Jump for Joy!

Posted on October 17, 2012 by ajsartjournal

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 🙂

Making Connections

Posted on October 7, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Click 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

Posted on October 4, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello 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 🙂

A quick spread!

Posted on September 23, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello 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!

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 🙂

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 🙂

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 🙂

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 🙂

Life is full of Mystery

Posted on August 8, 2012 by ajsartjournal

Hello friends

This is (fanfare of trumpets and drum roll) my 100th post!

Who’d have thought when I uploaded my first post that I’d still be here now? Not me! If I had more time I’d organise a party, but honestly I’ve got so much to do before September 6. Ryde Social Heritage Group is having it’s 10th Anniversary celebrations. I just need to keep doing things and ticking them off on my massive ‘To Do’ list so I don’t get stressed about it.

You know being creative and posting to this blog has been so beneficial to me – I used to be lacking in confidence and now I’m getting braver, I used to worry about lots of things that ‘might happen’ and now I am much more of a ‘go with the flow’ person, I used to get angry about all sorts of things and now I have a much more ‘laid back’ attitude. I feel like a different person, it’s good 🙂 Yesterday I drove from home to the car ferry port, spent almost an hour on the ferry and then drove 40 miles which took another hour. I arrived at the office where I was supposed to be attending a meeting only to be told the meeting had been cancelled the day before. “We sent you an email yesterday (I was on leave yesterday as my ‘Out of Office’ message would have told you) don’t you read your work emails when you are home?” (Um, No!) A few years ago I think I would have been in a rage about this, but I just smiled and said “Oh well” got back in my car and did the trip in reverse. To compensate for my waste of time I popped into Hobbycraft and bought a few supplies so it wasn’t a completely wasted day 🙂

Anyway, I’m rambling, I wanted to thank all of you for your lovely comments and ‘likes’ but especially for sharing your art. The worldwide community of art journalers is so inspiring, friendly and supportive. I am so happy that I can go online and see loads and loads of beautiful art and people sharing and showing their processes, and grateful to you all for the encouragement you have given me.

This spread is from my 6×6 journal, the background was gesso’d and then I used some strange oil pastels (I think) to add colour, they were a bit odd and I wasn’t happy with the result. I looked though my box of cuttings from glossy magazines and selected the images which I collaged on top of the background and then I doodled all over it. I like this spread because it’s colourful, it has fish in it and all the words that are important to me right now.

Enjoy the rest of your week and 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: collage

Jump for Joy!

Making Connections

Click on the image to see it full size

Concentrate the Mind on the Present Moment

A quick spread!

Sometimes Life gets Messy!

Joie de Vivre

Create Everyday

How Sweet the Moonlight

You are Here

Life is full of Mystery