A Journaling Garden

A GARDEN OF WORDS

I cannot take credit for this idea as this was for a great prompt in the Art Journal-ers Discussions, Tips and Prompts thread on atcsforall.com, by smokeysmom...


"Open your journal to a full spread (two blank pages facing you), now sweep any color blue along the first third of each page (for sky), then sweep a line of yellow across the pages-ok to blend the colors - next green paint across the horizon and last, brown paint (or ink) for the ground. If you're feeling adventurous, create a hill or two..now take a marker (any kind, any color) and make vertical lines from the brown and green painted areas - up. Cut out small circles from old text sheets or music sheets and glue the circles to the top of the vertical lines-the flower heads. Add leaves to the stems if you wish. If you have spaced the flowers out a bit across the double spread, journal around them; journal up one side, around the flower head and down the other side and keep on going. You've created a journaling garden!  "

I used acrylic paint washes for the background, then Marvy Uchida Liquid Applique pens, which are for fabric and paper. I used these for the stems and leaves. They work like an ordinary marker pen, but when you heat the lines they puff up into a 3D effect.


The journalling is in sepia pen; it is a poem I wrote years ago about my childhood neighbourhood  and looking back on it as an adult as I am keen to use more of my poetry in my journalling. The "flowers" are circles cut from old poems of mine in poetry books (like most poets I have a lot of copies of books I have been published in!).