And also using more stepped pages...

As I said in the previous post ,back in April I was writing about using the Strathmore Journal workshops to make stepped pages and fold out pages, so I have had some pages with the backgrounds waiting to be used since posts in April and June... as another part of my Art Journal Every Day challenge.. 


so this time I have been using the set of stepped pages.

Back in June I made these backgrounds and borders for the stepped pages I made for Strathmore Art Journal papers Workshop 2.


I have re-posted the pictures here which show how I added the borders and used  acrylic washes and sequin waste to make  a series of backgrounds.


But then I was not sure what to do with them, so they languished ...

Then I was thinking about memories and how to exorcise - or learn to live -  with difficult past events.

And also thinking that I want to try to combine poems I have written in the past with my current art journalling.

The result is some dark, confessional pages...

Our first baby was stillborn and a year later we had a beautiful daughter, but then 3 years later we  had another daughter, but she was also stillborn at 38 weeks.

Then 6 years later we had our first son and 22 months later a second son - and it was at that stage that I was able to write about what had happened, so these pages are the poem that came out of a kind of acceptance of what had happened, because what else can you do?

I had my miracle family - we had our three beautiful children - but there were still little ghosts in the shadows of the babies that might have been...

But I had shut it all away so the poem is all about that sealing of experiences - and unsealing them.

Then the final spread is about Openings and Moving On, with some journalling about where I am today... now that the children are all grown up and now that we have grandchildren..