RETURNING TO AN OLD ART JOURNAL

Although I have good intentions and mean to be as creative as possible, and despite having given up wedding photography so that we only have the plant nursery to run now, I am still time poor!

However, I have found a really wonderful book by Pam Carriker Called "ART AT THE SPEED OF LIFE motivation + inspiration for making mixed-media art every day" - it is great, very inspirational and packed with ideas.

One idea is to multi-task with backgrounds - so there is a technique of background making using thinned acrylic paint over dry white gesso and making textural backgrounds- and also using left over paint from this, thinned, blobbed on with kitchen roll/baby wipes etc .

Therefore I now have my stash of poor neglected journals open  at the same time and  I am doing multiple backgrounds -some of which I will show in later blogs -so there will always be pages ready to go.

One of my now and consequently resurrected  journals is one inspired by wonderful the artist Juliana Coles 

who uses  a really radical and exciting journalling technique called

EXTREME VISUAL JOURNALLING 

see http://www.destinyvoyages.com/visualjournals.htm

she says

  "What makes these books Extreme Visual Journals is the act of combining journal writing assignments such as non-dominant handwriting, letter writing, Declarations of Independence, lists, dreams, word associations, etc. with art making assignments such as collage, drawing and painting, old photos, rubber stamping,  totem/fetish creating, and various mixed media techniques to create a unique book of self expression.  In an Extreme Visual Journal, we are after the rich interior.  We are concerned with our own and unique inner, ancient wisdom.  We want to find our voice, our style, and our flair for life by documenting our past, present and future in a book.  We are NOT concerned with making art.  We are NOT concerned with a product or pretty picture.  We want to know how to unfold and in that moment, there is remarkable beauty on the page we did not know we possessed."

These are journals " For Your Eyes Only"

So I have a journal for EMOTIONS

inspired by this approach

using hidden words and pictures collaged over with loads of paint, masking tape, painted collage, and journalling in white and black pen.

The spreads above are top "anger" and bottom "fear" but I have decided to continue with this journal - maybe with some more benign pages too!
In fact I used the fear spread as part of Strathmore workshop 1 - as reusing old work

Therefore I made a title page using left over acrylic washes as described in the Pam Carriker book  - layering colours, wiping on and wiping off using wet wipes (which are then great for making tinted background in other journals)

I used  Ranger - Tim Holtz - chip board letters tinted with the same acrylic left over wash  and enhanced the edges of the letters with black acrylic. Again rubbing on and rubbing off to create a variety of effects.

I like the title as it hints at what the journal is about and will be very appropriate on my darker days!!

Then I had some dancing dolls I cut out from some Japanese newspaper that turned up as packing material in a parcel  - a great find - and tinted those with different left over acrylic washes.

Hey presto!! My journal is back in action and just waiting to be emoted in!