Gaia Journal owned by Louise Kirby, Page by Meg Atkinson AAJSG round 7

Gaia 

Page by Meg Atkinson

Louise;s Journal AASG Round 7

Final  Journal page for Round 7

I started by sketching a Large tree for my base of the project

Than using watercolors i added the trees shape,

I then added bits of collage paper and serviette with some Medium Gel

Colored with water crayons and used a paint brush to spread the crayon with water

Added a image printed onto baking paper , which was colored in with water coulors and Copic pens 

Jenny's Bees knees.

With the hot weather not being very condusive to acrylic paint and glue activies. This truly is a mixed media piece. 

I started with a bit of acrylic paint but it really was to hot and went all sticky and lumpy. So I switched to a bit of ink and some Uni Posca pens.Now my dear friend Jenny is not a big fan of Gelatos but I find I can blend them quite well with a brush or finger,  plus use them with a stencil and baby wipe.  ( be warned they do take a while to cure ) All of which was easier to play with on my dinning room table, indoors with the aircon going.

Now every piece of mixed media gets to that,  oh help,  what am I doing stage. This is a mess!

However I find if I step away for a few hours, have a cuppa, then things generally sort themselves out. 

So once I returned I felt the need for some collage. So with a few images from an old calender and some painted letters, I was nearly done.

Just the face to play with and a few gold pen dots and swirls. 

Now what has all this to do with the topic of The bees knees. 

Well anytime I can sit and play with all of my art supplies, that's the Bees knees to me.

Arts Decoratifs

Rozzie's lovely repurposed book journal has been gracing my desk for too long, my appologies fellow artists.

I have been in a bit of a slump and really just working lots and not doing much else. The above pages are mums spread. I used her materials and hope she likes it.

These pages are my spread and I carried the gold stencilling across to join us together.

Its a new year and I need to try and get on top of things.

Under the Sea...!

by Lisa for Melissa

Melissa's journal is a hooge journal full of beautiful papers - I didn't really want to paint over it! 

But I did.  Lots of lovely sea creatures in this journal already, and I decided to go with some fascinating creatures - jellyfish.  Brainless, spineless, dangerous, but strangely beautiful!

I found heaps of lovely photos of jellyfish on Unsplash.  Thanks to Unsplash contributors Karan Karnik, Michael Jasmund, Octavian Rosca, Arushee Agrawal and Kanyon Bollinger for your pics that I've based my jellyfish on!

Firstly I painted my background using acrylic paints.  Whilst I love the colours of the Dylusions paints, I obviously don't use them often enough - sadly they dry out.  My Dylusions Polished Jade was on its last legs, so I mixed it with some other paints in colours of teal and phthalo blue, and sponged it on.  Funnily enough, because the jade was a lot thicker than the other paints, if didn't blend properly, creating a lovely background!  Win!

Next I drew my jellyfish onto the background using my General's white pencil.  It's a bit hard to see in this pic, but it's there!

I coloured my jellyfish using pastel pencils.  And the colours looked beautiful, but pastels are very hard to seal - so it was a bit stoopid of me to use them for a journal!  Sigh, I should have taken a photo of it at this stage.  Oops.

To seal the pastels, I sprayed the pages three times with a sealing spray.  And yes, it did work, but it dulled the colours considerably.  So much so, that it just didn't stand out at all.  A bit of swearing happened here, and then I got out my daughter's Derwents.  And proceeded to colour the jellyfish all AGAIN.  

Next I sprayed the spread again, and added gel pens for highlights.

I also came up with a haiku to add to my right hand page:

Undulating blooms

Glowing in the murky depths

Dangerous beauties

Doing this made me think of Pam... 💜

And here's the whole spread!  Hope you like it Melissa, and here's hoping that 2020 is a great year for all.  Happy Arting!

Cheers, Lisa xx

Amanda's Galaxy

 My final journal to complete in this round was Amanda's Galaxy. I was really looking forward to this one as I knew it would be real fun to do. I hope you enjoy it Amanda. I believe it is better in the flesh than these photos. I found it particularly hard to photograph, possibly because the background was so dark.  

This picture is the triple spread I completed. I attached an extra flap on the right hand side, as I wanted my little story on the closed side....I made this with torn collaged elements of planets and stars. The main point of interest is the 'shaker' planet of Saturn. With all the loose glittering stars under its 'dome.'

Here are the universes. One the left hand side middle right, if you look carefully, you can see two stars which look as if they're nearly colliding.

Here is the story I just loved about the 'colliding' suns which is on the outside of the flap I made.

Right hand side

Left hand side

Sharon's Tea Time journal

This is a lovely little journal and a fun topic. However as I'm at the tail end of it's journey, all the usual topics such as High tea, Mad hatters tea party, Japanese tea ceremony have been done. I didn't really know what to do. 

Sharon very kindly supplied some tea bags to go with the journal. So I challenged myself to see how much art I could do while drinking a cup of tea. 

Using some left over torn pages from another project and a cup of Lemon and Ginger tea, I laid down the background. 

Next day with one pair of scissors, the remains of an old childrens book, ( unfortunately it had lost it's cover so I can't attribute the work), glue and a cup of Camomile, Honey and Vanilla, the main character came together. 

Third day, one more cup of tea, Earl Grey and it was all done. 

So no more "I haven't got time to create " all you need is the time it takes to drink a cuppa tea. 

Thank you Sharon.

Mother Earth - Gaia

I have discovered that it is more difficult the further down the list of recipients you come. I would think of something then remember, "Oh, so and so did that already.' No matter, it just made me think harder.
I started with the concept of Gaia as Mother Earth. Next, I read lots about what Gaia means. Then, I found my focal image...the pregnant everywoman about to give birth to the Earth.
I love this image as it can symbolise the birth of a child, an idea, a theory, an art journal spread. And, this year I've been 'pregnant' with so many ideas and techniques to use in the various journals that have passed through my hands.
I began with gesso, then some stencils, followed by lots of sprays...metallic mostly as I really wanted a cosmic feel to my pages. I discovered an acetate page from Kaisercraft's Stargazer collection and used it on one of my pages to symbolise the universe. This, together with the image of a pregnant Gaia helped to complete my spread. The word 'precious' is included as it pertains to Earth and every living creature on it.
Louise, I know this has been a very difficult time for you. I hope you will see my spread as a tribute to your wonderful mum, Pam, who was one of my mentors. Let's be kind to each other and protect our Gaia xox