Tag Archives: collage

A Beautiful and Incredible Place

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A Beautiful & Incredible Place

Hello friends

Gosh, it’s mid week already, I just don’t know where the time goes, but then they do say ‘Time flies when you are having fun’ 🙂

This spread is from my 6×6 journal and I used stuff that was just on my work table – scraps of paper, images from magazines, old maps, even a bit of packaging from a Tim Holtz mask I purchased.  The pages already had gesso on them which I had textured by putting the wet pages together and then pulling them apart (I love that effect), I finger painted with yellow acrylic paint and then collaged the paper scraps on top.  I edged some of the paper with black ink and some with yellow ink.  I added more gesso to the edges of some of the images to push them back to the background.  The quote is by Ole Osterkamp and I wrote it on some cream vellum, tore the edges, inked them with yellow ink and stuck the pieces on.  I have started putting dates on my finished pages, because I am having trouble remembering when I did what, if you know what I mean 😉  I liked the end result.

The journal is actually wire bound, but I am in quandry about continuing to use wire bound journals.  There are pros and cons.  The wire binding allows for expansion as the pages and journal thicken up and also allows for a lot of decorating, with fibres, charms etc,  of the outside of the spine when the journal is completed.  But the wire binding really distracts and disects the images I make across two pages.  That is why I scan the two sides of the spread and stitch them close together without the wire binding showing.  Is that cheating?

I hope all is good with you my friends and I’ll be back again soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Your Life Story

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Your Life StoryHello Friends

It’s a wet and windy Wednesday in the UK.  The cats got me up at 5am today.  The fact that the wind and rain were battering at the windows but Jack made it perfectly clear he wanted to go out (my cats are generally ‘fair weather cats’).  I knew he wanted to go to the toilet and I put him in the litter tray about 10 times and tred to encourage him to use it, but he was having none of it and instisted I opened the door.   Jack really does not like using the litter trays at all whereas Bill is quite laid back about it, in fact Bill sometimes comes in from the garden just to go to the toilet!  But if Jack was going out so was Bill.  At 5:30 I relented and let them both out.  They were both back in the house within 5 minutes, presumably having done their business outside.  It was too late for me to go back to bed then so I caught up with some emails before getting ready for work.  Now at 10:30pm, after a day at work, I am really tired and off to bed soon.

The spread above was done very quickly.  The pages were already gesso’d and had some paint on them.  I stuck down some ripped book pages and some images of old typewriters I found in a magazine at work the other day.  I painted over the top with gesso and some lovely russet acrylic paint, which I then wiped back, and the text is made up from some stickers I bought from the bargain bin at Hobbycraft the a few weeks ago.  I’m not sure you can read the text, it says: “The story of your life is exactly as you write it” which is another message to myself about the choices I make.

Just like the art this post was done in a rush.

Hope everyone is doing well and I’ll see you soon 🙂

Big love

AJ

Have Beautiful Dreams

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Have Beautiful DreamsHello friends!

Warning: the last two sentences of the third paragraph are a bit rude, so please don’t read that paragraph if you are easily offended.

I hope you are having a good weekend, I am and I am also managing to get a few things done so that’s good, it eases the pressure a little.

The spread above is from my A4 journal.  I painted the pages with some really old pink and orange fluorescent paint I found in my art box (it must be at least 20 years old).  Then I stamped the pages with a Tim Holtz reflections script stamp and a Tim Holtz heart.  I added some gold leaf to one of the pages.  Then I collaged with scraps of paper of all sorts, some images of vintage ladies, some die cut dots, and various other pieces I found in my stash.  The lovely quote is, I believe, by Eleanor Roosevelt and it is to remind me that if I follow my dreams all will be good. 🙂

On Friday all the big bosses came for their meeting, it was strange, for most of the day they were crammed into the meeting room (which was really too small to accommodate the numbers that turned up) and it must have been very uncomfortable for them.  At lunch time they came out and ‘talked to the troops’.  A buffet lunch was provided which I had been tasked with providing.  I am not sure why I was asked to sort it out as catering is really not my speciality.  Anyone who knows me would tell you that.  I suspect it was more to do with the fact that I don’t have a pair of testicles and all my colleagues do.  I’m thinking of asking my mum to knit me a pair 😉

The lunch time chat was really more of a case of ‘the troops’ complaining about how things are run and some of them were quite aggressive.  All the managers acted very professionally, were very reasonable and promised to look into every complaint.  It remains to be seen whether or not they actually do.  After a couple of hours they said they had to go back into their meeting and asked if anyone had anything else to say.  No-one said anything and I thought ‘someone needs to say thanks to them for coming here today’, so I forced myself to say something.

As soon as I started speaking a felt a rush of blood from my feet to my head, I was hot, felt like my face must be the colour of a beetroot and my voice was really shakey, to the point where I almost couldn’t get my words out.  I did my best and I hope it was good enough.  I think it’s important when people make an effort that they are acknowledged and thanked.  It’s one of the complaints we make about our bosses – they never say thank you to us.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I’ll be back soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Good Old Days?

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Good Old Days?Hello friends!

It’s a wet, windy and dismal day here on the Isle of Wight and I’ve been struggling with a low mood, actually been on the verge of tears a couple of times, and I have no idea why.  I’m not normally a depressive person but I let things at work get to me today.  Two days of having computers not working hasn’t helped because it has put me behind with stuff. I have let other stupid little things get to me too.

Coming home, doing some art and stroking Billy Kat has helped a lot.  Cats are such good therapy 🙂  There is a big meeting at work on Friday with a lot of senior managers, and I really need to get a positive head on for that.  Today if anyone had asked me how things are I’d have struggled to say anything positive and that’s not good.  Sometimes I just get days like this and hopefully I can turn it around tomorrow – I must remember I can make a choice to be happy, breath and smile 🙂

This spread is from my 6×6 journal.  I started with a smooth gesso’d background, painted it with a brown acrylic then collaged some ripped vintage pages (that Alicia from Altered Bits sent me) and some scraps of old maps of my town.  I don’t actually use the real maps, but scan them, print them on photographic paper and age them with tea so they look like the real thing.  Then I used some blue acrylic paint and some white ink dabbed through punchinella and wrote the quote (in my poor handwriting) in white ink and highlighted (or do I mean lowlighted it) with black.

I have become aware recently how much people look at the past through rose tinted glasses.  Especially at work, things were always better back then, in the Good Old Days, although when that time was differs from person to person.   I also know that rather than aching for the past and what was, we should all try and live more in the present.  As Oprah says, “this moment is the only one you know you have for sure”.  So we’d better enjoy it.

Thanks for listening, just putting this all down has helped me to lift my mood, I think tomorrow is going to be fine.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

The Power Within

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Hello Friends!

I am really enjoying the weekend and hope you are too.

We had a fantastic meeting of the local history group yesterday and afterwards I went to a felt making workshop to help make squares for a ‘Friendship Quilt’ that will be displayed in Ryde Library for Ryde Arts Festival at the end of June beginning of July.  I made two squares that were only ‘squarish’ ha, ha, ha.  Lovely group of people and we all had fun.

The spread above was made late last year for 21 Secrets 2011 in Tamara Laporte‘s workshop called Collage Paint Soul.  Do you know about Tamara?  She is lovely, check out her blog.

My journal page already had Adirondak Colorwash spray on it from where I had put a wet stencil between the pages and I collaged scraps of paper with inked edges on top, and two images cut from a magazine to make up a girl.  Then I painted over the top with acrylic paints and stamped with various stamps including a Tim Holtz number stamp and I also used some glitter glue.  The thing I loved about Tamara’s workshop was learning that you can take a face from a magazine and paint over it.   I am hopeless at drawing people and faces, and clearly I need more practice, but this is a good way to learn.

I know the head is far too big for the body, believe it or not that was intentional.  Years ago I did an photo/art project called ‘The Big Head Project’ it involved taking photos of people’s faces, printing them out super large on my printer, cutting the face out and sticking it on cardboard to make a mask and then taking another photo of the person with the Big Head.

Here is an example, the colours look odd because the film was cross-processed.

I added the quote from Lord Buckley to finish off the spread.  Here is what it looked like before I started painting:

That’s all for now, I’ve got to get on – places to go, people to see, things to get done.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

 

 

Spring Sunshine

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Spring sunshineHello Friends!

I hope everyone is good and fine today.

It’s a bit ironic that I am posting this spread tonight because it is pouring with rain outside!  We did have about two weeks of glorious almost summer weather, and even today between the showers the sunshine was bright.  I do love the lighter days and the sunshine.  The light does bring joy to my heart 🙂

On this spread, in my 6 x 6 journal, I gesso’d the pages, then painted with acrylic paint.  I collaged a ripped up Daffodil bag I picked up at the local garden centre.  You were supposed to fill the bag with bulbs and buy them but I only wanted the brown paper bag.  There is also a little bit of artist tape I made following my friend Carolyn’s instructions.  Pop over to Carolyn’s blog A Colorful Journey to find out more about making your own tape – be warned though it’s addictive 🙂  The flowers are die cut baby wipes I had used to wipe back paint on other pages.  The font for the text is called “Jellyka Delicious Cake” it’s a free font I found on the internet.  I’ve been practicing my writing skills but I’m still never really happy with my own handwriting.  I think the black shading is a from a set of cheap oil pastels I bought.  They are not good so this week I ordered some Portfolio Oil Pastels and I am hoping I will have more success with those.

My life is hectic again at the moment.  I have a meeting this Saturday I need to prepare for  – including writing a report and transferring a load of photographs into a presentation for our guest speaker, but this evening my computer decided to go sloooooooowwww and it took several hours to sort out.  Mind you while it was running System Mechanic and fixing the problems I was able to do some art so I shouldn’t complain should I?

I am loving the workshops over at 21 Secrets and just wish I had more hours in the day to play.  Some of my friends tell me that if they didn’t have a job they would be bored, I can’t believe it, I would never be bored at home would you? However I would be broke if I didn’t work, so needs must 😐

That’s all for now  “It’s time for Bed”, said Zebedee

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

This is April!

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AJ's AprilHello friends!

I hope all is good with you.

What a busy day I’ve had since I posted That Was March this morning, I’ve been scanning negatives and uploading photos to my lomohome.

I stopped taking photos with my Lomo LCA camera a while ago because I couldn’t find anywhere to get my film processed.  Yes, I still use my analogue camera and film for my own personal photos (although I use a digi camera for photos for the history group).  Anyway there still are some places that will develop film, but I love to use slide film and get it processed as a normal negative.  Most photo developers look at you like you are completely nuts if you ask them to do that, or worse still like you are some sort of criminal and on the whole they refuse to do it.

Developing film in this way is called cross-processing and it has an ‘interesting’ effect on the end results.  Different films get different results.  My favourite film to use is/was Agfa Precisa CT 100 iso, but the production of it stopped years ago (in 2009 I think), I bought up a load of it at that time and it takes up a fair bit of space in the fridge (much to my husband’s annoyance).  However what I could buy then was already passed it’s ‘use by date’ so now in 2012 we are waaaaaaaaaay past that date and I thought the film might be not worth using, especially if I couldn’t get it developed.  Then a couple of weeks ago I found a place willing to cross process for me, I gave them 6 rolls film.  Two needed to be cross-processed and the other 4 (ordinary negative film) I had no idea what, if anything they had on them, so I told the developer “Just develop them and roll the film, no prints, no CDs”  Still cost me nearly £50!!!!

So today I have been scanning the first roll on my negative scanner, it takes ages as I have to use the highest resolution possible and then do some cleaning of any specks of dust that got on the film between me taking it out of the packet and putting it in the scanner, then resizing the photos and uploading them to the website.

I don’t think anyone else will be that impressed with the shots, but I am so pleased

a) that there was actually something on the film

b) that the Agfa Precisa, even though it is years out of date, still delivers the colours I want and

c) I can load up my camera again and get back into my other arty love – lomography 🙂

So today is April 1 and the start of 21 Secrets I am so looking forward to learning for all those great teachers, I think it is really good value for money considering the quality of the teachers and the number of workshops you can participate in once you sign up.  Maybe I’ll see you over there?

Sorry, I’m rambling on a bit aren’t I?  Above is my journal entry for April for the 366 Calender Challenge over at The Kathryn Wheel. Hopefully I got all the numbers in the right place and sequence this month!

I’m off to play, see you soon

Big love

AJ

Let’s Play! Blog Tagging!

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Life is a Game, Play itHello friends,

It’s time to play 🙂  My friend Cat at seaskystone has tagged me in a game of blog tagging, and I’ve decided to play along. 🙂

The Rules
…you must post the rules
…answer 11 questions the tagger posted for you
…create 11 questions to ask the people you tag
…tag 11 people
…let them know you’ve tagged them

Here are the questions Cat asked and my replies:

  1. What’s the first art you remember making as a child? A roman style plate made of papier mache at infant school
  2. Pick a bouquet: Roses or wildflowers? It would have to be cultivated roses as wild flowers should be left where they choose to grow.
  3. Do you speak more than one language? Sadly I only speak English and I’m not even very good at that!
  4. How many unfinished projects are on your art table? It’s hard to tell as it is so cluttered, but there are at least 5 projects on the go at the moment!
  5. Peanut butter: extra crunchy, crunchy or creamy? Crunchy 🙂
  6. What’s your “if-you-were-stranded-on-a-deserted-island-and-could-only-have-one-song” song? Oooh this is difficult, I think it would have to be song called Afraid of the Dark written by my husband about 30 years ago.
  7. Reading preference: fiction or non-fiction?  I’m not reading much at all at the moment, but when I do read I like both fiction and non-fiction it’s the quality of the writing that counts.
  8. The smell of bread baking, or the smell of freshly ground coffee? Definitely coffee, I’m an addict.
  9. In five words or less, what does creativity mean to you? Expressing the inner me.
  10. What animal do you think you most look like? A pig
  11. What art techniques have you never tried, but want to…? Scrap metal sculpture.

And here are my 11 questions:

  1. Which artist (dead or alive) would you most like to have a 1 to 1 with?
  2. How do you silence your inner critic?
  3. If you could only use three colours which would you choose?
  4. If you could own any one piece of art in the world (money no object) what would it be?
  5. What is your most treasured inanimate possession?
  6. Given the choice of fruit or chocolate which would you pick?
  7. Where in the world would you most like to visit?
  8.  Is your art room tidy or messy?
  9. What gets you up in the morning?
  10. What makes you laugh out loud?
  11. If you could time travel which period or event in history would you like to experience?

And these are my Tagees, chosen from blogs I visit regularly and love (and not duplicating any chosen by Cat).

  1. Wendy @ a girl and her brush
  2. Alicia @ altered bits
  3. Gretchen @ creativity in motion
  4. Eileen @ The Scrap Pit
  5. Mary @ Time for Dabbling
  6. Nancy @ Delight-Filled Leaves Art
  7. Dana and Christopher @ St John Studio
  8. Brian @ a paper bear
  9. Sami @ Luna
  10. Elizabeth @ The Glowing Wheel
  11. July @ Itsaworkofart

I have checked the links and they work OK for me, but if there are any problems please let me know.

Please Note: There is no obligation to play along, I know people are busy with other stuff, so please don’t feel pressured because I tagged you, I just love your blogs so I wanted other to see them too.

The image above started off as just a purple glittery page, I didn’t like it so I drew black ovals all over it, didn’t like that either, so I took some of the lovely vintage pages Alicia sent me, ripped them and coloured them with blue distress ink and stuck them on, beginning to like it a bit now, then I got some gesso on my finger and drew around some of the black ovals and around the edges of the page, like it even more now. Then I took some printed vellum ripped and inked the edges with purple ink and stuck them on and dripped acrylic ink over the page.  Finally in honour of this game I printed the quote on.  Finally I really like the page and hope you do too 🙂

Big love

AJ

Past, Future and Present

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Past, Future and PresentHello Friends

This is a quick post because it’s early morning (although I’ve already been up an hour and a half) and I have to get ready for work.

Right now I am full fo anxiety.  Something has happened at work, I am totally unsure exactly what happened, but it means that either I have messed up, or one of my colleagues has been very dishonest.  I really think it is more likely to be the former than the latter, but either way I am in an uncomfortable situation.

The spread above from my small journal is about the past and the future, I used a lot of collage on this one, old book pages, old maps, and some old adverts.

I quite like the quote, but for now I need to go and face the present.  Wish me luck!

Big love

AJ

Queen of HeARTs

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Hello friends!

I hope everyone is well.

It’s been a week since I last posted, couldn’t post at the weekend due to various other tasks that had to be done.  I am getting behind with things at home and at work.  I spent the first part of the week at work preparing for two presentations I had to give today.  I’m glad I spent the time on them because I think they went well.  My presentations were on Employee Engagement and I was trying to be motivational to a group of people who were not really that interested, but I did OK and I was pleased with how I handled it.   But tomorrow I will have to try and catch up with over a week’s backlog of emails and other stuff I should also have been doing.  Oh well that’s life I guess, and I am pleased to say that although I am not managing to keep on top of things I’m not getting freaked out by that fact either.  There was a time when I’d have been full of anxiety and stress at the thought of my workload, but now I’m just going to try and work my way through it and eventually it will get done.

This page is from my A4 art journal and there is a bit of a ‘royal’ theme to it.  The page was gesso’d, then there are layers of acrylic paint.  I used white acrylic paint to make the ‘drippage’ lines which I thought gave a sort of tartan effect. The blue paper with the crown is a scrap book paper by Teresa Collins (torn and edged with blue distress ink).  Then I stamped over the page with a cheap foam crown stamp in black and some small hearts in red.  I stamped Queen of HeARTs with black Stazon but it looked odd so I edged and dotted the letters with a white gel pen.

I’m not sure what the significance of this page is, except it was one of those experimental and learning processes.

Big love to you all

AJ