from a song that I love - Iris, by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Hope you like it Jan!

Lisa J - Working in Pam's Monotone Journal

Pam's Monotone journal is a lovely hand made A4 journal, beautifully covered.  

Her brief was to create a page using only a monochromatic scheme - only one colour, but you can use all of its shades and tints too, plus black and white.

Hmmm.  What colour to do? Purple and pink were already gone, along with teal and blue-green.

I decided to go with blue, since it has lots of variations (and it's one of my favourite colours).  I had lots of blue paint sample cards, so thought I could incorporate them in some way, plus I gelli printed a stack of different blue papers.

I picked a page that had an extra flap on it, just to push myself a bit further, and decided on a little town on the edge of the water.  

The background was simply rolled on with a brayer to create a messy effect, then I built up layers of collaged bits to represent the countryside.  The water was created by adding scrunched up bits of paper tissue with gel medium.  I like the effect, though using matt instead of gloss would have been better.  Oh well.

The houses were then added, with windows and doors drawn in with white Uniball Signo (my favourite white pen!).  The lighthouse completed the page.

I also wanted the same scene to flow to the page underneath, when the flap was opened.  This was a bit of a challenge, getting everything to match up, and flow well!

Underneath I added a castle, again using paint sample cards.  Then, added a couple of quotes that I liked.

Hope you like my interpretation Pam!  I also did another page for you since there was a single page that was blank - but I'll keep that one as a surprise for when you get your journal back... ;)

Cheers, Lisa