Journal Jammin'

In between my recent bout with the flu I have used my energy spurts to play in my art journals. This top page is a work in progress. I haven't journaled on it yet and I want to add a few more things. This is a homemade journal. I used Teesha Moore's instructions from her blog and made this one out of 140 lb. watercolor paper. The pages are 8 x 9 (I didn't have a wide enough sheet to make it 8 x 10) but this will do for now. I use this journal for trying out techniques.

The background is a dyed paper towel that I glued to the watercolor paper. I love the look you get when you dye those towels. I use Adirondack Color Washes when I dye the towels. They give such vibrant color!

The lady in the middle is from a wee little rubber stamp I picked up recently. She's part of a sheet of those acrylic stamps you can buy now. I just love this stamp. I bought the whole sheet just so I could get her. I scanned her into the computer and enlarged it about 200%. Then I colored her in using some water soluble markers. I really like the way she turned out. I repeated her image at the bottom. That is the original size of the stamp. Those are stamped onto granite-finish paint sample cards I picked up at Lowes. I'm in there a lot just to get the paint chips and other little free samples. :)

These next two pages are from another journal. These are my first attempts from Dina Wakley's class I mentioned a few posts ago. I love her art journaling style and want to take more of her classes. The challenge in this lesson was to make at least 10 layers and use a silhouette 3 times. I used another dyed paper towel as part of the background here. Then I journaled around the central bird.

This next page isn't finished yet. I used the same bird silhouette. I printed out an image of a bird I had in my files (after I enlarged it) and used the cutout as my mask. I don't think I'll do 10 layers on this page. I do like the colors:

I mentioned Teesha's journal instructions earlier. She shows you how to make a 16-page journal with one sheet of 22 x 30 watercolor paper. My sheet wasn't quite that wide but I managed to make one. Here is my journal. I used a sheet of my fabric paper as the journal cover and glued it on, wrapping it around the front and back cover of the watercolor paper:

And here is what the inside looks like:

This journal has 16 pages counting the inside and back covers. Lots of room to play and experiment with all of these techniques I'm learning. Hopefully my energy will return full force soon and I can really get busy.

I've made a few more sheets of fabric paper for my ongoing wall hanging project. I'm almost halfway through with beading the squares. I have a few more things in the works right now and will post about those soon.