30 days in your journal - continuing the journey!

Because I am in the UK so I could not get the recommended  journal but I already had a a really nice cheap little book from specialist crafts art design www.specialistcrafts.co.uk/products-Economy-Sketchbooks_D... It is A4 cartridge paper and gives me 19 double spreads and was only £1.94!! "Economy Sketchbooks A range of low cost sketchbooks that contain good quality 160gsm white cartridge. Ideal for most sketching and illustration exercises. An excellent low cost bulk usage product. Staple fixed - 20 sheets per book." It has stood up really well to painting, layering, collaging and stamping. I decided to go back to the beginning and add a title page, using water colour washes, paints, stencils and collage, so it leads in to the book now. The background of this double page spread uses  Cuttlebug plus Sizzix Ink-its Letterpress Plates which "combine style and ease to create artful ink-debossed impressions. This easy process impresses paper, cardstock, chipboard, mat board and other soft, thick materials. Elegant enough for any occasion, they provide the perfect accents for cards, invites, scrapbook pages..." I used archival Whispers stamp pads and collaged the  prints on. Then I used the Tim Holtz Sizzix bird cage and bird dies, blue Cuttlebug butterflies and numbers.  Most of these were cut from an old French paperback of "The Witches of Eastwick" as I love foreign text, and I am just going through the book adding watercolour washes to every page ready for use.

Now back to the course!! This spread uses a black background instead of white

 Something I have never done.


I should have used black gesso and watercolour crayons but did not have the gesso and did not want to wait for it! :( so I used black airbrush paint instead - it covered well and has a matte finish, BUT the surface would not take water colour crayons. So I used watercolour paints instead to draw and colour the butterflies, then I decorated and journalled with a white uni-ball signo broad pen. This covers everything, so long as I remember to let it dry first!
My husband LOVES this spread!!

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..

More Using Fold Out Journals -

I always said it was a hyperactive blog - but it is not fast!


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...

I had got as far as using some eraser stamps I carved to stamp "seek", "find" and "live" all around the edges of the page, but then I was playing with my new Cuttlebug.

I have got some Tim Holtz dies and big up plates for the Cutttlebug, so I have used his slide film die plus other Cuttlebug and Sizzix dies for lettering, butterflies and dragonflies.

I got some lovely paper by Melody Ross designer collections called "Soul Food" with these great generic fifties/sixties women, so I cut those out and used the same paper as some of the die cut material.

There was a quote on the page with the girl on the left saying "She stopped to smell the daisies" so I used that as the theme of the page. I used two other figures - one on the left looking serious and studious with one in the middle encouraging her to have a full life and also take some time out.

Then I had a rush of flowers and insects going across the whole panorama and to link the women and to give it a joyful feel...

I feel happy just looking at it!!

Inside the Junque Gratitude Journal...

I decided to start the journal with some inspiration from Joanne Sharpe's "Top Ten tips for Artful Lettering" *. She says:-


If you want unique lettering on your journal pages, begin with your very own handwriting.  Get comfortable with making letters and writing words and quotes.  Explore and experiment with new pens and supplies to write with.   Each tool gives you a different look and feel.  It takes practice, practice, practice just as if you were learning to play the piano!  Try making a new alphabet where all the letters have a common element.  You must make “artful letters” every day!  


 So I took some quotations about "gratitude" off the web and had a go at lettering these with different pens.


I had already added the circles to the page when I decorated it  so I also used these as "containers" for the quotations.


I am sorry to say that my writing does not look anywhere near as exciting as Joanne Sharpe's wonderful examples, but it has got me started...


* See Art Journal Every Day's fabulous July 2011 “TOP TEN TIPS for ARTFUL LETTERING” by Joanne Sharpe

Read more: ttp://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/2011/07/index.html#ixzz1WBE9U6NL

Junque Journals - minus some of the junque...

Junque Journals -  minus some of the junque...!!

I always try to keep a gratitude journal - inspired by Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance -but I have been using just plain notebooks...

However I am now inspired by the look of Junque Journals - I love them and have now made several - but I decided I also wanted simple books to write in daily , just using simple pens. The gratitude journal is just a list - 5 things a day which I am grateful for.




It is a great discipline because whatever your mood, you realise that there are always really good things in your life.

So I bought a cheap set of recycled exercise books from Morrison's supermarket.

I decorated the pages using watercolour crayons and water soluble Inktense pencils from Derwent.




I used a variety of colours and templates and then sprayed them with a mini water bottle and painted them with a water brush.





Between pages I dried them off with a heat gun so I have made a lot of pages all ready to go as I am now trying to always have pages ready in all of my journals so I can journal at a moment's notice.



I have tried to make them lively and colourful and I have kept the margin for numbering my 1 to 5 things to be cheeerful about with a date across the top.





I am really pleased with them -I think they will make a great record of my days - and my ups and downs! As my lists are very brief when I am a bit down, but much more expansive when I am excited with life!

I will post some pages when they are done. They will also give me a chance to practice my hand writing - I am trying to make my own style of writing into more of an interesting font  following Art Journal Every Day's fabulous July 2011 “TOP TEN TIPS for ARTFUL LETTERING” by Joanne Sharpe

Read more: http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/2011/07/index.html#ixzz1WBE9U6NL

Emotionally Challenged Journal

 Back to my book of feelings... 

I did "Feel the Fear" and  "Anger" some time ago
and I made a page in my Journal of Prompts for more ideas for the "Emotionally Challenged" Journal

I had already made a background, using some left over acrylic wash, as I am trying to make sure I always have some journal backgrounds ready to go (as I explained in an earlier blog).

The background was shades of green but I felt it was about time I did a positive emotional spread in this journal as I get agitated when I look at the spreads I have already done! So I resisted going with Green-Eyed Monster and I wanted to make a page using the Calm prompt instead.

I found some quotes off the internet to get some good thoughts - as calmness is not one of my greatest attributes -

For collage images first I found a howling wolf so I thought that was what I should try to escape from,
and gave him a moon (taken from a pack of mirrors I am intending to use for Indian Shisha (mirror-work) embroidery - one day...).

I love horse imagery so I found a very free, galloping horse, He is charging off through some white gates I cut out and carrying on into the next page which has flowers, candles, a calm arch through into the green of the natural world, and Tim Holtz chipboard letters telling me what I should be trying to do.

I coloured all the lettering and quotes with tones which blend with the flowers and added some white lettering to summarise the feeling of the whole spread....

Now to calm down!!

More of Using Backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day

I am now onto a sketch book with ready to use watercolour wash backgrounds that I did some time ago.
I am doing a swap on ATCsforall.com on  Everybody Loves A Parade so I thought the wide format of this book was ideal for getting some ideas down. I like the idea of doing more of these to march across more of the pages.
This year's Britain's Got Talent  had a wonderful act called The Circus of Horrors - I love them! - so this was the starting point for my own Circus of Shudders...

I used the Inktense pencils.

I have now got to decide which ones to use to make articulated dolls to send off, or whether to make some more acts first.

Moleskin Journal - using backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day

This is a return to my moleskin journal of ambiguity (in an earlier post) using pre-prepared backgrounds...

I have used image transfers, collage and stamping for this page, which is an introduction to some pages about  mazes and labyrinths.
I am also interested in the "green man" - a figure of a head emerging from greenery which appears in churches and is suspected to hark back to the imagery of pre-Christian/pagan times

Mixed Media Techniques Journal - Image Transfers

I am still using the ready made backgrounds I made for Art Journal Every Day

This one is in my ongoing journal of mixed media techniques.
I made a page as an aide memoir for one kind of image transfer,showing how the end product appears,

This is the packing tape/bookfilm technique. I hope to demonstrate some other techniques in future posts...

Art Journal Every Day - using my backgrounds

This is the second little journal using my backgrounds I prepared earlier - this journal is for recording mixed media art techniques, where I found them, and what I did with the idea... and also for keeping a record of instructions, paint colours etc. 

It should be a very useful reference book when it is full and it will encourage me to try out techniques I have not used before...

A Journal of Journal Prompts

More ~ Using Backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day; A Journal of Journal Prompts

I have a series of lovely little journals that I received as part of swaps on atcsforall.com and I have been making  backgrounds for them.

This is my "Journal of Prompts".

I have used one of a pack of Tim Holtz journaling tickets for the title page.

The first prompt page is for my journal of emotions, "Emotionally Challenged".

I have used a label for  listing some ideas and collaged lots of 'emotional' words

Prompts 2, 3 and 4 are "Openings"

Pathways

Windows

Doors

I used cloakroom tickets, a wages envelope and some collaged and  stamped details

I might add something to take out of the envelope...






And the final spread I have completed - so far -  is a spread for prompt 5 which is about my ongoing interest in Medieval imagery and text .

I am planning to do my own "Book Of Hours" in an altered book I have prepared....

 I shall be adding more prompts, including some lists of prompts off the journalling thread on atcsforall.com, courtesy of the inspirational smokeysmom!!
As I want to keep a record of all the prompts I have seen -  and this little journal will be the perfect place to store them.

More of Using Backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day

I am still trying to "use up"  backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day - I was planning on doing an ATC swap on atcsforall.com on the subject of "mermaids and friends" so I did some backgrounds on watercolour paper and in my Strathmore watercolour Journal to be nicely watery with an under the sea feel.

I wet the paper with a mister spray and added watercolours directly from the tube then splodged them around with a big brush and I also tilted the paper so the colours ran into one another...

In the end I did not use the paper for the swap as I drew my mermaids directly on to my atc size paper instead - but I did have a nice double page spread in my journal all ready to go.

I had a prompt I liked from the art journalling thread on atcsforall - "mermaid tales", thanks to smokeysmom!  Plus I had a head full of mermaid imagery and I also had a poem I wrote about Dahud, a Celtic mythological figure, which gave me my story.

I used some ready made stick on lettering for the title and some Dover alphabet letters for the Dahud name; these were black and white so I coloured them with water colour crayons.

I did an image transfer of the hippocamp sea horse, then I used the top of one mermaid and a tail from another in a book of Dover medieval images which again I tinted. I found the black and white musical merpeople from a copy of an old engraving and added them, and then I drew Dahud and gave her a pretty (but maybe a bit spiteful) face.

The poem is covered in layers of organza cut in wave patterns, while the text of the story is tinted with watercolour crayons.  Then there is some journalling in black pen and last of all a key sticker.

I have called it Mermaid Tales Number 1 - because that way I have to do some more!

Art Journal Every Day - using my backgrounds

 I have been in London for a few days as it was our  grand-daughter's  7th birthday party - which involved a trip across from Dulwich to Islington to visit the Sylvanian's shop and then a party for 15 children at a leisure centre - hectic!!

And I have been making her a scrap book since we got back home with montage photos I put together of the shop trip and the party with backgrounds of wrapping paper and Sylvanian' catalogue pictures so I have been buried in glue and gift wrap...

However, I have started using my backgrounds for my month's challenge I set for myself in the last post.

I have used the Moleskin journal with the ready made background.

I was looking through a book catalogue and found a picture of an ambigram by John Langdon called ambiguity - they read the same either way up (and my daughter has one about sunshine  in her bathroom, so this is something I have been taken by for some time).

And this has given me the subject for this journal - ambiguity and opposites

I did a title page with some self adhesive lettering and a crimson wash

And for the first spread  I have used the ambigram of ambiguity, with a definition and some details about ambigrams.

Then I have drawn and tinted Janus, the god who looks both ways into the past and future, with some image transfers of his name and properties.

So...
I think this subject has lots of potential!!

Time-saving Art Journalling - Making Multiple Backgrounds

Are you full of ideas for your art journal but you somehow lose the plot by the time you have made and dried your background? Daunted by those plain white pages? Cannot find anything to inspire you?

Then here are 2 time saving tips to get you going...

1. use up your left over materials.

In Pam Carriker's great book, "Art At The Speed of Life", she suggests using any bits of left over paint to make background to journals in a kind of production line.


With the Moleskin Journal - a lovely but hitherto unused gift, I dabbed left over acrylics onto double page spreads so I no longer have an intimidating white space...

In the brown page on the right I used a baby wipe to  rub dilute acrylic onto the empty page 

and with the final one I used a baby wipe again to dab thicker acrylic all over the page.

 2. Watercolour washes

This involves making a series of wet water colour washes and literally letting them drip, spread and otherwise make their own way across damp watercolour pages.


You can hold the page up and let
the wash run down the pages...

and you can rotate the pages to get a horizontal or vertical effect

You can choose a colour palette for the whole journal or for each double page spread.


You can also drip paint  into the wet page so it makes a kind of ink blot pattern or a more "puddled" effect.


You can also use this on sheets of water colour paper or water colour blocks (better as they do not cockle) and you have ready made background for art projects like atcs, chunky pages, gothic arches and so on...

The resulting pages from both techniques give a great jumping off point for collaging, painting, adding effects and written journalling... and get over the twin deterrents of scary white pages and/or having great ideas but having to wait until you have made and dried a background.


And the randomness of the end results could also be quite inspirational too!!


So for my art journal every day in July,  I will show some of the ways these background pages evolve into journal pages...