Still Learning!

I thought I would share the next few pages of the Journal Soup class by Kate Crane that I am taking part in on 21 Secrets. Ooh there is so much to learn!  I’m loving it.  Playing with glue, paper, paint and crayons is making me feel like I a child again back at school creating art ‘just because’.

I have already made a few decisions about the mediums I prefer, the style I like and the things I shall be avoiding. Drawing is definitely on the ‘avoiding’ list!  I loved creating the background on the angel image and then it all went wrong when I started to draw the angel. I stuck with it  though and decided to journal about how drawing is not for me. I’ll keep the piece in my soup box as a reminder that I should avoiding free-hand drawing. If you look close enough you will see that I tried to paint over the terrible eyes and nose I drew on the face but as the paint dried it became visible!  Oh well, just another reminder of how not to do it . .lol

The piece in the bottom right corner was fun to do too. It involved using lots of different techniques including making my own stamps (Im in love with Speedy Carve Foam) I didn’t use a quote or journal on this piece, instead just keeping it as a visual reminder of the techniques Kate used in the class.

My box is starting to look very colourful!  I’ll keep at it until the box is overflowing. Did I mention already that I’m loving this art journaling business ? 

Thanks for stopping by
Dee
x

Self Expression

I’ve been playing about in my art journal. I love the fact that I can sit quietly (or not so quietly if I fancy the music on) and just play with paints, pencils, crayons and whatever else I fancy and really lose myself. My mood has been a bit low of late, blame it on the weather or hormones or both so I have not been the most chatty person to be around but sitting with my art journal has been great therapy for me. I feel calm and peaceful just playing away.
For this page I started out with the image which is from Crow About Studios. She’s funky and I love her orange hair.  I took colour inspiration from the orange, red and yellow in the image and I also tried the image transfer technique using gel medium. It’s the first time I’ve done that and I really like how it turned out.


Thanks for stopping by!
Dee

The beginning of a new journey . . . .

. . . .   and it all starts right here.

I haven’t blogged in months. Why ?  I’ve had nothing to write about. Nothing worth sharing.

Thats all about to change as I set out on a new journey, taking my first steps on a new path.  Art Journaling. I’ve tried it once before as I was always inspired by the projects I saw but for one reason or another I could never really get the hang of it. At a recent retreat my dear friend Suzy showed me some tips and techniques that she has picked up. She started her journey a few months back and has really embraced it.  She also made me this:

I was tearful and so very touched when she gave me this, it means a lot to me especially at a time when I was feeling so very down after the sudden loss of one of my precious cats, Lola. Pink is my favourite colour and Lola was a white cat. It’s precious isn’t it ?

I mentioned to Suzy that I would like to have another go a doing an art journal and she immediately produced an empty journal and some paints and said ‘there you go, get started’.

This is the page I did at the retreat:

So when I got home I immediately set about looking up art journaling blogs, You Tube videos etc, I have definitely caught the bug!

From Kate Crane’s blog The Kathryn Wheel I found 21 Secrets. Just what I need right now. Heaps of classes, teachers with different styles and loads of inspiration. So I signed up and jumped straight in. The classes are self-paced and you can do them in any order you choose so Im starting off with Kate Cranes class, Journal Soup.

These are my first 2 pages from the class.

The idea of the loose leaf pages is to store them all in a box (which Im in the process of making and decorating) with each page using a different technique and / or style. Im loving the fact that there are so many different style to use and there is no wrong or right to this, it just ‘is’, its what you want to do, how you want to do it.

Page 3 is in progress . . . . .  my journey has begun!