Journal progress

I am realizing that I am at the point where I am adding additional layers to pages and sorting out how to share them is proving difficult. I’m just not sure how interesting the tiny incremental stages of each page might be. So like the Scribble page from the other day. It began like so:

And then after watching a few more lessons it morphed a bit into:

And finally, getting out a little anger and frustration, it became:

I kinda feel like I want to add the lesson 19 (One [BIG] Word) but there are still NINE lessons unwatched and every time I work on a page I worry that there is something in one of those lessons that would suit the pages better! Is that FOMO (Fear of Missing Out?) Not sure. But looking at the last ones there might be some real gems in there. And that still leaves me THREE lessons to do with finishing up – all in the Putting it all Together category plus a Cover one that I think I saw in the prepping section which will need revisiting!

Yeesh. Maybe it is best to group the techniques? I did this one-side page with scribbles/circles too, so where does that fall? With Scribbles? With Circles? Argh!

Why am I letting this stress me out so much? I think partially because I seem to be nearing my 3gb of free storage on my blog. I should maybe get rid of some old stuff but I really hate to lose the history, IYKWIM. I do regret loading massive images in the beginning – I mean some photos did not need to be over 1mb, did they?

Oh well. Maybe I’ll start the process and see how much space I can claw back…

WOYWW 682 – tiny journal….on my desk…

Happy WOYWW, as I sing along to the tune of Tiny Bubbles! We will be looking all around my room and MOST of the surfaces are clean or have real work in progress. My main desk has bits for the Journal Petite class, including cut-up paper towel roll tubes (lesson 8 Cardboard Roll Stamps), rolls of washi tape (lesson 5 Bindings, Flaps and Tabs), a handmade circle stencil (lessons 12 & 13 Play with Circles and Embellished Circles) a hand carved stamp from a eraser (lesson 15 Stamped Surfaces)and some clear plastic, transparency sheets and a plastic bag (lesson 16 Plastic Bag Printing)!

Blimey! And for all that, it looks pretty neat LOL!

As does my side table – let’s see if I can find a comparison shot from last week…Well I did but it’s a pretty neat shot. Believe me it looked a LOT worse then you see here for most of the week, I promise!

Even my desk-by-the-window is mighty tidy.

Making room for more paint-y mess soon, as I scored a handful paints I have wanted for a while, Quinacridone Violet, Gold, Magenta and Red and Nickle Azo Yellow. Yum. Best of all they are profession quality AND both reduced in price with an additional 25% off. I may mix up a few small bottles of a more fluid mix, as they are quite thick straight from the tube.

Doing a happy dance. I have plans for them for sure. And because I finished my blanket, I also have a kinda pattern that I MAY begin at some point, lounging around on my printer:

Phew. That’s plenty. Hopefully I’ll be off for my hop early this week – we MIGHT be seeing a plumber at some point so really need to make sure I’m ahead of the game. They are like an elusive and rare, shy bird. If he says he’ll come, I drop everything. Good thing (knock wood) nothing is actually leaking at this point LOL!

Happiest of WOYWW days to all.

Adding inserts for my Journal Petite

Clearly I have circles on the brain LOL! Since I had the dies out, I cut some BIG circles to use as inserts to my Journal Petite. I had one that was a pretty perfect size

And yay! Using washi tape, to reduce my old stash. There are so many interesting new ones out but I can’t really buy more till I use up some of what I have!!

I used both a full circle folded in half to make an insert AND a slightly smaller circle cut off the center to make a single flip page. I opted to insert these in places where I had collage on one side and something different on the other, or at least where the two side-by-side pages were not … cohesive.

And now, with all the pages prepped, I can begin to work thru some of the other layering classes.

Should I begin with one of the CIRCLES ones? DOH!

Cannot believe it is WOYWW again tomorrow. Where does the time go!

Busy weekend. Firstly, one more update on the curtain

I keep doing this. Sorry. I did finish my deli-paper filled curtain for all three windows. I did add a little something, as I mentioned I was planning in one of my WOYWW comments, and a couple people said they were looking forward to seeing it finished so…

The thing I added was a bit of stamping in some of the circles. I used some of my Dina Wakley stamps including the little guys that I love so much.

To be fair some of my choices were more successful than others. In the cases where there was black paint, the stamping was pretty obscured.

As the circle had already been stuck in place I was limited as to where the stamping would fall. Otherwise I would have rotated the circle so the faces were in the area with no black paint. Ah well, live and learn. I just have a few of the images dotted around but I do like them. Every time I spy one, I smile.

Pretty dark and dismal when I took the photos above and I am struggling to show that they still let in a lot of light, because of where the windows are! No matter. I just love it. But I am done now. No more to share on this one.

I have been working on my Journal Petite a fair bit, so there will be more to share on that. After a certain point, the lessons move to things that are better, perhaps, as further layers. My focus has been to get a base down on every page and not will hope to move to topping those plainer pages with more layers. Well, after I go back to the inserts part. More circles! LOL!

I have no voice and I must scream.

With apologies to Harlan Ellison.

An out of the usual Sunday post, but still Art Journaling, as I process things.

Today, the Court discards … balance. It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs. (from the dissent by the only three sane members of the court.)

…because no one told the conservative right and Scrotus that The Handmaid’s Tale was never meant to be aspirational.

Two interesting (unknown to me) Art Journal techniques

Lesson 4 is Large Free Writing. I had no idea what that would be. I was surprised that I LOVE it. The idea is you basically write, with a paintbrush, a pen, a thick or thin marker, all over the page, with very large handwriting,and layer over and over till the whole page is full. Wow. It actually looks great (well to my eyes) either just as layers or layered over a plain painted background. And different sorts of pens or brushes give a totally different look!

The left is one where I layered a bunch of highlighters and a few pens on a plain page. The right is thick paint and chalk markers over an already painted page!

And I had to keep adding layers…

My problem was that words simply were not coming to me. But I had some book pages I had torn out for the collage lesson so I just kinda plucked words and phrases and sentences out from that and wrote them!

I think this is perhaps best as a second layer, at least. I like the writing over the painted background, but maybe slightly less so AS a background?

The second technique today is Lesson 6 Scribbles! That and the large writing seem slightly linked so I’ll save Lesson 5 for next week.More on that in a bit.

The scribbles is pretty much what it says, scribbling. It can be like the large writing, so it is layered over and over to create complexity.

That is stages of the same page. I think this sort of thing maybe takes practice to get it just right, but it is unique for sure!

Lesson 5 is Bindings, Flaps and Tabs – I’d like to think on that and try to come up with something unique. If I delay posting about it till Monday, it gives me the whole weekend to try to come up with something. I have an idea or two but will it be unique? Time will tell…

Oh that thin, thin paper again!

I was warned, yes, of course, and I really TRIED to take not and use very little water but…

It isn’t just that the paper is so thin it buckles, but even the lightest touch seems to make the paper pill and almost dissolve.

Pilling

Don’t get me wrong, I do really like the last one, for example, all misty and sea-foam-y, but it’s challenging to get full sheer cover without having to use too much water. I did have an idea, to use watercolour for mark-making, to kinda combine two lessons in one. I liked that pretty well, a totally different feel t the mark-making with acrylic.

Now, to be fair I didn’t layer the marks in quite the same way but with acrylic, you can start dark and layer light over it and it’s fine. With watercolour, you really need to move from light to dark and try not to obliterate the light by the end! Or leave enough of the white background that you can add a layer of light later and still have it show. Here is another more layered page that I really like:

I am getting to the point I will have filled every page with an initial layer. Not sure how I should have proceeded thru the lessons, maybe watched them all and grouped them in a way I found helpful, rather than just going in order. Whatever. The next post I’ll combine two lessons, neither I’ve ever seen before but I really like both. I may watch a few over the weekend, although I think I did book in to a couple of taster weekends/weeks so not sure hoe to best allocate my time…hope you will bear with me while is figure it out.

WOYWW 681

Happy Wednesday to all! My desk is again a bit all over the place. I am working thru the Journal Petite class still and enjoying the process. I am also working on a second deli-paper curtain for the other of my three-window bay. One desk has had the black die cut circles from last week moved to it and the process begun of filling the circles with deli paper gel prints.

The other (main) desk is chaotic.

But what is all that? Well the B&W images are from the insides of tattoo care boxes, a gift from my knitting mate. The colourful pile is all the small scraps from the deli paper on the first desk, the stuff that is too small to fill a circle.

They made a lovely two-page spread in the journal and I once again opted for glue stick, which worked a treat.

Truly, this paper I made ages ago is the gift that keeps on giving! I have used it in so many ways, it feels like I will never run out LOL!

Tomorrow, watercolour – which is kinda back to the Prep this Journal lesson, although I only did the acrylic part initially. I may fill in a few pages and see how I like it.

Happy WOYWW, you lot. Hoping to see some of you at the crop!

Thin paper sucks for an art journal…

Still moving thru the lessons with the Journal Petite. The instructor does say that the thin paper is part of the challenge, but crikey! Look how badly the page back buckled when I used a thin coat of matte gel medium to stick it down!

I decided to do another page using glue stick instead. Worked MUCH better! The back (in the photo on the right) is pretty smooth. I’ll def. do that in future.

I found this fun scrap of the holes from a watercolour paper pad and added it on a whim – love it. Done.

I am trying to keep to one lesson each day but some, like collage, feels like it needs longer, and in this case, where the wet matte medium vs the “dry” glue stick is very different. So this lesson took a little longer than a single day – and there will be more tomorrow as well, sorry. But I will maybe double up on two of the very interesting and new to me lessons later in the week to make up for it!

I am really enjoying the play – worth every penny of the … £8? Maybe it was £10. Whatever, worth it.

That damn blanket – finished!!

I did say I would not share it till it was done and it was. I had my Drs. appointments , so arranged a trip to Franklin’s in Salisbury on Thursday (well, The Hubster went for me) and they were super helpful. When he arrived looking, a bit lost I’m sure, they took from him the ziplock bag that had a skein of ugly neon orange yarn I bought thinking it would work and it did NOT and the ball band for the lime green I came up TWO PUFFS SHORT of, and matched it then did a simple exchange, even without the receipt. Gotta love real life good customer service.

Then, right before the hottest day of the year (29 C/ 84 F ) I cranked out those puffs, completed the row and filled in the gap. In the cool of the evening I joined up the bits and…

Here is a detail of one of the diamonds that make up the star pattern:

Still not sure where it will be going. I think I just want to look at it for a bit, as I really really like it a lot but am in NO WAY tempted to make another.

I was also working on another couple of small knitted projects, gifts for my grand-niece and nephew, and they might have mad it into the mail by the time this post publishes. One is a super cute freebie dragon and the other is a cranked unicorn rag doll. Bother were fun, turned out super cute, and I hope will be happily received. Not the best photos but I struggle to get the most interesting bits in one shot LOL!

Still working thru the lessons of Journal Petite and will maybe catch up on the couple I have done over the weekend in my post tomorrow. One of them is possibly my favourite one….

😀