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

Grow & Blossom

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Something weird is happening to my computer this is the third time of posting this, the first two times it just disappeared!  Let’s hope it’s third time lucky!

Hello friends

I hope you are all well.  Well this weekend went by in the blink of an eye and it’s back to work tomorrow!

Still I managed to get some art done and even some housework too (that’s almost unheard of)!  I am really loving the Visionary Journaling that Teesha Moore taught at the Call of the Wild Soul Art Retreat and I am now working on the back of the pages I started in her class.  This is my favourite page so far.  My husband likes it too which is high praise from someone who hardly ever comments on my art.

Actually that is not strictly true, I recently finished three A4 size canvases painting in the way that Flora Bowley taught us (also at COTWS) and he is insisting that they are hung in our dining room.  I guess I must be getting better at this art game 🙂

Anyway apologies for the short post but I have a mountain of ironing to do before tomorrow and I also have a presentation to prepare for a talk I am giving next Friday about some of the historical people from my town.

I hope all is good with you, everything is Tickety Boo here.

Big love

AJ 🙂

(Fingers crossed the post stays in place this time)

Jump for Joy!

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Jump for Joy

Hello friends

Sorry I missed posting on Sunday because I was sick – same thing as happened to me when I was on the Art Retreat, blinding headache and sickness only this time much worse and I spent two whole days in bed!  But I am much better now and went back to work today, so it’s time to catch up 🙂

This is the second page that I started in Teesha Moore’s workshop and I finished it yesterday.  I really do like this way of journaling, it’s so different to my usual style – it’s bold, sassy and ‘in your face’.  I like doodling all over my pages, but I think I need to try some different styles, I seem to be stuck on the same few motifs at the moment 😉

I am going to link this page to Challenge 2 of Fall Fearless & Fly over at Artists in Blogland.

This time the prompts are:

Headline prompt:  Taking a Chance, Color prompt: What color do you like least? Use it! Quote prompt: Don’t refuse to go on the occasional Wild Goose chase – that’s what wild geese are for. Anonymous

Click on the link Fall Fearless & Fly for more information and the rules.

My page is all about taking chances and doing something different, I’ve used combinations of colours I wouldn’t normally use and I picked my quote because it seemed to fit with the image on the page and also it made me laugh because I misread it at first as “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily, not to dare is to lose ones elf”   Well you wouldn’t want to lose your Elf now would you?  You’d be lost without it!

Take care everyone and I’ll see you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

 

“What a long strange trip it’s been”

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Strange TripHello friends

This is another of those odd pages from my A4 Journal, produced in Tracie Hanson’s Journal Quest workshop over at 21 Secrets.  As you can see I’m really NOT a painter!  When I excavated my painted page all I found was these two odd and weird characters 😐

Do you recognise the quote?  Well you’d probably have to be of my generation and background if you did, it’s a lyric from the song Truckin’ by the Grateful Dead, from their album American Beauty.   It played a significant part in the soundtrack of my life when I was in my late teens and early 20s – and that was waaaaay back in the 1970s!

So anyway I hope life is good for all of you, I am really fine.  I am doing my new job now  and I’m still waiting to find out who to hand over my old job to.  At the moment nothing relating to my old job is getting done, but I’ve decided not to concern myself with that.  There are some good things about the new job – at the moment because I am learning I am very busy, the day passes quickly and I don’t get bored.  My new manager is very supportive and he has spoken to me more times in the last week than my previous manager spoke to me in the past 18 months.  Some people like being left alone, but I prefer to have communication with my manager.  I am happy that he is showing an interest in what I do and how I do it and I know that if I have any problems I can phone him up and ask for advice.   He and all the other people in my team all work in the same location (miles from where I am) and I thought I would feel isolated, but I have spoken to a few of them on the phone and they have all been really nice and helpful.  So I think things could work out fine.  Once I have mastered the data inputting part of the job there is another chunk of work coming my way which hopefully will be rewarding.  So I am pretty happy with things now.

That’s all for now folks see you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

 

 

Making Connections

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Call of the Wild SoulClick on the image to see it full size

Hello friends

I hope all is good with you because everthing is fine with me.

This time last week I was at the Art Retreat.  Above is a journal page that I started in Teesha Moore’s workshop.  The main reason I decided to go to the Art Retreat was because Teesha was going to be there.  In 2007 I met Tracy and Trista Moore (Teesha’s husband and daughter) at the Lomographic World Congress in London.  I had known Tracy online before I met him in person and the three of us spent a lot of time together, I loved them both from the moment I met them.  As a result of that meeting I got to hear about Art Journaling.  Tracy carried around with him lots of cameras and a huge handmade journal which he encouraged everyone he met to write or draw in.  It was fascinating, but I didn’t think it was something I could do.

Some time later I thought to myself, “I wonder what Tracy Moore is up to these days” and I ‘Googled’ his name and I found Teesha’s YouTube videos about art journaling and that’s what got me started.

It was so good to see Tracy again at the Retreat and to meet his adorable wife Teesha.  What an amazing woman!  Unfortunately I was really unwell on the day I had Teesha’s workshop, I had a really bad headache and was sick a few times during the day.  Eventually I had to leave the workshop about 2 hours before the end as I needed to go and lie down in a dark room, but while I was there, even though I was struggling with health issues, I loved what Teesha was saying to us.  She is a very beautiful vibrant woman as you will see from her art work.  AND she is generous, she brought her wonderful journals which we were allowed to handle.  When you see the images on line they are awesome – when you see them in real life you realise they are priceless pieces of art but Teesha is not precious about them and shares everything she has learnt.  I am so happy to have met her and I truly hope that we will meet again one day.

Above is one of the pages I started in Teesha’s workshop but couldn’t finish.  Before Teesha left the Art Retreat she generously gave me a bag of pens so I could complete the work and I have been working on it this week in my spare time.  I love it!  It also sums up for me what the Retreat was all about.

I am so happy to have met so many beautiful, inspiring and supportive women.  Thank you to Erin, Simon and little Poppy – you all did a great job, thanks to Teesha, Flora and Orly – you were amazing and generous teachers, and especially I’d like to thank all the wonderful Wild Soul Sistas I met there.  It was awesome!

Big love

AJ 🙂

PS I can’t post any photos of the event yet because yesterday I left my camera with all my photos on it at a friend’s house!  I’ll retrieve it next week.

Concentrate the Mind on the Present Moment

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Concentrate the Mind on the Present MomentHello friends

I am still a bit discombobulated after the fantastic weekend at the Call of the Wild Soul Art Retreat.  I am still pretty much on a ‘high’ from the wonderful experience and all the lovely people I met.

This is a spread in my new altered book journal and I am linking it to the Fall Fearless and Fly challenge.  Click the link to see the rules and to find out more about the challenge 🙂

The First Set of Prompts:  Headline Prompt:  Inventing the Future:  Where do you want to be 5, 10, 15 years from now.  What’s holding you back?  What’s propelling you forward?  What do you need to do or stop doing to create your future? Color Prompt:  Warm colors (reds, oranges, pinks, yellows) Quote Prompt:  “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”  Abraham Lincoln

Well I have used warm colours and although I didn’t use the actual quote my spread has a ‘time’ theme.  First of all I collaged images of clocks, watches and hour-glasses all over the pages; gave them a wash of watered down gesso; finger painted with brown, red, russet, orange and neon pink acrylic paints; more collage with beautiful chinese papers (given to me by  Katie Flowers, one of the new friends I met at the Art Retreat, and who travelled all the way from Hong Kong to join us); I found a great quote about time which is attributed to Buddha – printed it out on my computer in Samarkan font, tore around the words and coloured the paper with Tattered Rose Distress ink and edged with Orange Stazon ink; the image of Buddha I found on the internet and I recoloured it in photoshop (to give it a warm hue) before printing it out and adding to the page; I edged and shaded the pages with brown and red Portfolio water soluable oil pastels.  Finally I added the butterfly which was also a gift I received at the art retreat (I am really sorry I can’t remember who gave that to me).

Well that’s it from me, I hope you like it.  (If you click on the image you can see it larger and in more detail).

Big love and see you soon

AJ 🙂

 

I’m back and it’s October already!

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OctoberHello friends!

I’m back from my amazing weekend away at the Call of the Wild Soul Art Retreat.  Wow!  What an experience: being with 60 amazingly creative and lovely women, a fabulous location in Exmoor, great food and workshops with Flora Bowley, Teesha Moore and Orly Avineri.  What more could a creative Wild Soul ask for?

I need to absorb the whole experience before I write any more about it – it was awesome!

So here is my new spread for October for Kate’s Calendar Challenge and below is my completed September spread.

September complete

September was a hectic month for me with the big exhibition and 10th anniversary celebrations for Ryde Social Heritage Group earlier in the month, all the upset at work and the Art Retreat that I’ve just come home from.  I am hoping for a more restful October, but I somehow don’t think that will happen 😉

I’m off to have a bath and an early night now as I am very tired and have to go back to work tomorrow.

See you all soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

Off into the Wild!

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Weird & Wild

Hello friends

Well I am pretty much packed now and ready to leave in the morning for the Call of the Wild Soul Art Retreat.  I am sure I will think of some last minute things I’ve forgotten, but at this stage I don’t think it matters.  The important thing is to go and have a great time with lots of lovely creative people.

This is a spread from my A4 journal and I did it back in May for Traci Hanson’s Journal Quest workshop on 21 Secrets.  It’s a really fun workshop and it made me look at and do things in a completely different way.  I won’t give away Traci’s secret but it’s all about looking at a painted page and excavating what is inside.  Other people found really beautiful things inside their paintings but what I found was just weird stuff.  It did make me smile though.

Have a great rest of the week and weekend everyone and I’ll see you next week when I get back.

Big love

AJ 🙂

A quick spread!

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Live is Good Be BraveHello friends

I hope you are having a great weekend.  Yesterday we had bright sunshine and a cool breeze and today we have torrential rain and a howling wind!  I need to go out later but I have just remembered that my raincoat is in my car so I’m going to get wet running from the house to the car.  That’ll teach me!

For this spread I decided to use a colour I wouldn’t normally use and I think green is probably my least favourite colour to use in my art.  I went through my box of scrap papers and selected pieces with green on them and then just collaged them onto the pages of the journal.  The green, Tim Holtz compass was already there so I just decided to frame it.  There is no paint at all on this spread, after sticking down the paper I doodled and even did a bit of journaling (which I hardly ever do).  This is an unusual spread for me and really reflects that I am not entirely feeling myself at the moment.

Despite my best endeavours I have to admit I have been getting stressed about the work situation.  The company has decided to make changes which is fair enough, but little, if any thought, has been given as to how to implement the change.  I still don’t know who I am reporting to, what my hours are or, more importantly, who to hand over all the work I have been doing to.  Of course my colleagues who I work with locally all expect me to carry on doing the old job until it’s sorted out, but I don’t see how I can do that.  I have already started doing the new, and totally exciting, new job of data inputting.  It’s not difficult to do but I have to input the information as and when I receive it and that seems to be pretty constant.  The tension has aggravated the ongoing problem I have with my neck and I’ve had a headache for the past 4 days.

My husband has been very sympathetic and telling me that it’s not my problem and rather than getting myself stressed about it I should just hand the problem back to the people who made the decision to do away with my job in the first place.  It sounds good in principle but I’m not sure how easy that will be in practice!  Still I only have to get through Monday and Tuesday at work then I am on leave again for a few days.  On Thursday I am off to the Call of the Wild Soul Art Retreat and don’t return to work until October 2.  Hopefully it will all be sorted out by then.

I am so looking forward to the Art Retreat and I think it will do me good to be in a completely different environment, centred around art, for a few days.

I will try and post one more post on Wednesday before I go.

See you all soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

 

Sometimes Life gets Messy!

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Sometimes Life gets Messy

Hello friends!

I hope you are all having a great week, we still have sunshine here (although I think it will rain tomorrow) but it is definitely autumnal now.

I finished this spread in my 6×6 journal yesterday, it kind of reflects my state of mind.  Truth is I’ve been feeling a bit sorry for myself over the past few days.  I don’t like feeling like that because I’ve become a much more positive person since I started art journaling and I like being a happier person.  When I found out what my new job is, I was hugely disappointed, it seems the company can’t see the potential in me I had hoped they would.  I was really hoping that something good would come out of this change and I was a bit hurt to find out that what they think I am ideally suited for is data-inputting!

So I had a bit of a controlled rant at the poor girl from HR yesterday and got it out of my system.  Today I have been sorting out the task list and descriptions for the job I will no longer do so the company can decide who if anyone will take on the tasks.  I have also been inputting data in  ‘my new system’.  There are some good points to the new job, it’s still only 20 minutes drive from home, once I’ve learnt all the key strokes and idiosyncracies of the system it will be easy (so no brain stress there)  and … actually I can’t think of anything else.

Anyway I’ve decided to do the very best I can with it and maybe I can make something of it.  I’m definitely not going to be miserable about it anyway, I like me much better when I’m in a postive frame of mind.

The spread has ripped pages from old books collaged over it, and then India ink in red, green and white dropped on it and sprayed with water.  I stamped out the quote, which was really me telling myself to ‘just get over it’, onto a piece of paper, tore around the words and edged with black ink and stuck on the pages.  Finally I edged the pages with a white Portfolia water soluable oil pastel crayon.

Pretty quick and simple to do and I liked how it turned out.

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

Joie de Vivre

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Joie de Vivre

Hello friends

I hope everyone is having a great weekend, we had a glorious sunny day yesterday and T and me cut down a huge Jasmine bush that was growing over the garden wall and overhanging the pavement on the other side.  The local council wrote to us telling us we had to cut it back and we decided to cut it back to ground level.  It will grow back in time.  Today we have taken two carloads of cuttings to the local landfill site.  The back of my car is a mess now!

This spread is one I did at the end of July and I thought I would share the process with you.  My camera makes the colours look weird, the scanned image is truer although slightly brighter than the original.

I started with pages already covered in paint and Adirondak colour wash spray from stencils used on other pages.Joie de vivre 1

 

 

 

Collaged pages ripped from a 1911 L’Art Decoratif magazine.Joie de vivre 2

Painted over with watered down gessoJoie de vivre 3

Added stamping (French themed stamps) with Brown Stazon and the swirls in Archival Perlescent CrimsonJoie de vivre 4

 

Added some colour with watered down Blackberry and Burnt Umber acrylic paint but it made it look muddy!Joie de vivre 5

 

 

Toned down with a white wash and stamped with a Tim Holtz Reflections text stamp and Memories archival ink in black.  Added glimmer mist spray in Fully Purple and Pink Bubblegum

Joie de Vivre 5Finished with collage of vintage papers from the Graphics Fairy blog, scrapbook paper My Mind’s Eye Lost & Found ‘Breeze’. Portfolio water soluable oil pastels and hand written quote.

Tomorrow I am going for some training in my new job.

Stay well & happy everyone

Big love

AJ 🙂