I thought I’d catch up with a couple of days’ worth of classes today, but, alas, it wasn’t to be. I did however get Day 2 samples done – a few more well used techniques revisited, but a couple of new ones there too. And a note to self, in passing… Always test your mica containing sprays well away from other items in the studio, and clean them before putting them back in the box. That way, there is a fair chance the spray a) mists rather than spurts, and b) actually sprays.
I’ve snuck this creation in between finishing a commissioned art journal, and making the samples for tomorrow’s fabric printing/painting workshop. The Pick A Stick Challenge for the uninitiated is ten techniques or journal prompts pulled at random by one of the four coordinators of the challenge, and you must then create your page using those steps in the order in which they were pulled. This is what I came up with for June’s ten sticks 🙂
I came across this wallet-type 4×6″ journal when I was looking through my Silhouette cut files. I have just been given a pile of kraft card file dividers, and thought they would be a perfect place to start. The mini album design is by Lori Whitlock and available via the Silhouette design store. I’ve added the band for the closure, and rather than six pages, I’ve added five due to the thickness of the card. The journal card inserts are a smidge smaller than 4×6″ and I’ve used a corner rounder so they slide in more easily.
As for the decoration, this journal is a practice piece for one stroke folk art flowers. I watched how a friend’s mother painted her canal boat accessories when I was nine or ten, and the fascination with the way a shaded flower developed with so few brush strokes. These are my first attempts, with a little extra shading added with water-soluble pencils. The backgrounds are a mix of distress paints, whilst the flowers are painted with DecoArt Media fluid acrylics. I’ve edged the journaling cards with Frayed Burlap distress ink – and I’ve no idea at this stage what will go on them! There’s a few more pages to decorate, so stay tuned for updates 🙂
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!
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 😉
This week’s class on Wanderlust (a year long course encouraging art journalers), we’ve been shown how one artist, Kate Crane, creates her own journal to fill in as she travels. Here’s my take on the project. Using two sheets of 12×16″ watercolour paper, I created the concertina pages, incorporating pockets into the overlaps. I’ve chosen to create faux leather straps to hold it together, rather than ribbon, and have made these from Grungeboard. Lots of layered DecoArt Media paints and interference paints over some embossing paste create the cover decoration, and the pages are covered in Distress Paints, DecoArt Media Titan Buff and Quinacridone Gold fluid acrylics and gesso applied through a couple of stencils. Now it’s ready for filling with travel goodness 🙂
For those that don’t know, I have recurrent depression, with relatively frequent episodes of lows and pretty good recovery in between. You may correctly guess I’m struggling at the moment, based on my art journal reflections today (which are based on my ruminations in the shower this morning). Now, I don’t normally share autobiographical stuff, but the topic of depression is being discussed elsewhere in the crafting world and I felt moved to share my own experiences of this mental (absence of) health issue – the more we talk about mental illness, the less threatening it might be for someone else.
What’s in a word? Recurrent – it’s a cruel word. You don’t hear of people being recurrently happy. Or recurrent joy. Those too can be ‘unending’ but recurrent has it’s root in the Latin to ‘turn back’. And with recurrent depression, it’s like that – only a passive result of chemicals misbehaving rather than a conscious turning from ‘health’. It’s especially cruel, I think, as recovery between makes the downs even more difficult to deal with. Though medication is helping, and next week I’m going to be discussing throwing a mood stabiliser into the mix as well, there’s not a lot I can do to stop an episode occurring. Or recurring. Resilience disappears out of the window in the middle of an episode, and everything is an effort. I am lucky enough to be aware enough not to curl up in a ball, and capable enough to at least do some of my normal activities – even if they take up twice as much time and energy as they otherwise would. I am lucky enough to still have hope – I know at some point the bleakness will lift. It’s the not knowing exactly when, or how long for that’s the killer. And on that topic, I’m also blessed not to have suicidal thoughts or ideas that often accompany depression – but I so understand where they come from. I am supported by an extremely understanding wife and a close group of church friends, and indeed customers, who cope with me whatever state I happen to be in – and that’s worth keeping going for.
Back to business: background is acrylic paints in teal/brown/black – I think they were part brayered on, part swiped. Main word is stamped in Hickory Smoke Distress Paint. Rest of text in Sharpies.
With all the new colours coming monthly from Tim Holtz/Ranger Industries, my existing system of Distress products storage (5 litre Really Useful Boxes for the stains/paints, 9 litre for the sprays) was no longer large enough. After a little research, I’ve moved them into a 33 litre Really Useful Box – and even that isn’t big enough… I think I’ll need a second. I’ve arranged them as shown so that I have a ready reckoner when taking my kit to classes where occasionally one or two bottles accidentally end up packed away elsewhere – this way I can quickly do a stock check and pin down what’s missing. The browns and speciality colours are currently in a 9 litre box until I can get hold of another 33 litre one, which I’ll also add the ink pads to fill up the free space. Now all I need to do is find somewhere to keep this box…
I’ve no idea why this idea popped into my head before I was fully awake this morning. Aside from, perhaps, art journaling being on my mind as I’m leading a workshop on Saturday… A quick dog walk and fitting some artificial turf helped my alertness level meet my creative muse and out came the paint and Sharpies. The background was pre-done and is a combination of distress paints. Over this I traced my hand, then painted over the rest of the page with Dylusions white paint on a make up sponge. The thin layer allows the background to show through, as well as sealing the page for the Sharpies. One of the unique selling points of the Dylusions paints is that it doesn’t clog nibs – and that is very true – the Sharpies drew perfectly with no annoying bleed or blocked nibs (a sharp contrast to, say, drawing on gesso). Further embellishment with my Signo broad white pigment gel pen and it is done.
The background for this art journal page was a little bit of a happy accident. I’d covered the page with swipes of dark acrylic paints with a hint of picked raspberry, and feeling it was too dark, I then used what was left on a blending tool I’d been used to apply Dylusions Squeezed Orange Paint to lighten it, and a superb rusty effect came into being. I embellished it with some Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder for the grid work, stamped a couple of times with the blueprint in archival inks and then added the text using a combination of archival inks on stamps, freehand drawing and painting, and my trusty pigment pens. As normal, took me as long to find the sentiment, but I love this quote – really does explain the rationale behind my art journaling!