Author Archives: ajsartjournal

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About ajsartjournal

This blog is to share my adventures in art journaling. It's a journey of discovery and you are more than welcome to join me. A little bit about me … I’m English and live on the Isle of Wight which is off the south coast of England. I am retired and I’m married to the love of my life. We have been together as a couple since 1970 but only got married in 2007. before that we were just getting to know each other 🙂 We have had an amazing life together, travelled to distant parts of the world and lived life to the full. Sometimes when we look back at our life together we say “Wow! did we really do all that stuff?!” My husband has been very unwell for the past 10 years and I am his full time unpaid carer now. When he was younger he worked as an advocate supporting people who were detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act. He was also a musician and DJ. He is still interested in music and on good days our house is still filled with music. Me, I’m much more of a visual person, I love photography and images and now, of course, I love art journalling and being creative. We never had children, but we are now the proud parents to two beautiful cats called Bill & Jack (after Bill Burroughs and Jack Kerouac). They are getting old now and need more care and attention. Want to know anything else? Just ask 🙂 Big love AJ

Big Mouth :-)

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Big MouthHello friends!

Sorry I went AWOL last weekend, well I didn’t really go missing, just ran out of time!  Nothing new there then!

I’ve got some exciting news though.

I spend a bit (lot) of time searching for inspiration and uplifting ideas on the web and one of the sites I have frequently visited to find excellent quotes and motivation is “Tiny Buddha – Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives”.  So I was surprised and delighted when Lori from that site contacted me about using some of my images, of course I said Yes!  You can find them under the Fun and Inspiring section.  It’s strange I get a lot of inspiration from other people but it never occurred to me that my art might be inspiring to others. Thank you Lori and thank you universe.  Being included Tiny Buddha has made me very happy.

Today I had a meeting with a friend who runs a hostel for young homeless people in the town and I’ve agreed to run 4 short workshops with them making ‘matchbox momentos’.  Of course I really don’t have time to take this on, but I’ll just have to squeeze it into my busy schedule some how!  It’s going to be good. 🙂

Today was my last day at work until next Tuesday, that makes me happy too.   I finally got up to date and cleared my inbox before I left this evening and everything was in order, that’s a really good feeling as sometimes it feels like I’ll never catch up.

For the next two days I will be working with my friends to set everything up for our Open Days in the cemetery on Saturday and Sunday.  We will have exhibitions and lots of interesting historical stuff on display, I will be leading guided tours and taking part in a ‘Character Walk’ where I will dress up and tell the story of someone from the past.  There is lots to do I just hope the sun shines and we get lots of visitors.

The page above is the back cover of my third Teesha Moore inspired journal.  I found the Big Lips and the banana that I wanted to use and the rest of the page just came together.  I decided that my quote should be about the big mouth so it says “If you did not see it with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears, don’t invent it with your small mind and share it with your Big Mouth”.  It’s not exactly a positive quote but true nevertheless.

Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Breath and Relax!

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Green MandalaHello friends!

OK it’s official it’s time I sorted out my art room AGAIN.  I’ve just spent two days looking for a journal I’ve been working in.  Well not two whole days because I’m out at work most of the time.  But I’d get up in the morning and look for it, come home from work and look for it, move piles of stuff around and look for it, and it couldn’t be found anywhere.  It was driving me NUTS.  I knew it was here (somewhere) and I also knew that if I was tidier I would stand more chance of knowing where things are.  Of course, once I stopped looking  I found it and just by  moving something on my desk and there it was!

So it’s on my To Do list now – Sort out Room.  Every now and again I have a go at it and if I make a concerted effort I do make some progress, but it is so difficult to stay focused on tidying up when I find so many interesting things.  You see I collect things, things I really don’t need, but things that ‘might come in useful’.  My room is full of ‘stuff’ – art stuff, local history stuff, and general life stuff.  To me it’s all fascinating and interesting and I have plans for using it in the future, but I will admit it would be better if there was some kind of order to it.  My obsessively tidy husband hates having to come into my room, he just can’t cope with the disorder and chaos!

I either need therapy or an assistant, I’m not sure which.

Today’s image is a mandala from my Circles of Wisdom book, I hope you like it 🙂

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

Ignite your Fire

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Ignite your fireHello friends!

I hope everything is bright in your area of the world, here all is good.

The page above is from my third Teesha inspired journal.  I really LOVE this style of journaling.  The words on the page are a quote by Osho “Your life spark fires from within your inntermost temple, no-one can reach there but you.  It is your inner sacred sanctum, you are your own master there, only you can reach and ignite your fire”.  So, go on, Ignite Your Fire 🙂

This is a short post because a mountain of ironing is calling to me and has to be done before I go to bed tonight.

Take care everyone and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

The Seasons

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SeasonsHello friends!

Hope all is good with you.  My email has been sorted out now (I think) and I’ve been trying to catch up.

Monday was a bank holiday and the hottest day of the year so far.  I spent most of the day in the garden, first helping T to refix the fence to the new posts and then tidying up the garden.  It looks quite respectable now and (for the time being at least), doesn’t give the impression of a ramshackle entrance to our house.  I definitely felt better for spending most of the day outside.

I’ve been decorating my new office at work (called ‘the box’ by my colleagues because it is so small) with some prints of my art.  I am expecting a fair bit of mickey taking about this as I don’t think many of the people I work with will get my art.  But I will feel happier when I have bright colours and positive words to look at instead of plain walls.  The photocopier is still in my office and the senior manager came in to use it today.  I wondered what he would say about all the strange pictures on the wall, but he liked them and one in particular which he came back a few times to look at and to try and memorise the quote.  I think I will give him a smaller copy of it.

The page above is from my 6×6 inch Wisdom Circles book, I miscalculated the spacing and had to squeeze in the last word.  It’s supposed to say “To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring”.

That’s all for now, see you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

Humanity

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HumanityHello friends!

I hope you are all well and, if you are in the UK, enjoying the spring weather.  Today especially has been glorious – sunny and warm.

I was supposed to be helping T put in the new concrete gate posts to replace the wooden ones that rotted away at the bottom.  He finally managed to drill out all the old concrete with the pneumatic drill borrowed from a friend and today was the day to put the posts in.  Unfortunately I woke up with a blinding headache and didn’t get out of bed until about mid-day.  By that time he had completed the job on his own.  What a star!

Gradually my headache wore off and as I felt better and it was a nice day I took Mum and Dad out for a drive and a short walk along the beach at Bembridge.  I think it wore them both out even though we didn’t walk very far, but then Mum is 80 and Dad will be 91 in a couple of weeks time.  However I also know they appreciated being taken out for a couple of hours.

I have been receiving lots of lovely feedback from my workshop last week and requests to do more.  I will do more, but I need to pace myself, because I work full time, have commitments at home, have commitments to Ryde Social Heritage Group and I want to have time for my own creativity.  So it’s not something I’m going to rush in to.

I am having major problems with my email at the moment.  My ISP introduced some ‘improvements’ to the mail service recently and ever since then my email has been messed up.  I was receiving some emails but not all of them.  Yesterday I had a long, and sometimes difficult conversation with a support technician.  I think he may have been in India, at least he had an Indian accent.   He spoke very good English, but his voice kept fading in and out and he had to repeat himself lots of times before I understood his instructions.  I thought he had sorted it out, as I received 150 emails while he was talking to me, but today I’m still having problems.  I am pretty sure I should have received more than one email today and I haven’t been able to send any!   I know I just have to make another call to fix it, but today I’ve either been too ill or too busy.  Maybe tomorrow…

The page above is another page from my third Teesha Moore inspired journal.  It’s a little dark, but I do like the images I used.

Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

AJ the Mermaid Clown!

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AJ the Mermaid ClownHello friends!

It’s been a while since I posted on my blog, my only excuse is that if I thought I was busy before the last couple of weeks have been mental!

The Mermaid Circus online workshop with Teesha Moore and Jane Davenport is quite sensational, but I’m struggling to keep up with it all.  In the first two weeks we were tasked with making a shaped book and filling it with mermaids and sea creatures with a circus theme.  This was a huge challenge to me because I have absolutely NO interest in Mermaids 🙂  However I have made my book and so far I have populated it with three performing mermaids and the Ring Master who is an octopus.  There are still at least 6 mermaids or sea creatures to create and the cover to do (I will leave the cover till last).

I decided to include myself in the book.  I have a photograph that I took of my face from underwater when I was snorkeling in Tobago and I was going to use that, but it didn’t work.  So I ended up painting the face based on that photo.  Of course it looks nothing like me so I decided to turn myself into a Mermaid Clown and also to give myslf long flowing red hair!

I’m a bit stuck with the shaped book now because the next challenge is to draw a face, copy it and collage it into the next piece.  I’m not very good at drawing so I’ve been doing lots of practice.  I think I’m improving, here is my first attempt and a later one.

first attemptGirl with roses in her hair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think it’s going to take a bit more practice before I’m really ready to use a face I’ve drawn in my book though. So far I have had about 12 attempts so I reckon if I do another 88 and I might be there 🙂

On top of the Mermaid Circus I also did my very first Art Journaling workshop last Saturday, and it went REALLY well I had a great day with an amazing group of people.  I did loads and loads of preparation and that really paid off. We created journal pages in the style of Teesha Moore – collage and penwork – and everyone completed one page, a couple of people managed two!.  All the pages will be temporarily bound into a book that will go on display during Ryde Arts Festival 27 June – 7 July.  After the festival all the participants will get their art work back and I am also hoping to turn it into an e-book which I will post on my blog.  I was so impressed with the work everyone did.  We had a lot of fun.  Here is a picture of the group hard at work  on the collage elements:

Art Journaling workshop

 

I am hoping to do another workshop with a group of my friends very soon to create something a little different, and I’ve also been asked to give the same workshop as i did last Saturday to a group of young people who live in sheltered accommodation in the town, I’m going to talk to the manager about that next week.

So that’s pretty much all my news, the weather has been lovely this past week too which is an added bonus.

Now I just have to catch up with all the other stuff that I’ve been falling behind with while I’ve been concentrating on the above.

Have a good week everyone and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

Sunshine!

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07-sWe have had a whole weekend of sunshine, it makes such a difference, I hung my washing outside to dry this morning for the first time in months and I even did a bit or gardening this weekend.  When I say gardening that’s not really what I mean, I am not much good with plants.  But if you have a patch of ground that needs clearing of everything, then I’m your (wo)man ;-).  I also mowed the weed patch and I am still of the opinion that we need to get rid of the grassy areas.  T is only interested in growing vegetables, fruit and flowers so the grass gets neglected and more and more weeds grow there.  Paving or something that doesn’t grow seem much appealing .

I’ve been practicing faces because I need to have a face I’ve drawn for the next stage of the Mermaid Circus.  Having drawn the face we then copy it, cut it out and collage it onto a page of our book to create another mermaid.  So far my faces are not up to much, although I can see some improvement on my first attempt.  Several artists have told me that to learn a new skill, you just have to keep doing the work.  Like maybe if you do it 100 times at the end of that you will be creating some good work.  I don’t think I have time to do 100 faces but I am trying to do one a day.  I don’t feel ready to share them just yet.

Here is another mandala from my Circles of Wisdom book.  Sometimes words are not necessary.

Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Nonsense!

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NonsenseHello friends!

I am so happy, my art journaling workshop is now fully subscribed!  So in just over a week’s time I will be sharing my love of art journaling, and especially the style of Teesha Moore, with 12 lovely ladies.  Gosh!

The Mermaid Circus online workshop is now into it’s second week and we have already been given loads of stuff to work on.  This is really taking me out of my comfort zone in so many ways, I am finding it quite a challenge, but I am also enjoying it very much.   Teesha and Jane both have a similar philosophy to encouraging people to be creative and both are very generous in sharing their knowledge.   This week’s challenge is drawing faces, something I would normally avoid doing, because that annoying little voice in my head tells me I can’t draw faces.  Well I’ll show you!

I would be enjoying the Mermaid Circus a lot more if my computer didn’t misbehave all the time. 

This evening when I got home from work T said to me “If I can’t fix your computer I’m going to buy you a new one, no-one should have to struggle like that with technology”.  He is on holiday from work this week and he logged on to my computer today to quickly (or so he thought) print something and couldn’t believe how problematic everything was. 

I did get a slight reprimand from him too, he said “You know your computer is like your art room – it’s just full of clutter and rubbish”!   I honestly thought that the maintenance software I have cleared out all the rubbish, but apparently it doesn’t.  T has cleaned up a lot of things for me and it does seem slightly better this evening, but I still think I might get a new machine for my birthday in a few weeks time.  (Fingers crossed)

The page above is another page from my third Teesha inspired journal with a wonderful quote by Dr Seuss.

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

 

Opportunity

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Opportunity Everywhere

Hello friends

It’s Sunday again already!  It’s late and I’m tired, but I didn’t want you thinking I’d lost interest in my blog, as I didn’t post anything mid week.  This will just be a quick post before I go to bed.  If there are any typos it’s because I am too tired to proof read properly.

Wow what a busy week!  On Monday the online workshop Mermaid Circus with Teesha Moore and Jane Davenport opened at 6am.  I was there at my computer ready and waiting.  I started to watch the first video and my ‘pig’ of a computer crashed!  Since then I’ve been doing loads of maintenance to keep the damn thing working and have finally managed to see all of this week’s videos.  I bought some good quality paper from the local art shop, made my shaped book and have now started to illustrate it with Mermaids.  This is a huge challenge to me as I don’t really have any interest in Mermaids, but I am kind of liking the way things are turning out.  In any case it’s always good to try things that are out of your comfort zone.

As well as giving ‘life support’ to my computer this week and making art I also had to write a report on my local history group’s activities to deliver at a meeting on Saturday morning.  It all went well and we had a good meeting with an excellent talk by Suzanne Whitewood on Girl Guiding on the Isle of Wight.  Afterwards I wanted to go and help my friends set up the display boards for our next exhibition which goes up in the local library next week, but instead I had to help T put up some wallpaper.  I thought it was a real chore, but he was so sweet when he said “I really like doing things with you it makes me feel more motivated than when I work on my own”.

Today I went ‘all the way over to the other side of the Island’ (which is only about 25 miles from here – to us Island folk that seems like a long way, I’ve no idea why that is) to meet up with my friend H and we went for a long walk up on some hills with fantastic views.  It was great and I was thankful for the opportunity to get out in the fresh air and get some much needed exercise.  I really do spend far too much time in my room and in front of this computer.

I am very tired now and off to bed soon, but I just wanted to post another page from my Circles of Wisdom book, this time with a quote by one of my favourite people ever – Mr Albert Einstein.

Have a good week and I’ll see you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

Embrace your Uniqueness

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Embrace your uniquenessHello friends!

It’s Sunday night and I am just about ready for bed, I’ve been fighting with my computer for a large part of the day and it is driving me slightly nuts.  I wanted to post this image earlier but for some reason my computer couldn’t find my scanner.  The scanner was switched on, plugged in to the computer and clearly working but the computer refused to acknowledge its existence.  Several reboots of the system didn’t sort it out, so I gave up in disgust and switched everything off.

Now a few hours later I have come back switched everything back on and it’s working fine.  I don’t understand ;-| ?

This page is another from my third Teesha Moore inspired journal.

Teesha’s and Jane Davenport’s online workshop starts tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it.  I just hope my computer doesn’t decide to finally give up the ghost before the workshop is finished.  Keep your fingers crossed for me 🙂

It’s been a busy weekend.  Yesterday we had a sunny and fairly warm day for a change.  This was fortunate as my friends and I spent the whole day from early morning until late afternoon at the Pier Head where there was a ‘Party on the Pier’ and we had our exhibition on the history of the pier on display.  We had a great day and spoke to lots of lovely people.

Today it has been sunny but colder.  I took Mum and Dad out for a drive and a walk this afternoon.

It’s late and I am tired so I’m off to bed now.

Big love

AJ 🙂