I have a new journal, a Toned Gray Strathmore art journal (5½ x 8″). I chose the grey background as I have previously enjoyed the mid-tone which allows both black and white work top. I wanted to explore the journaling side of the art journal and came up with a ‘word of the day’ theme – choosing a word that described either what I had done, or how I felt. The doodling on the facing page started to reflect the words and was completed a little at a time each day. Continue reading
I’ve taken the opportunity today to complete this month’s Pick A Stick Challenge. Ten steps, in order, mixing up the media and adding collage elements. There are more and more taking part in the challenge, and it’s the perfect way to journal when the artistic muse has wandered off.
Though I’ve not posted in a little while, as before, a quiet period online often hides a frenetic few days in the studio. Crafting took a small back step last week as a party loomed and the house had to be cleaned and beds prepared, and clobber hidden away from the seventy or so guests! This week I’ve been working on a couple of differently styled art journals, and this is the first to be ready to share.
Inspired by an article in this month’s Art Journaling magazine by Stampington, I’ve created my own matchbook journal (3×3″) with six pages. Unfortunately the supplier listed has discontinued the matchbook used in the article, so of course that didn’t deter me and I created and cut my own using my Silhouette Cameo. I’m going to add more quotes and cuttings as I find suitable ones, but you get the idea from the first page.
Part of art journaling is using a journal as an experimental area. Today I tried a method of creating weathered wood using paint layers, distress inks and archival inks, and it sparked off an idea for the layout. Somewhat annoyingly, it took longer to find a suitable saying to match my idea than it did to make the page!
I’ve been fascinated with ‘proper’ graffiti since a child – I love the colour, the vibrancy, the illegality of the hobby and the absolute control of the medium and the application. I’ve also owned a ‘how-to’ book for a number of years, well-thumbed but never used. That all changed when I made a journal from corrugated cardboard and once I’d started tearing off the surface layer, the idea developed to make faux rusty corrugated iron complete with requisite graffiti. I’ve tried different styles and colouring methods, starting with Sharpie pens, trying an image transfer, then Pitt Artist Pens. Then I had a sudden thought of how to replicate the aerosol can at this small scale – I got out my LetraJet air brush attachment for my Promarkers and thus smooth blends appeared. Lots of Posca pen use as well to finish things off.
As one Studio regular remarked last night: ‘you’re doing a lot of art journal pages recently’… She’d been away for a couple of months and hadn’t heard the news that I’m soon to be demonstrating on Hochanda TV channel. This week’s task is to pull together a supplies list for Sam (one of the channel’s buyers) so she can get some stock sorted and book me in for my first shows.
Last night, at The Studio’s monthly art journal session, we were carving our own stamps and developing patterns. I decided to do one too and carved the inverse of one of the stamps I’d previously done to demo the technique. Here’s the page that developed in between showing a first-timer how to build a background, and of course making the refreshments 😉
Today’s page marks a landmark in my art journaling – it’s the final spread in my very first complete journal. I have at least four journals on the go at any time, but this is the first to be filled since I started journaling back in 2011. I wanted to play with different layers, working on making the text stand out and the background to support, but not over power it. Choosing media by its opacity helped me achieve this outcome: transparent Cobalt Blue Hue allowed some of the paper white to show through the underpainting, whilst the semi-transparent Phthalo Blue provided the background to the text, printed in opaque white gesso. Spritzing with the mister and adding visual texture with stamps brought everything together.
Like Christmas, Easter has a real meaning to me that far surpasses chocolate eggs and fluffy bunnies. I started this page without really knowing where it would end up. I had a wonderful magazine photo of roses which I really wanted to use, so in that went. After colouring the facing page and adding a gesso vignette, I searched online for a longer piece of text than a trite quote extolling the ‘romance’ of the flower.
I stumbled on this poem, which I’ve not come across before, by George Eliot. Nothing trite or romantic here as she explores the colour, thorns and fragrance in a stunning metaphor so in keeping with the true Easter story:
I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring,
For I would make a posy, a posy for the King.I got an hundred roses, the loveliest there be,
From the white rose vine and the pink rose bush and from the red rose tree.But when I took my posy and laid it at His feet
I found He had His roses a million times more sweet.There was a scarlet blossom upon each foot and hand,
And a great pink rose bloomed from His side for the healing of the land.Now of this fair and awful King there is this marvel told,
That He wears a crown of linked thorns instead of one of gold.Where there are thorns are roses, and I saw a line of red,
A little wreath of roses around His radiant head.A red rose is His Sacred Heart, a white rose is His face,
And His breath has turned the barren world to a rich and flowery place.He is the Rose of Sharon, His gardener am I,
And I shall drink His fragrance in Heaven when I die.
In between planting out onion sets, garlic and shallots at the allotment, teaching scrapbook layouts, supervising a learner crocheting and making tea for the landscape gardeners, I slipped in an art journal page! It just goes to show that if you aim to do a page a day – you can. Just! I wanted to try my inverse silhouette technique with something other than black ink, and I think it worked really well 🙂
I have taken a couple of hours this morning to tackle this month’s Pick A Stick Challenge: ten journal techniques are pulled at random and have to be completed in order of the draw. This layout wasn’t planned at the outset, and developed a theme as I went, featuring my Old Apothecary assemblage. I’ve crammed in several different techniques, including stamps I’ve carved based on my own tangle patterns. I also remembered to film a time lapse video of the process.