Dream: Journal Page

I've been working in my art journal today. This beautiful image is from a note card by Sabrina Ward Harrison. I transferred it onto muslin. I like the ethereal effect that image transfers have; especially when transferred to a thin material like muslin. My favorite technique for achieving this effect is the Purell hand sanitizer technique. It gives the image the dreamy look I want and it doesn't stiffen the material too much. Plus it's clean! ;)

I have a lot of layers on these pages. Lots of paint, stencils, some French text, napkins, and pens. This is something I'm challenging myself to do: layer, layer, layer! I haven't added any journaling yet. I may do this on a separate sheet of paper and then insert that into an envelope that I'll adhere to the page. Still thinking about it.

I'm not sure the page is finished yet. I may come back to it at a later time and add something else. For right now, I like it and will let it sit for awhile.

Here is a closeup of the image transfer:

Other things I'm working on: a new art quilt. This one is about the size of the fabric paper quilt but made with fabric. I'm trying some new techniques for this one: silk screening and working with deconstructing the silk screened image. This technique involves making a convex rubbing of your image onto the silk screen and printing successive images from there. I first saw this technique in Quilting Arts magazine over the summer. It's stayed on my mind and I've finally worked up the nerve to try it.

I've done a couple of runs of the silk screened image. I love the deconstructed effect. There is another technique in the follow-up issue that discussed deconstructing an image using an engraved rubbing of your image. That one will be my next try. But it will be a separate art quilt.

I'm also making more journals because I'm enrolled in a couple of very fun journaling classes right now. One is from Cristina at Roses on My Table (Journal Journey) and the other one is from Monica at Hands and Heart (Zodiac Journaling).

Lots of stuff in the works right now. And, in between all of these, I'm getting more acquainted with Photoshop CS4. I'm slowly learning my way around. If I really get stumped, I just go to my old computer where CS2 is still loaded and work on something there. But don't tell hubby. He says I should work through it. :)

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.

Hold Fast Your Dreams: A Journal Spread

I completed the first assignment of LK Ludwig's Point and Shoot Journaling Class. Ideally, you will use photos that you have shot for your journal. Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to choose from since I really haven't taken that many pictures in my life.

I do have a lot of photos from the family gatherings, etc. But they aren't what I want to put into my art journal. So, until I shoot some of my own, I'm using images I've got saved in my archive. These are images from free image sites that spoke to me at the time and were saved for the purpose of using in my art. With that said, I completed the assignment.

The whole journal entry is centered around a poem by Louise Driscoll called, "Hold Fast Your Dreams". I had read about this poem on another site somewhere and looked it up. This page shows the first verse written out both behind the photo and onto the photo:

This next page uses the images of the girl with the pinwheel (echoed in the previous photo). I chose these images to remind me to re-discover my inner child and chase my dreams. Also, to explore that "secret spot" mentioned in the poem. I like the mood of these two photos; kind of magical, misty and dreamy.

I painted up the background for these two pages with that misty, magical feeling in mind. I love purple and violet and turquoise together so I just threw some paint on, added some metallic gold for accents and a little bit of texture with the snippets of mesh.

While these aren't pretty pages they are pages that reflect my mood and my dreams right now. I think that is what I'm getting out of this class: authentic journaling of your dreams, goals, wishes or whatever it is you are feeling when you sit down with your journal.

I do plan on getting out and taking my own photos. But I didn't want the lack of pertinent images to hold me back from starting. I'll search through my personal photos and may find some that I want to journal about in future lessons. For right now, though, I've started and I love it.

Serendipity Strikes Again

Risk

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom.

-- Anais Nin

I found this poem on a great poetry website. I go through spells where I read a lot of poetry, write some poetry and just get immersed in it for awhile. This poem stuck with me and the images just came together pretty quickly for this digital piece. Lately I find that poetry has been very inspirational for my art and my journaling.

Now for the serendipity part! I mentioned in my last post about how I love journal prompts and wanted to get serious again about my art journal. I think there's a lot of material that can be sorted through in a journal that can be used to express myself further in my art.

So after writing that last post I did some blog hopping on my favorite blogs (see sidebar). I found a wonderful Point & Shoot photo journaling class on LK Ludwig's blog. If you aren't familiar with her work, she is a very talented and inspirational photographer, author and journaler. She has written some awesome books on art journaling and keeping a journal (I have them all). I was thrilled to see that she had just now started this class (October 1). Coincidence? I think NOT!

Serendipity further at work: I was browsing through a thrift shop a couple of weeks ago and I came upon a blank, hand-made journal, filled with the nicest watercolor paper, just waiting to be filled! Here is my little gem:

And look at this binding! This little jewel was less than $1.

It has tons of paper just inviting me to come and play!

I had to use my palette knives to hold the pages down so you could see them. This is so cool! Now I have my ready-made journal and a brand new class to guide me through.

The class focuses on taking your own photos to use in your art and journaling. We already have our first photo assignment. I am just amazed at how the Universe pays attention when you even whisper that you'd like to explore something... Try it! It works!! This has all fallen into place just within the last couple of weeks!

I'll post some pages along the way as I fill them. Let the adventure begin!