Art Journaling.. No' 2...

... another journal spread with touches of neon paint (and why not!)... 

I wanted to create a spread using one of my new word stamps (JOFY68) and one of the reasons I chose these particular words is that they can be used at other times than christmas (except for 'christmas' obviously!)

This spread is a bit 'motivational' -  and I like how all the different fonts mix together..

Paint splatters, die cutting, flowers (JOFY62) and some Tim Holtz Small Talk stickers make for a nice less-is more-spread - well, I say less is more but the background is made up of layers of writing (painted over), stenciling, a splattering of stamping, painting around the edges and then the main images.... 

Thanks for stopping by...

Art Journaling....

... is a great way to 'play' in a constructive way... I use the Dylusions small journal a lot - I have a couple of the other Dylusion journals but the size of this one seems to suit me - in the same way as my thinking/planning journal (yes I have separate ones for that) is a 25x25cm spiral bound journal - I think the square shape fits my 'thinking' - not portrait or landscape... (and it obviously works for me  as I have a shelf holding 30 sketchbooks of that size - so it must a good fit! lol)

I think some of you must know what I mean - when you try a new journal, a different shape, or binding and it just doesn't feel 'right'... I once tried a rectangular journal where the binding was on the short edge.. shudder - that one just felt sooo wrong - I think I got about 5 pages in and gave up... it was stifling...

Aaaaanyhoo back to the small Dylusion journal - the thing I like about it is when its closed it is quite small (book pages are 5x8 inches) & rectangular but an open spread basically looks square - now you understand why I like it - its SQUARE!!!

#easilypleased

You might've started to wonder why I'm telling you all this... its just leading into showing you a spread from that journal...

look - no stamping!! none whatsoever.. not even a little bit in the background!

Its all sketches and doodles - and I think there's a little bit of stenciling under all the doodling and painting...  I worked on it (on and off) over the space of a week because each time I opened the journal and looked at the pages they seemed wrong... unfinished... unbalanced...

So I just kept working on it until it seemed 'done' - another set of doodles around the flowers... another flower.. just kept going.. and now its done.
I love the neon pink and 'Mermaid' blue colour scheme - and the black makes it pop!...

So, here's my 'advice' for the day - if I can call it that - try not to give up on a page: add something new, remove something - paint over something that bothers you and replace it something else...
If all else fails take a photo of the page (for reference - learn from what you did) and then glue the pages together! lol  I've done that several times because I don't want to keep seeing the spread when I look through the journal.

I'll post another page tomorrow.. with less waffle! lol

Thanks for stopping by

ALBOTAT: Spring is blooming!!

This journal page was inspired by the garden and the arrival of spring and, hopefully soon, summer! (fingers crossed lol) Our garden has been getting more colourful by the day and I love the surprises it throws up.

I like to keep some white space on my journal spreads but on this one I scribble wrote all over the page on top of the original sketch

I really like how it looks when you paint over it - just about visible but not legible.. its not interfering with any added layers...

Once I'd finished reinstating the design with paints and a Posca paint pens - love those A LOT!!) I scanned it on the computer. I cleaned up the scan by removing any background marks leaving only the scribble flowers.  I printed it out on my toner printer onto a vintage book page - ooooh that was a good print!  such a great image it was hard to cut it up!! lol

I carried on sticking and colouring- I'd originally planned to stick the printed flowers over the matching ones on the journal page but decided the spread needed more flowers (are there ever enough flowers!) - and I also kept thinking 'its needs more colour'  - until finally, with the addition of swipes of neon pink gel pen, I was finished!

I really like that the pages are bright and colourful but also still have a lot of 'white' space.. space to 'breathe'.

Thanks popping by

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative!

Is what I do when art journaling ....

I thought I'd share with you some pages from my Dylusions journal - I am really enjoying working in this at the moment - its taken a while, I think thats because I had two spreads in it I REALLY DID NOT LIKE... and every time I opened the journal there they were right at the front... horrible (they were just. not. me) and so I didn't work in the book... then I thought enough is enough.
I took photos of both spreads (I wanted a reference of 'what not to do!') and glued the spreads shut... with matte medium - there's no getting those suckers open now!... and I am free to work in my journal without being taunted by the ugly spreads......
(and no I couldn't paint over them- I tried - but the dye from the 'bleeding art tissue' kept seeping through! persistent little product! lol)

accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative!

I'm using the Dylusion square journal and each page measures around 22.5x22.5cm so its a nice big space to work on.
I use the pages quite a lot when I'm gelli printing - to clean my brayer, to make ghost prints and clean up prints.... so here are few of those spreads:

This page was a clean up page, over printed with bubble wrap (love a bit of that!).  I added stenciling with Baltic Blue Fresco paint, and added gold emboss for a bit of contrast against the matte paint.

The page has very rough, distressed look... I like it that way - and its distressed in a different way to the spread below:

Gelli print patchwork created with ghost prints and clean up prints - I really like creating these (see HERE for a project I created using the patchwork to create a masterboard).... and you can't go wrong with a bubble wrap print!

This is 1/2 of a spread that I treated as 2 separate pages (reason for the outline), it was created by simply running the brayer over it to get rid of excess paint - easy and I'm sure we've all done that to use up extra paint - shame to waste it! I then, several weeks/months later, doodled on some flowers..

This spread was made during a Gelli plate demonstration at the PaperArtsy Seth Apter event a few weekends ago - a real lets try it all page - its just a jumble of techniques and its fun - I think it'll be the base for more added layers.

Detail of the spread - 2 types of bubble wrap (why use one when you can have two types!), stamping (additive and subtractive), and drawing a my fingernail....

and next, just in case you think all my spreads in this journal are blue... how this for a pop of colour:

Chartruesse and Neon Pink - do not adjust your sets! it really is quite bright!  Love it!  Its not finished - I feel a bit of black coming on! (unleashing my inner punk?!?)

I'll end this post with something a little calmer... my take on Bokeh style.. a spread I created while prepping for a class..

I painted the entire spread, then gave the right hand page a white wash before stamping one of my girls, while the left page was left without. Interesting to see the difference - also black outlines on left page and 'white fire' on right page... but they still work as a spread - the phrase suits the girly I think.


I hope you've enjoyed this look in side my journal - some of you saw me demo in it at the PA/Seth Apter event - now I've glued the nasty pages together I'm happy to take it out in public!

Thanks for stopping by.

x

Holiday makes..... Part 4: From cereal box to....

..... mini junk book

Every morning on holiday I try and eat healthily- I walk past the champagne bar "mimosa signora??", past the pastry counter (aaaaah the smell of hot croissants!!) and the sausages, eggs, waffles etc etc etc - you name it & its available - all very (too) tempting!!

Instead I have a box of one of these (which I like to jazz it up with fruit, nuts and... stuff...) ....and thank goodness for illustrations on boxes otherwise I wouldn't have a clue what they were! My Spanish vocabulary is very limited and the writing on those boxes is really small! and I mean really small!!

But, I'm not choosing these purely for their tastiness.. oh no.. I'm also choosing them for their packaging! Cardboard! Oh yes!! on a previous holiday I used it to make stencils but this time I had plans to make a book!!

I know this isn't groundbreaking or rocket science but I liked the challenge of making something out of nothing and with limited supplies...

I set up a creative station on one of the tables in the room - I chose this one because it had a glass top - now that was a revelation:  I NEED a glass top to my desk at home - great for use with paints, cutting on, easy to clean - why haven't I thought of this before!!

I cut up the boxes - discarding the narrow sides and cutting the remaining front and backs into 12x6.5cm panels, then scored and glued as the diagram below - easy way to create a book

I glued it together with Matte Medium and waited for it to dry. Then the decorating began... I limited myself to 3ish colours for the book - trying to makes sure these colour appeared on each spread working as a theme/scheme throughout the book.. Neon Pink (love!!), dark blue (I think its Baltic Blue), Gold, Aqua blue watercolour...

The front and back covers: made out of a piece of gelli printed paper I'd bought with me.. they were cut and glue on in separate pieces and where the pattern didn't cover  the page I stamped on the mini alphabet set as a block in neon pink acrylic paint... what is not to love about that colour!!  (neon pink circles were created with a bottle top)

The book pages that had cereal packet print on needed to be covered in paper to block out the bold colours - on this spread I used vintage music paper and another gelli print.  The doily came from one of the restaurants and the alphabet strip is a handwriting excercise book I have in my stash.  I doodled onto the gelli print on the right-hand page and the text strip is the title of the book pages I brought with me - considering the heat I was creating in it couldn't be more appropriate could it! lol

More paper covered pages, with stenciling - I brought 2 stencils with me - big number and an alphabet (Tim Holtz stencils)...I have neon paint and I am not afraid to use it!  The chevrons are a stamp (JOFY36) painted with Aqua watercolour.
NB a glue stick makes a great mini roller for spreading glue and getting rid of airbubbles after you've glued papers down (as above)

I really like this spread - the circles (stamped using a bottle top) and the chevrons - I like how they look dimensional - almost like bubbles.. 'happy' is cut from a magazine and the tag is one I brought with me they I washed with the watercolour paint... it flaps open to reveal the second page of this spread.

I've added this photo to show how shiny, metallic and pretty the Fresco Finish Gold paint is! and when used with the Neon and Aqua paint - LUSH!!

When you lift the tag (the added page in the previous diagram) it reveals a stenciled number 9 which is my 'magic' number so the clipping from a magazine was another apt addition....spots are from JOFY36

This is a top view of the book showing the spine and the added page - a really simple addition.

This is the final spreak - book text across the hinge are, another doily with doodling and a phrase cut from book text (again its a bit of a nod to the holiday).. the right hand page is the alphabet stencil and gold paint... more spots and neon paint.

That's all my holiday creations - not many from this holiday - I usually make more sitting at the pool but I couldn't on this holiday as there was a lovely breeze - papers would've been everywhere!

And when the temperature is upwards of 85degrees I'd rather have the breeze thank you!

Thanks for popping by.

x