Journal Jam 2

Effy Wild is sharing a weekly Journal Jam live session in The Wilderhood (her Monday, my Tuesday morning) and I've done 2 spreads so far following the prompts. I've just gone and added a label so you can see them all HERE (I include all the prompts). I've become a little addicted cos I create spreads I would never do on my own and it's great to be led if you're feeling uninspired. It is so fun to art together - I managed to catch her live this week : in NZ time it's 8am Tuesdays. Effy draws prompts and shares how she works in response to those directly in her journal, and you can follow her lead or go in a totally different direction. Go HERE if you want to play too. This is Effy's

Use a colour you don't often use I don't use brown - let's see what happens when I start with something neutral and muted. Effy blended with white so that's useful for colour variation

I used titanium buff for my light/white...At least the dark brown covered the background heading in my altered book. Not in love. I am hoping for colour next!
Yellow Still considering this a background

Draw a shape Inspired by my recent book of Winged things - I'm putting a butterfly in. Using Stabilo All Pencil again, blended with water and then sprayed with workable fixative. I had a mask in my stencil stash to use as a guide for this large pleasing shape.

Use a colour you love Whoop whoop. Pebeo Iridescent Blue Green it is....

Add a word Again inspired by my March book, I want to add Rise - and I'm stamping it so it's larger than a usual found word. Found these really large alphabet stamps in a drawer which I thought I couldn't fit but then realised I could stamp vertically - also something I don't usually do. 

Drippage Decided to take a bit of a risk and drip from the side with some kind of pink

Loved that so much that I did it from the top on the other side as well!

That's the end of the prompts so over to me to finish as desired. I still have a LONG way to go on this one but I think it's got promise.
Got back to this today. I love stencils so that's my first stop, and I have an idea about light in the background. First up - let's see how Pebeo Iridescent Green Blue differs from Blue Green! The Green blue is added through the stencil here : turns out the last word is what counts. Glad the blue went over the top. 

Then to make my background more interesting. I added more of that pinky red around the page and then layered up. 

I wanted to use my seed head stamps with VersaMagic Cloud White stamp pad for some light in the background and I ended up adding more brown for contrast. I love to add gold - this is my favourite gold metallic gelly roll pen by Sakura

Here is the page finished

Journal Jam 1 with Effy

Effy Wild is sharing a weekly Journal Jam live in The Wilderhood (her Monday, my Tuesday morning) and my last journal page following the prompts turned out so well I decided that after my work hours from home were finished this week, I'd join in again. If you want the replay go HERE. She draws prompts and shares how she works in response to those directly in her journal, and you can follow her lead or go in a totally different direction. I've re-titled this Journal Jam 1 since this is officially the start of a weekly offering by Effy. This was her finished page 

Here's what happened at my place : 
Blue Scraped 2 blues on with credit card and then finished blending with baby wipe

Drippage Effy used acrylic ink so I looked at my stash for what colour would be pretty... and if one is lovely 2 is better right?! 

Scrape paint with a gift card or other scrapey tooly thingy Using my rubber/silicone tool (No brand name) and some paint called melonball which I thought might inject a bit more yellow light

...not in love but it's a texture layer

Use a smudgeable pencil to outline something on the page and smudge it out Followed Effy's lead by reaching for my black Stabilo All pencil (very water reactive - some alternatives if you don't have one are HERE). One of my favourite things is "found words" - perfect to be using an old book for my art journal. Outlined and smudged Stabilo and then went over the words with an XS black Pitt Pen : dearly loved. There's only one thing to be done. art

Obeyed the impulse to add a bit more smudged Stabilo. Then sprayed with workable fixative so this doesn't react again. 

Add a leaf Yay - stencil time....and I know it says ''a'' leaf but my page my rules! I always like to inject something of my NZ into my art where I can

I know I'm going to have to add some injection of colour but I'm really liking this

Want to add some definition before I move to the next prompt so added brush Pitt pen to outline the ferns and then blended out with a wet brush. These pens are great in that there is a little time when you first apply when they can be shifted but after that they are permanent.

Add overlapping circles An opportunity to add a touch of bronze

And now I can finish the page as I wish. My first inclination is to add serviette butterflies and that made me feel the page was complete. The red ones are perfect to highlight the words.

I would never have created this page alone and enjoyed this process so much. Happy weekend to you.

Paint over collage and metallic watercolours

When I taught a class about Faces recently, one of the techniques I shared was paint over collage. Check out that previous post for details of the process.  I figured if I glued the magazine face I was demonstrating into my journal, it would be a page starter! 

She's on a double-spread so I can do a lot with her hair, and I was very inspired by a recent Book of Days lesson with Effy : (as seen on her blog HERE)

Really fun to combine both ideas and this is how mine developed

Added metallic watercolours over the top of both the watercolour ground and the black gesso. The photo does not do the glimmery shine justice. 

I love using the technique of good quality pencils for final face detailing (I use Polychromos by Faber-Castell)

and I used a White Uni-Ball Signo pen for the flower doodles in her hair

Left her for a day to see if she needed anything more since I usually add words, but she's telling me she's done.

You can still join us in Book of Days HERE. 

Recycled doodle journals 3

I shared the preparation of my recycled journals HERE. They are turning into my new obsession for doing couch art or when traveling since they are quite small and can be easily transported. 

They are also great for arting in 10 minutes before I have to go somewhere... fun micro-movements as well as being a great meditative process. I am loving that I am recycling - also working smaller is a lovely change. Hope to update these posts fairly regularly since I'm expecting that the more I play in these journals, the more I'll want to = they are SO MUCH FUN! I have now completed 2 faces in this journal : 

Uniball signo white pen this time.

See how the right hand page got transformed HERE. 

And then in my other journal : 

I decided to just start on the left side inside of working on the spread as a whole

But this needs more interest to spark me - so I've just added some small stencil shapes

And in my next post about this journal you'll see how it turned out...
I have a bit of a cold, but the sun is shining, I've painted my toenails silver, my roses have started blooming and have just started a lovely long weekend here so hopefully more art to share soon ♥ Hope you have a great weekend too.
See all my recycled doodle journal art HERE.

Recycled doodle journals 2

Nearing the end of the first week of our school holidays and I've spent most of my time watching my eldest son play basketball for the New Zealand Secondary Schools' National competition

There have been some tense moments and wonderful ones - quite a lot of shouting and excitement too...it can be exhausting being a supporter! ♥
There hasn't been much time for art, but I'm really happy that I have had my 2 small doodle journals for moments of calm. I have many magazine faces glued into one journal, 

and the other I have lying open in my studio so that I can add paint layers when doing other art. And discovering that old lumpy gesso can be used as a base layer if scraped on with an old credit card

It's fun to see how the pages develop

Trying different marks with my new pen

When I got a bit stuck, I had a little look through this lovely library book

If you see designs similar to what you do and then incorporate the ideas into your art, they become part of your lexicon. Here are a couple of the book page designs

If you draw them in your journal instead of just photocopying the pages they can spark additional ideas to make them more your own

I used the Sakura White Gelly Roll pen for the doodles on all of these pages - might try a different one next time

I am not listening to any comparey monsters - I know will never be as talented as Alisa Burke, but the point is that doodling in these journals makes me happy and it's all about the process - I share to inspire you ♥