A peek into my journals 1

Hi friends,

I have always loved the idea of writing in a journal, ever since I was a kid. That desire never did last very long as I would always loose interest due to having no guidance so to speak. When I started my exploration into the mixed media world, I had been intrigued by all of the amazing journals I started to see. I also discovered that the journaling part was really subject to your interpretation, I was thankful for that, as the idea I always had in my mind was basically writing a novels worth of important daily happenings.

In the middle of April I had attended a course and was given a simple journal with the suggestion to write something/ anything in it everyday. I was honestly not looking forward to this for the reasons above but I figured I'd just make art pages with a few words here and there and that would be sufficient. It started out as I expected and I was not interested in writing down what I did during the day, which can be quite monotonous and stressful, or really anything that I wouldn't want myself or anyone else reading in the future. So what was I going to do? I then remembered that I had pinned journal prompts previously and I promptly printed out a years worth!

That really helped give a purpose to the writing side of art journaling. I had done amazingly well for 4 months, making an entry almost everyday! Then as to be expected in the life of a mom with two small kids life took over, I started to skip the journaling and just focused on the art, which let's face it is more therapeutic anyways. My point is I stuck with it for 4 months and I when the time yields it's self again, I'll have my prompt pages to help guide me again.

Here are a few pages:

This page was created using my Neocolour II wax pastels. After glueing a few pages together I gessoed and let dry. I randomly scribbled the pastels directly onto the paper in a vertical direction and with a water brush I blended the colour starting light to dark. 

Once that was dry I took my Hexagon stencil by Shnibblybits and a pencil and just traced out the pattern I wanted. I then used my blending stump to create shading and then placed the stencil over again and outlined all the hexagons with an xs black PITT pen by Faber Castell. I hi-lighted the top portions of the hexagon with my white PITT pen and took a music notes stamp with black archival ink and stamped randomly in a horizontal direction. 

I can't remember which stencil I used to add the white dashes on the left side of the hexagons but I know the black dots were from drywall tape, both using a blending tool and archival inks. I added my words which came from the Tim Holtz Small Talk pack, glueing down with Aleene's glue.

The kraft coloured background on this page was a leftover from another project, I used the cutouts from Shnibblybits Moroccan tile file and gessoed them on top of this tissue paper slightly creating a border to leave a pattern on the tissue. I use this technique a lot so I'll make another post just about it. I used Mod Podge to adhere the tissue paper to the page and sealed once I added a few ripped up old book pages and added them above the tissue.

I used my Shnibblybits Numbers square stencil and my blending tool with black archival ink to add random numbers. I also used the lid to my water brush and the archival ink to add some small circles to the page. 

Once that was done I had decided on my focal image of the rose which is from Glitz now whatnot pack from the dance in sunshine collection. The tissue had some pink paint from the previous project in one small corner so I took a Faber Castell Gelato in a lipstick pink to add to other areas, just adding it directly to the page and blending it with my finger. 

I then added Tim Holts Tissue Tape and a washi tape from Michale's and sealed with Modpodge. The prompt was about 3 things that made me proud so I added various 1,2,3's from Tim Holtz Salvage stickers from the Crowded attic pack, shaded them with pencil, added foam stickers to the rose and that was it.

This page was started with the regular prep of glueing pages together with a UHU glue stick and applying gesso. The initial background colour is Lindy's T-brid turquoise, which I just sprayed randomly to the page. I then took a very old Heidi Swapp stencil in the small hexagon's and my blending tool with Chestnut Archival ink and added that to the entire background. 

I adhered the ripped up pieces of drywall tape randomly and coloured them with Lindy's T-bird turquoise and Golden Dabloons using the dip tubes and allowing the paper to wick up the colour. Once that was dry I took two Finnabair stamps, one in Messy script and the other in Crackle, using black archival ink and stamping all over the page randomly.

One of my favourite things about cutting my own stencils are the "negatives" that are created! I use them as much as the actual stencils. Having cut out the Shnibblybits Hexagon stencil it yielded all these amazing hexagons which I jumped at the opportunity to use, all I did was stamp with another script stamp in white archival ink, glue to the page with Aleene's glue and shade with a pencil and blending stump once dry. 

I then added foam squares to my focal image which is from Ephemera's Vintage Garden as a freebie! Added the words Free spirit and I was finished.

That's all for today, I've got to get back to bed before my day starts!

Lisa