Sometimes Life gets Messy!

Posted on September 19, 2012 by ajsartjournal

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

Posted on September 16, 2012 by ajsartjournal

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.

Collaged pages ripped from a 1911 L’Art Decoratif magazine.

Painted over with watered down gesso

Added stamping (French themed stamps) with Brown Stazon and the swirls in Archival Perlescent Crimson

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

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

Finished 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 🙂

Courage

Posted on September 12, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello friends

I hope everyone is well and happy.

Our big exhibition is over and all packed up and stored away. It was a great success and we all had a great time. I am so proud of, and grateful for having, such a great team of people. We all put a lot of hard work in to it and are now all very tired but contented.

Today I heard what my new job will be (for the next three months at least) I was a bit disappointed as I was hoping to be offered something completely different and challenging. It sounds like this is just a desk job inputting data, but I will find out more about it next week and hopefully it will better than it sounded today and something I can take ownership of and have some pride in. At least I am still located locally and only a 20 minute drive from home, so that’s good. If all else fails, I can carry on getting all my job satisfaction from my local history group and all my creativity from my art journal.

This spread was done back in June, it has lots of book papers, stamping, stenciling, some image transfers, acrylic paint, the flowers are painted with fluorescent paint and I finished the pages with Portfolio water soluable oil pastels.

Enjoy the rest of you week everyone.

Big love

AJ 🙂

The Soul should always stand ajar…

Posted on September 9, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello friends

Here is another quick post of a spread I did in my A4 journal back in June.

Today is the last day of the 4 day exhibition about the history of Ryde at St Thomas Heritage Centre. The weather has been fantastic and we have had lots of visitors and lots on lovely comments in our guestbook. Today we have ‘Meet the Residents’ at 12:30 (a dramatic portrayal of some of the people from Ryde’s past by members of the group) and I am giving a presentation about Union Street at 2pm. This will be followed by the draw of our fund raising raffle. Then at 4pm we start to pack it all up and transport all the material back to various locations. We are all going to be exhausted after this! We have had a fantastic time and all the effort has been worthwhile. If you are interested you can find out more about it here.

I will be happy to have some time to do some art next week!

See you all soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

Create Everyday

Posted on September 6, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello friends

I just have time to quickly post this spread from my A4 journal which I did back in June. The Create Everyday page is on the back of a page where I used Fimo Light to create texture and as a result is very warped and distorted, but I don’t mind that 🙂

In a few hours time my local history group opens the doors on a 4 day exhibition at St Thomas Heritage Centre for Heritage Open Days. On Saturday we walked into an almost empty building and since then we have cleaned it, transported a whole exhibition, set it up and decorated the building. It looks great and now we can relax and have four days of fun!

I hope you all have a great weekend and I’ll see you when Heritage Open Days is over.

Big love

AJ 🙂

That was August and here comes September

Posted on August 31, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello friends

I hope you are all good. I don’t have time to write much as I am busy, busy, busy! But it’s the end of August (What happened to the summer? We didn’t seem to have one here!) and it’s time to post my new calendar page for September which is part of Kate Crane’s Calendar Challenge. I am just about managing to keep up with it and, as we have now completed 8 months, I think I will make it to the end of December.

And here is my completed page for August.

Right, I’ve got to go, I’ve got loads of printing and laminating to do this evening.

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

PS Still no news on the job front and I’m off work for a week now so won’t find out until mid September at the earliest! So the quote on my September page is really appropriate.

How Sweet the Moonlight

Posted on August 26, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello friends

I hope you are having a great weekend, it’s sunny Sunday here in my part of the world and tomorrow is a bank holiday – yay!

This spread is from my 6 x 6 journal, I started by covering the pages with scraps of paper and ephemera, then added paint and inks. The swirly stamp is one I got free with a magazine. I did some embossing and added the quote which is from the Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is supposed to be England’s finest writer, but unfortunately I was turned off him when I was at school. We had to study Julius Caesar for an examination and the teacher got us to read some parts of it out loud in class. I remember her shouting at me “Say it with feeling!”. The trouble was I had no idea what I was reading, it was like a foreign language to me. I think maybe a bit of instruction and explanation would have helped, shouting at me certainly didn’t!

I am going to try and keep up with my blog over the next couple of weeks, but Heritage Open Days starts on 6 September and there are still many things to sort out, so I may have to take a bit of time out. We can get into the venue, an old church, next Saturday morning and then we have 5 days to clean and tidy the place up, transport and set up a huge exhibition ready for the opening at 11am on Thursday 6 September. It’s going to be great but it is also going to be a lot of hard work.

If I disappear for a while please understand, I will still be trying to do bits and pieces of art when I can.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Success

Posted on August 23, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello friends

I hope you are all well and happy.

I’m not so good today and have taken a day’s sick leave from work. I had two long days on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday I went for my interview, still not really understanding what I was being interviewed for. I think it went OK but won’t find out for a couple of weeks what they have decided to do with me. Yesterday I had to attend two meetings on the mainland and didn’t get home until 8pm. I was struggling to stay optimistic and cheerful yesterday, but I think now that was because, although I didn’t know it, I was already unwell.

Today I didn’t get up until about 3pm and I’m still not feeling good, but you can’t lay in bed all day can you?

This page is from my A4 journal and is opposite the one I posted last time, the colours match but they are not really what I would call a spread and were done months apart. On this page I used Fimo light on parts of the page and pressed a load of trinkets and keys into it while it was still wet. I made the page quite warped but I don’t mind that. I used blue, orange, black and gold acrylic paints; stamping and scrap book paper. I hope you like it.

I’ll be back soon, hopefully feeling better and in a lighter frame of mind.

Big love

AJ 🙂

On Tuesday I have to go for an interview at work so that, in 30 minutes, my competencies can be assessed and then I think I will just be slotted into a job where they (senior managers and HR) think I will fit best. It’s all a bit strange really especially as I have already applied for a post that was advertised internally but that’s not what they are interviewing me for. Anyway I have decided that I just need to do some preparation, go along, do the best I can, not get too anxious about it and try to enjoy the experience. I’ll let you know how I got on next time I post. I think it must be quite a tough interview because the 5 managers I work with have already been through the process and 3 of them have not been reappointed to their roles. I already know I am not going to be reappointed to my role as it is disappearing into vapour in the restructure, but I will definitely still have a job. So there is definitely something new for me just around the corner. Exciting or what!

OK I am going to drag myself away from the computer now and the many things that I am supposed to be doing and I’ll go and see if Mum and Dad want to come out for a drive and an icecream.

See you later

Big love

AJ 🙂

Sunshine light your day

Posted on August 16, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello friends

I hope your week is going well. Mine is very strange, there is quite a lot of tension and concern at work, it’s becoming a slight struggle but I’m still being positive. I am just having to give myself more and more pep talks.

I’m a day late with this post! How did that happen? I think it’s because I went to an Osteopath for some treatment yesterday so my routine was not as usual. I guess that’s where I got mixed up.

This spread is another painting I did for Connie Hozvicka’s Flow workshop on 21 Secrets. It’s a great workshop where you just paint by intuition, from the heart and not from the head, quite liberating 🙂 I started by just enjoying the combination of the colours for the background, it began to feel like sunrise so I painted the funny flowers at the bottom in the foreground and then I added the quote. Well it makes me smile 🙂

Be inspired be creative.

I’ll be back soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

AJ's Art Journaling

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.

Tag Archives: AJ art journal

Sometimes Life gets Messy!

Joie de Vivre

Courage

The Soul should always stand ajar…

Create Everyday

That was August and here comes September

How Sweet the Moonlight

Success

You are Here

Sunshine light your day