Light and Dark: Two Journal Pages

I am doing a lot of playing in my art journals lately. Maybe it's because the prompts are making my Muse happy! The top spread is from the latest prompt in the Journal Journey group: "the darkness". Yay! Loved that prompt! I sketched the face and then added the body (minus the head) from a fashion magazine.

The background on the facing page is a piece of CitraSolv paper I had in my stash that I added some Caran d'Ache Neocolor II crayons to. I didn't know how well the CitraSolv paper would take to the crayons and the water but I was surprised at how well it held up to the addition of both. Good to know for future reference!

The words are from the song "Monsters" by Hurricane Bells. LOVE that song! Ooh, I had so much fun with this prompt. I would love to make a little family of these ghoulish people!  ;) I've had this Moleskine journal laying around for ages and forgot how much abuse you can give the pages. So I plan on using it a lot more!

This next page is in response to the free class I'm taking from Tam at her Ning network. Click on the button in my sidebar called Art, Heart and Healing for the info. You can join anytime and it's jam packed full of cool journaling techniques. She's incredibly generous to offer so much content for free. Check out her site. The first class alone covers how to draw a stylized portrait, paint it, and painting and collaging a journal background. And, if that wasn't enough, she talks about healing in your life and ways to journal about that. And that's just what's covered in the first week! Did I mention this is a FREE course? The generosity of some artists is just mind-boggling. So wonderful and refreshing!

So here is my girl for the first week. She's decided to be positive and go out and make music and dream dreams! I've used this quote before in my art because I just love it.

That's one of the things I love about art journals. You can play with the different sides of your emotions: the dark AND the light. You can be messy, be funny, be serious, just be YOU!

Three Things: An Art Journal Page

This is a journal page I did for an art journal group I belong to online. The prompt was to use our favorite color. I picked purple. I thought it was interesting that when I went to work on this prompt a piece of paper fell out of the journal that had a poem printed on it. It was by Mary Oliver, one of my many favorite poets, and the poem was, In Blackwater Woods. These lines really spoke to me as I read the poem so I typed them up, put them on some colorful paper and pasted them onto the page.

Considering my last post, I thought this was an appropriate follow-up. And so timely! My Muse must still be working on this theme. I had forgotten that I put the poem in the journal. I had planned on using it for something else but I thought it would work for this prompt.

I liked working with the paint again. I just smeared it all over the page with my fingers. I find I am doing that more and more now, not even using any of my brushes. Then I took some scraps of CitraSolv paper that I had in my stash and glued those on, covered them with more paint and then added the word strips. The heart is made from CitraSolv paper that I cut out using a wooden heart as a template and then smeared a little paint on it after it was glued onto the page.

After I scanned this photo into Photoshop I added a few shadows here and there and then my initials but that's about it. It was fun to just "get my hands dirty" and play! And speaking of play, I am going to be able to break out the encaustics this weekend. Looks like the temps will finally be cool enough to open the windows and plug in the hot plate. Hope to have something to show by Monday!

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. :)

Make Your Mark

Ever since I made the five journals using Teesha Moore's instructions I can't stop playing in them! Here is a page I just finished. I'm obsessed with this photo of Andy Warhol right now. I don't know why but it begs to be used in my journal. The image surrounded in white is a transfer onto rice paper that I then adhered to the journal page. I added white oil pastels around his head to give it a dreamy effect.

On the top of the page in the background you can barely see a transfer of the same photo onto an old book page. I picked up this tattered copy of classic poems in the library throwaway bin. The spine is loose and the cover is cracked and coming apart. I'll use that in another project. I tore a page from "Paradise Lost" and transferred the image onto that. This time, the image was colored in Photoshop before I transferred it. After I adhered it onto the page I used the oil pastels to bring out the color more.

The little figure of Andy Warhol in the upper right corner was so much fun to make! That is a cartoon figure I cut from a magazine. I made a packing tape transfer from it and I love how it turned out. It's transparent but the colors on the figure are really vibrant! The face on the left in the top frame is also a packing tape transfer. I've been doing a lot of those and they will be showing up in my future pages.

I do have to confess that once I uploaded this page into Photoshop to resize it I couldn't resist adding a few digital items. I added the polaroid frames around the two faces and the film strip stamp in the lower right. I wish I had rubber stamps of these but for now I'll use the digital stamps. Other than that, the rest is the actual journal page. I'm really having fun with the Portfolio oil pastels and the pan pastels that Teesha mentioned in her video. My fingers are constantly different shades of blues, yellows and pinks (my current faves)!

I've been experimenting with every technique I can think of in these journals. I'm glad I made so many because while one is drying I can go to another one and start a new page. Some of the techniques have worked out very nicely and some, not so well on the watercolor paper. More will be coming soon.

Dream: A Journal Page

For this page I decided to do a tryptich. I like the idea of little surprises throughout the journal. (I want to do another version of a window soon, too.) The verse says: Even amidst the chaos of life, dreams are born and begin to take flight. It's a little verse I made up to go along with the theme. Here is the page with the extra flap closed:

One thing I keep forgetting to do is date my pages. Doh! The little charm under the girl says Beautiful Dreamer. I liked the aged look of it. I ran into trouble painting her. For some reason I couldn't get the pencils to blend the way I wanted and I wasn't happy with the way it was looking. I added some titan buff paint to smooth it all out and that seemed to at least hide the problems. Here is a closeup of her face:

I had a chance to try out some new watercolors called Twinkling H2O's. Ooh, I like those. I'm not one for watercolors since I prefer bold colors but I wanted a more shimmery, transparent look here and those worked really well. I used them in her eyes and her hair. I also added the Golden's Interference Gold color for the hair. I painted right over top of the watercolor and it made a perfect shimmer!

Here's a closeup of the verse page:

Those little iridescent chips are so cool! They are by Stewart Gill. I can't quite figure out what they are made from but you can adhere them pretty well with gel medium. I have these in purple and teal and I love them. The butterflies are rub-ons, of all things. Suzi Blu used those in class and they really pop when you add them to your page. If you don't like the shiny effect you just cover with matte medium and they blend into the page even better.

I'm practicing the next lesson in Monica Zuniga's drawing class. This week we are doing noses. She makes it look so simple! I find I need lots and lots of practice with the shading. It's coming along, though. I sketched a face using what I've learned so far with the eyes and nose. Hair is still very rough, but I'm sure we'll get to that eventually. I'm putting the sketch into a digital collage and will post something soon.

Circle of Life: Journal Page

Here is another page from my goddess journal and Suzi Blu's class. I covered the girl with Clear Gesso before shading. I like the rough, gritty texture it gives.

I thought I would do a little stitching on these pages. They seemed to call for that. The verse is from an Elton John song, Circle of Life. If you click on the photo you can probably read it better. I couldn't get the theme of circles out of my head. I saw them everywhere: TV, doodles, etc. I'm doing more poetry writing now and am working on a poem about stages of life. So, the two ideas came together: circles and life...circle of life, the song, etc.

I was also able to use another of my toys: a dip pen with Dr. Ph. Martin's Gold Ink. I first heard about the dip pen from Beryl Taylor in one of her books I was going through (great for inspiration!). I made a mental note that if I ever saw one I would try it. Michael's (of all places) had one so I picked it up. It takes a little getting used to but I liked the effect. I used it on the swirls in the girl's "hair". On the opposite page I used Stickle's gold paint for those swirls.

I wanted to make her a little more abstract with the hair to give me more room to play. For the stamp I used an old metal door pull shaped like a swirl. I stamped it into a thick layer of clear gesso. After it dried I then painted over the raised areas with the ink and dip pen.

I have a ton of little fabric fat quarters that I really don't feel like making into quilts right now so I may start to incorporate more fabric in my journal pages. We'll just see where my Muse takes me. :)

Another Realm: Journal Page

While working in my Goddess Journal I've concluded that, try as I might, I probably will not draw a face for every journal page. I'm not that good at it and I want to try other techniques, but the pages will still tie in to the overall theme.

This two-page spread was an experiment in two things: 1) working in a different color scheme (for me) and 2) using windows on a page. First, I love this window technique. I learned about this one in a wonderful workshop I'm taking on altered books. The teacher is Monica Zuniga and she's absolutely amazing. You can find her website at http://handsandheart.ning.com/ . I'm enrolled in a portrait drawing class that will be starting Aug. 20. Check out her beautiful site. This altered book workshop is free and you can see all of her cool techniques she shows in her gorgeous books!

Here is a closeup of the two pages individually:


The verse is from a poem I'm writing. It's not finished yet but this is my favorite verse so far. I'm trying to keep with the idea of including some form of poetry in each spread. After adjusting the size of the verse in Photoshop, I printed it out onto matte brochure paper and then inked around the edges. It is adhered to an envelope I made, painted and inked up. Then I stitched it with embroidery thread onto the dyed cheesecloth underneath. The little verse fits perfectly inside the envelope.

I like the aged look of the pages; that the black paint rubbed around the edges makes the page look and feel like old, worn leather. The page with the eye reminds me of an ancient page that has burn marks around the edges. Monica's technique is super easy. For the "eye" windows I used 6 pages from an old book on oil painting (how appropriate!) that I got from the library in their discard box. When I finished with the technique I glued all six pages together and then adhered them to the Moleskine page. I used the criss-cross staples for more texture and then repeated that motif in the stitches on the envelope.

I've been surprised at the feedback on this spread from some of my friends and other galleries I've posted it in. Hubby said it was creepy and made him nervous. (He says that about a lot of my "dark" art; although I didn't think this was dark!) In one of my galleries two people said pretty much the same thing. One was from a man (said it gave him the heeby jeebies -- I would expect as much) and in another comment the lady said it creeped her out. Hmmm. I find it interesting, though, to hear that. I didn't intend for it to be creepy or to make anyone nervous. In looking at it again I guess it could be because of the dark colors, the oranges, reds, etc. Maybe reminds people of Halloween. Oh well, it's a good thing I create for me and not other people. ;)

I don't use a whole lot of reds and oranges in my art but I am trying to branch out and use other colors besides my faves of blues, violets and pinks. The fun thing about trying some of these new techniques is I never know where it will take me once I start! Hope this doesn't creep you out!

Cherish: Art Journal Page

I've been in the mood to work more in my art journal(s) lately. This is another page from my Goddess journal. I wanted to incorporate the word Cherish in this two-page spread. I listed three of the most important things that I cherish: the precious people in my life, magic moments I've experienced; and, finally, my sacred self.

My 70-year-old dad recently had a motorcycle accident. His bike was totaled but miraculously he escaped with no broken bones or internal injuries. He is severely bruised, though, over his entire body and is very sore. He came to visit last weekend and it was heartbreaking to see the bruising all over his arms and legs.

After he left I thought about the different aspects of my life that I do cherish and how I need to make more of an effort to acknowledge those people, places or things that mean the most to me. So I made this page to remind myself to do just that. Once again, I played with the lettering in Photoshop before actually inking the words onto the page.

It's been very relaxing and insightful to work on these two pages. I have fun playing with the inks, paints, techniques and embellishments. It's like an exercise in meditation; just keeping mindful of what I'm trying to convey on the page.

On another note, I thought I'd post a photo of the "before" portrait on wood that I'll be working on over the next couple of weeks. It will take awhile before it's finished and I'll be working on journal pages, new projects, etc. in between time.

Speaking of new projects, I'm learning to make and bind my own handmade "dream book" journal. I'll show you a few steps along the way for that, as well. I still have to pick out the fabric for the cover. I can't seem to decide on the right one! Anyway, here's what's on the agenda for this week:

It didn't photograph so well. For some reason there is a shadow going across the front that is NOT on the board! This is just a page torn from the sketchbook and adhered to a 6" x 12" plywood panel. The only thing I've done to it is cover it in Clear Gesso to give it that great, gritty texture. Yes, I ripped it adhering it to the wood. No worries. This will never show once all of the media get applied. I think I've written the perfect verse to go with the mood I want to bring to this piece. Now if I can bring it all to fruition, I'll have succeeded!

Sweetness: A Mixed Media Journal Page

This is the first double-page spread in my Goddess and Poet Moleskine journal. The idea is to shabbify (is that a word?) the background with layers of mixed media while still enhancing your goddess. Then you write a little poetry to accompany the mood of the piece.

I started out with a color palette of lime and raspberry, taken from the rub-on on the goddess' neck. Then it varied between pinks and greens and golds. I ended up having to paint her hair with Dr. Ph. Martin's Bombay White India Ink (love that stuff!). It started out a pale lime green which was cool at first but then it blended too much into the background. Then I added heavy layers of Clear Gesso to give a lot of texture to the hair (and the background, too, while I was at it). Next I tried painting the hair with Silver Lumiere paint and a fine brush. I didn't like that so I just painted over it all with the India Ink. I did like this. Ooh, I have a whole set of these inks... must do more painting with these!

Next, I wanted her eyes to be luminescent. I used Golden's Fluid Acrylics in the color Interference Violet. I am sold on the Interference colors by Golden; I'm getting them all. This photo below was taken at an angle to try and capture the iridescence of her eyes and the texture in the two pages from the Clear Gesso. You can click on the photo to get a better view of these effects:

So I'm playing in Photoshop to figure out where to place the poetry on the page. When I decide on a final verse I'll write that in with something, either a gel pen or one of the inks. I WISH I knew how to do Calligraphy! I have a how-to book and a beginner's set but have never really sat down with it and applied myself.

This workshop of Suzi Blu's is so much fun! All of the experimentation with the layers and layers and more layers of paint, papers, inks, ribbons, etc. really motivates me to start more pages and drawings and expand the journal even further. So I'll be working on these for awhile. I won't post all of them all of the time but wanted to give you a peek at the journal work from the class. Today's lesson, when posted, will cover working on the graphite drawing that we adhered to a birch plywood base. I'm really looking forward to this one. I want to start working more with wood. I talked hubby into buying a 36" x 36" piece of birch plywood and he's been cutting it up into 6" x 12", 9"x 12" and 12" x 12" pieces for all of the art I've yet to make. ;)

Now I've really got to get serious about the faux encaustic workshop canvasses I've started. The process looks so cool! I haven't forgotten about it... just been giving all of my time to these little goddesses! I hope to have something to post by the weekend.

Wisdom

These are companion pieces to the one I posted earlier today. Had to add some words...