It's been a while...

...since I did anything with my art journal.  Actually it's been a while since I made a blog post!  Work has been a bit manic and I have been too tired to do much of anything.  Last weekend I found this amazing free course by the wonderful Tam over on the Willowing ning network, so this is what I have been doing

I am finding the class very cathartic and healing so far.  Maybe that's because I am in the right place for it right now, or maybe it's because it is just a very good class.

Anyway, I like her.  She is meant to represent me, but I still like her anyway, lol.  (what is wrong with Mr Blogger today? It has taken me forever to upload this pic!)

On Saturday I am off to play making Christmas cards with the fearless leader of the WOYWWers,  Julia which is going to be so much fun!  I'm not really a card maker so I am hoping to pick up lots of tips and tricks and have a great time.  I will report back on Sunday!

Happy Friday for tomorrow everyone.

A Bit of Background

This week I have been poorly sick.  Started off on Monday with a bit of a throat lurgey thingy, but I had an urgent tender to get out (yes, another one! if one of them doesn't turn around after all the hard work I have put in I will scream!) so went in to work.  Tuesday I was feeling even worse, but the tender still had work to be done on it, so I struggled in again and got sent home at lunchtime. I just crawled in to my bed and stayed there until Wednesday morning when I struggled in to work again and so on.  Have spent most of the week just working and sleeping (with a bit of coughing and sniffing in between).  Today I finally felt almost human again, so I had a play splurging around some inks and sparkly spray and dragging and dipping tags into it.  

I had so much fun with those I decided to carry on with the same technique and make backgrounds for some of the stamp book pages I still have to complete.  I also used some brilliance inks sprayed with plain water as they have enough sparkle of their own.  You can't really see the depth of colour becuase the sparkle has picked up on the flash, but I just kept dipping and drying until I had the depth and layering I wanted.

I still had some ink left on my craft sheet so I dragged some of my art journal pages through it.  Not so much depth of colour on these, but  these pages already had some old text pages stuck in and gessoed, so there are layers there already.  

I used up the last of the sparkly spray (water and cosmic shimmer powder) to spritz over a couple of other prepared art journal pages just to give them a bit of sparkle.  Not much to show for a whole week is it?!!  Actually, I have finally got around to completing my week 3 of 52 in 10, but it is very personal.  I realised what was giving me so much trouble and why I was avoiding doing it, so I did it, but it isn't for sharing, not in public anyway.  I have shown it to my DDs, but they are the only people who will see it, for now anyway.  

Oh, I have finished (at least I think I have, for now) with my first ever proper page in my first ever proper art journal.  It is a Moleskine sketch book now no longer all beautiful and blank.  I have lots of prepared backgrounds and now, one complete double page... ta da

 

52 in 10 Week 4

I know, I know, it's week 5 already, but I only finished week 4 last night.  The prompt was what songs of pieces of music move you and why.  I started to collage album covers and images from my favorite artists and ran out of space, even over two A4 pages! LOL

 

 I added in a few scraps of sheet music to the collaged images and used my new Stampotique music tag stamp as a base for the CDs.  I journaled onto a couple of old software CDs and stuck those on to the page then used my Dymo to add the names of some more artists that I like.  I journaled a few of the most profound pieces of music, but there are so many more!  Like the journaling says: I don't have a theme tune, I have a sound track.... one that spreads over several boxed sets!  I keep thinking of more tracks and more artists and punching out their names on the Dymo, so this may not be entirely finished for some time!

 

Very Busy Week

This week has been rather hectic with the result that I have been left with very little time (or energy).  I had an emergency site meeting in Yeovil, my six-monthly oncology follow-up (all clear thankfully, still waiting for the mammogram results though), had to pull a 12 hour day to catch up on urgent stuff at work.... phew!

All I have managed to do creatively is start preparing some backgrounds for an online art journaling course I am taking.  I had been playing around with the idea for a while, and enjoyed the Soul Journaling stuff, so decided to just go for it.  I signed up for Visual Journalism 101 with Pam Carricker details here.  So far I have only managed to watch the video and read the download for week 1 and start my backgrounds.  I have managed to slap a layer of paint on, then leave it to dry, then do another layer the next day.  This first pic shows one with 3 layers of paint so far.

This one is a bit further along with some "imperfect" stamping (a very good technique for me as I find perfect stamping a bit of a challenge!) and some textures added.  There is some clear gesso stamping you can't see which is going to be used as a resist once it dries thoroughly, then I get to add some "fly poo" ROFL.  I used a Paperartsy mini text stamp for this one, and I have done another one with the same colours but using a music stamp for variety.

 
I haven't completed my 52 in 10 prompt 3 this week.  The prompt was to think about what advice you would give your younger self.  I know what I want to say, but I'm not sure how to say it, so I'm procrastinating.  I've decided I am going to move on to prompt 4 which is up today and come back to prompt 3.  I am preparing one of these background for it though once I am ready to journal my thoughts.

I'm also waiting to see what Document 2010 is all about.  The first prompt goes live tomorrow, when I will be on route to Birmingham for a two day visit to a furniture trade show, so I won't get to find out properly until Tuesday night!  Looks like another busy week ahead :(

 

WOYWW

and what is on my desk is..... a mess!  I have cropped out the worse bits and left in my half done journal page, a piece of cut 'n' dry foam, a tin of varnish, some wooden flowers and butterflies from some hangy thing I have been gradually dismantling, a pritt stick, more cut 'n' dry foam, an acrylic block, pliers, gold metallic pen and a green sharpie.  Those are the identifiable bits anyway.

It snowed.  Again.  Got half way to the office and couldn't get any further so am now at home.  Got a project at work that is going critical and a tender to get finished so I'm really POed about not making it in.  Flippin snow, stupid trains!  Ah well, at least I got to post my WOYWW.

A Huge Thank You

to all the lovely people who made such supportive comments on my last post.  I really do appreciate your kind thoughts and words and it has made me feel all soppy and mushy.  Thank you sincerely, I am truly touched.
I have been meaning to get into this art journal lark for a while now, and finally decided to actually do something about it.  I followed various links and trails and discovered Sarah Whitmire's Soul Journaling prompts here which have the advantage of being free so I thought I would give them a try before taking the plunge and paying for an online course.  I have now built my "soul armor" and here it is:

I seem to have made it more of a soul barrier with a bit of armor hiding behind it, but I guess that says a lot about me.                                                                                                  I'm not sure how much further I will go with Soul Journaling as I feel I want to explore a different direction from the one that the prompts are taking me.  I have enjoyed making this page though, and I am feeling like taking a paid course could be worth it.  First I have to read through the digi version of the first Somerset Studio Art Journaling magazine and see where I end up after that.

I've also done this weeks prompt for Scrapdolly's 52 in 10 project, so after a week of doing nothing very much creative I seem to have got my mojo back, YAY!!!

The prompt was to list your resolutions for this year.  This year I am trying the One Little Word concept and my word is TIME, so this paper fit perfectly.  It's a Tim Holtz paper, apparently, but I have no idea where or how I got it! The challenge was to add some stitching.... no way! So I cheated and used ribbon with stitching already on it for the tag, and stamped some faux stitching underneath the opening for the tag pocket.  The reason for the introduction of the shades of orange was, I was merrily working away in green and ecru when I discovered I didn't have any green dymo tape, or even any black!  Bummer! So I settled on orange and incorporated an orange flower and edged the tag with some spiced marmalade distress ink.