Tag Archives: collage

Your Heart is as Big as an Ocean

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Your Heart is as Big as an Ocean

 

Hello friends!

This is the last spread in my board book experiment.  I just have the cover to do and it’s finished 🙂  It’s been an interesting experiment: I started off with a child’s board book and stripped off the wipe-able shiny paper which left me with a plain cardboard book.  I gessoed the pages and let that dry before painting the backgrounds with acrylic paint.

The background is quite rough and scratchy, not smooth like watercolour paper, and it’s not so easy to collage on, and always get a good fix. or to write on.  On the other hand I like it because when it’s complete it’s going to be a good sturdy book.  There are only 5 spreads in the book, so it has been quick to fill up (at least it would have been if it was the only project I was working on).

So, to be honest I didn’t reach any definite conclusion from the experiment. 🙂

I really like this spread, I think the colours work and, as I am sure I’ve said before, I really love underwater stuff.  I recently found a book about tropical fish in a charity shop and it’s been great collage fodder.

For me the collage is really like a canvas.  I like the collage because I can’t draw and collage gives me some shapes and structure to work with.  My favourite bit is playing with pens – altering and embellishing what’s on the page.  Sometimes I just get ‘in the zone’ and there is no thought about what I’m doing other than ‘playing with pens’, that’s when magic sometimes happens :-).

The quote is by Rumi (who always makes my heart sing)

The DIY project is progressing slowly, we’ve made some progress, but it’s not as easy as I thought it would be.  The construction is no problem at all, but understanding the instructions is taking some working out, like when you are given two completely different sets of measurements to work to which should you go with!?  Still it’s all cool, we’ll get there – eventually.

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

 

 

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2014 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Welcome to the House of Fun!

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Welcome to the House of Fun

Hello friends!

I hope you are doing well, things are pretty good here.  The new kitchen arrived yesterday! It has completely filled up T’s room and part of the living room and kitchen.  There is a lot of it!  Now we just have to figure out how it all goes together – it should be fun (she said)!

So far we have checked the delivery and found just a couple of things missing and a couple of things that we didn’t order have been delivered.

Yesterday afternoon I had to go to the library immediately after the kitchen was delivered as Ryde Social Heritage Group had an Archive day there, apparently it was really busy in the morning.  By the time I go there (early afternoon) it had quietened down a bit although there was a steady stream of people right up until we had to pack everything away at 4pm.

When I got home I built the shell of the first cupboard which all went very well (phew!), it still needs legs and doors fixing to it then there are another 10 cupboards to build and worktops and all those other bits and pieces to fix.    We both have the first two weeks of March as leave from work and are hoping to get most it done then, but I think it will be several months before it’s completely finished.

We have been doing quite a lot of preparation work prior to the delivery and the kitchen is now a complete mess, I’m not really sure how T is coping, he hates mess and clutter and as he spends more time in the kitchen than I do he must be finding it difficult.  He will want to get it finished as soon as possible.

Today we took Mum and Dad out for lunch to celebrate Mum’s birthday, which was actually on Friday, and we had a lovely time together.

I am really loving Teesha and Tracy Moore’s Artstonauts Club, there is so much to inspire and motivate me with my art there.  If you would like to know more about the Artstonauts Club there is an open FaceBook group here and from there you can click on a link that will take you to the Artstonauts Club website with all the amazing goodies.  You have to be a member to have access to the website, but it’s very reasonably priced.

I made one of Teesha’s ‘Amazing 16 page journals‘ from one sheet of watercolour paper.  I have almost completed all the collaging on all the pages, except for the covers which I always leave until the very end, and I’ve started playing with pens.  The page above is the first completed page.  The title “Welcome to the House of Fun” is probably apt for the stuff that’s going to be happening in my home over the next few weeks (or possibly months).

Here is some fabulous news: I am going to be facilitating another Teesha inspired Introduction to Visual Journaling workshop at Ventnor Library on Saturday 29 March.  It will be the same as the workshop I did for Ryde Arts Festival almost a year ago, you can read about that workshop here and you can see the book we produced here.  This time we are not making a book (just the first pages for our personal journals) so participants will be able to take away their artwork at the end of the day.  The workshop is being hosted by the Friends of Ventnor Library and there is a very small charge (only £2.50!) for participants. It is a whole day workshop from 09:30 to 16:00 with a break for lunch.  The workshop is for a maximum of 12 people (adults only) so if you are interested please contact Ventnor Library on 01983 852039.

Right, now I have a stack of ironing to do so I am ready for work tomorrow.  I’ll try and post again mid week but if I go missing in action for a while you’ll know I am busy with our DIY project.

Thanks for visiting it’s been a pleasure to have you here.

Big love

AJ 🙂

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2014 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

You have the Power

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You have the Power

 

Hello friends

I hope you are all keeping well, dry and warm.  We had a sunny day today, it’s been fantastic and I went out for walk.  By comparison on Friday we had heavy rain (nothing new there) and storms.  The ground is so saturated now, after weeks of mostly rain, there is nowhere for the water to go so on Friday we did have some fairly serious flooding on the Island.  The local newspaper put up a map of the Island on their website and by evening the map was completely covered in ‘road closed’ or ‘road flooded but passable with care’ signs.  When I drove home from work it was quite exciting as I had to drive through several streams that were crossing the road!

On Saturday I had to drive over to the other side of the Island, I was going to postpone my visit but when I got up the rain had stopped and when I checked the map most of the signs had been removed.  I had to take rather a long route to get to my destination but it was much better driving than the day before.

And today we’ve had glorious sunshine all day 🙂  It’s been so good for my soul to see the sun again.  I went for my walk on the same beach I visited at the beginning of the month. This time the tide was out far enough for me to be able to walk on the beach and I noticed there was a lot of storm damage, a couple of trees had fallen over and look at this small getty.  The photo on the left was taken on 2 Feb and the one of the right was taken today. The tide was out today so you get to see the horrible seaweed instead of the lovely sea. Although it was rickety looking a couple of weeks ago it did have some planking whereas today there are only the posts and a few cross bars left in place 😦

Binstead getty

 

The page above is in my Artstronauts Journal and it’s a reply to the page I posted in the middle of the week.  I am much happier with this page, the head and hat are a Zetiology stamp and I like the contrast of the black and white against the colourful page.

Right, I need to do some chores and get ready for work again tomorrow.  Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

 

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2014 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Where’s my Sparkle?

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Find your Sparkle

Hello friends

I hope things are good with you.  Here it’s rain, rain, rain and it’s getting to be a drag.  I shouldn’t complain as we’ve had no flooding here but some people have had their homes flooded since before Christmas! It seems every day more and more people are struggling with this atrocious weather.  I hope things calm down and dry out soon.  We need some sunshine and warmth.

The page above is a page from my Teesha inspired board book.  I’m really not sure what to make of this one.  Overall it just doesn’t ‘do it’ for me, but there are some things about it I really love: the colours and especially the piece of collage that looks like it’s been wired (or stitched) to the page, I like the girl’s face which is one of the stamps I bought from Teesha a while ago and I liked taking the image of the girl and completely changing her with collage and pens, but as a piece of art it’s just not ‘floating my boat’.  Ah well never mind, I’m sure the next page is going to be better 🙂

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely rest of the week.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

 

 

 

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2014 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Glory

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Filled with Glory

 

Hello friends

It’s good to see you again 🙂  The weekend is nearly over, I just have a stack of ironing to do this evening and then I’m ready for the week ahead.

I don’t feel I’ve been very productive this weekend, but perhaps that’s because I’ve done bits of several things instead of concentrating on one job?

T and I painted the kitchen ceiling, twice!  When we bought the house the ceilings in every room had been Artexed (a different pattern in every room).  We hate the stuff, so a few years ago we had the living room ceiling plastered over to make it smooth and a few weeks ago we had the kitchen ceiling done too.  Unfortunately shortly after that we discovered we had some broken tiles above the kitchen and when it rained (which it has been doing a lot recently) it came through.  We got someone to come and fix it before too much damage was done.  It’s going to take another coat of paint (at least) before it’s finished but we have to take it fairly slow as it’s hard work for us.  It made my arm ache painting above my head and standing looking up made me really dizzy a couple of times.

We are starting now to do the preparation for the new kitchen which is due to be delivered in about a month’s time.  We have both taken two weeks off in March to build and install it. When I told someone at work we were going to install it ourselves he made some strange comment and looked at me as though I was insane.  I got the impression he thought I couldn’t do it because I’m a woman!  Hmmm, I’ll show him!  Besides T and I are going to do it together.  We will have to pay a plumber and an electrician to do some some technical bits, but building and installing the cupboards and worktops will be down to us. I’m sure it will be fine. (she said).

This weekend I have also been doing lots of doodling, working on my junk journal and I completed the page above which was inspired by Teesha Moore’s Artstronauts Club.  The two ‘lollypop’ people were inspired by some sculptures by Joan Miro, who is one of my all time favourite artists.

We had a bit of sunshine today which was lovely to see and I’m optimistic that I am going to have a good week this week.  I hope you do too.

See you soon

Big love

AJ xxx

 

 

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2014 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

Let your mind start a journey…

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Let your mind start a journey...

Click on image to enlarge

Hello friends!

Well after just under two weeks holiday from work, it’s back to the daily grind tomorrow for me. 😦  I wish I could say I feeling joyous about it, but to be honest there is a slight dread in the pit of my stomach right now.  However I’m sure it will all be fine once I get there and once I get used to getting up early again!

I’ve managed to achieve quite a lot in two weeks.  I had 22 things on my ‘To Do’ list, there are 6 left now but I’ve made a start on 4 of them so progress has been good.  More importantly I’ve had time to create some art and that has been so good for my soul. 🙂

The spread above is in one of my board book journals and was inspired by Teesha Moore’s Artstonauts Club.  I’ve also been working on some mixed media pieces, started making some prayer flags, made a new junk journal and had an attempt at tidying up my art room.  This last task was only partially successful and now I’ve run out of time so it won’t get completed.  Still it’s better than it was 🙂

Here is the main wall I sorted out (T says it still looks cluttered!)  I found some interesting stuff that I had forgotten I had!

Art room organisationIf you click on the image you can see it bigger. The things hanging from the ceiling are papier mache fish, there are a group of 6 of them swimming about above my workspace 🙂

The weather here has been pretty bad since before Christmas –  lots of rain and wind.  In some parts there has been a lot of flooding and damage.  Luckily we haven’t suffered in that way and I feel for the people who have, it must be awful to have your home flooded.

I hope your New Year has got off to a good start and I wish you a creative and joyful rest of the year.

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2014 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

…And we’re off!

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2013 book

Hello friends

I hope your New Year has got off to a good start.

For me it feels like there is an imperative to start new projects, but today I spent nearly all of my time finishing off last year’s ‘whole year’ project.

This time last year I was putting away the Christmas decorations and I had a stack of Christmas cards, I didn’t want to throw them away so I decided to make them into a book. I made up signatures consisting of 4 or 5 cards and then I covered them with scrap book papers and various bits and pieces from my art room.  I made 13 signatures in total, one for each month and an extra one for the introduction.  For every day last year I wrote (or sometimes typed) a diary entry and put it in my book.  Today I have made the cover and bound it all together.

I didn’t find it easy doing something every day, but I managed it and now my 2013 book is complete.  Below you can see a slide show of some of the book.  It measures 6.5 inches by 5.5 inches and the spine is 4 inches thick.

If the idea of a daily practice appeals to you I recommend that you visit my friend Gretchen Miller’s blog Creativity in Motion.  Gretchen had just completed a project where she made a piece of art every single day of 2013.  The completed project is just THE MOST AMAZING thing, and today Gretchen has started a new year long daily project.  Really, please go and have a look at Gretchen’s work you will be amazed and enthralled.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions any more  normally between Christmas and New year I make a Revo-lution Book.  This is something I learnt from Gretchen – the idea is to make an art book and on every page put an intention for the coming year and illustrate it with your art.   This year I have decided to work on my Revo-lution book during the year rather than have it all finished at the beginning of the year.  I am going to be using a large sample book I bought in a charity shop which I will be altering, ‘artifying’ and filling with my intentions.

For my ‘year’ project for 2014 I am going to be altering a pack of cards – one card a week for 52 weeks – hopefully that will be slightly easier than forcing myself to do something every day.

What ever your intentions are for the coming year I wish you good health and success in all your endeavours.

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2014 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Space, the final frontier

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Space, the final frontier

 

Hello friends

I hope you are all well and happy.  All is good here, my dad has made a miraculous recovery and is back to his old self again.  Most of the bruises have gone and his broken rib gets a bit easier every day.  I am so pleased 🙂 

I am so excited to be sharing with you my first journal spread inspired by Teesha Moore‘s Artstonauts Club.  I made the deep space background using a technique shown by artist James S Flagg, then I collaged images of planets, a spaceman and a rocket on top and altered them with various pens.  I wanted to do something like the Ship’s log I remember from years ago when I used to watch Star Trek.  I typed out the words in a digital looking font and then found an image of an IPad to paste them onto.  I think it worked out quite well.  Oh and I put Teesha’s husband Tracy in the space suit 🙂

I feel like I want to hibernate at the moment, I am going to bed earlier and earlier and I am not so keen to get up in the morning.  I usually manage to be up by about 6am but not with the enthusiasm I have in the light summer months.  Cold, dark days don’t really suit me…

I am progressing (slowly) with the Christmas presents, but I am a little bit disappointed with how they are turning out.  Still I’m committed to making them now so I have to proceed.  I’ll show them to you after Christmas when I have handed them out.  They may not look totally brilliant but there is a lot of work going in to them so I hope they are received OK.

This coming Saturday I will at St Thomas Church in Ryde all day serving teas to visitors at a Ryde Arts Festival event.  There will be Green Wreath making, children’s activities, carol singing and lots of fun.  I am going to wrap up well though because it will probably be very cold.

I am still planning the new kitchen, T seems to have lost interest now it’s come down to the fine detail, but I want to make sure everything is as good as we can possibly make it, I doubt we will every do it again.  I’ve even toyed with the idea of perhaps learning to cook once we have a nice kitchen, I’m in my late 50’s so it’s probably time I did, I’ll never be able to cook as well as T does but I ought to be able to provide meals at least occasionally.

Anyway have a great week and I’ll be back at the weekend with another mandala.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

We are Visitors here

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We are Visitors

Hello friends

I’m a day late this week because, well because…

My week started off as usual, pretty boring really.  At work people were moaning about it ‘only being Monday’ and we ‘have the whole week ahead of us’, but I knew it would soon pass, I didn’t want to be miserable for the whole week so I was trying to make the most of my week.

Then my week suddenly got ‘interesting’

On Tuesday lunchtime I went out for my usual walk.  When I got back to the office I had 4 missed calls from T so I called him back.  He was very worried as my Mum had phoned left a message on the answerphone saying “Oh you’re not there, never mind, I had a message for you”.  He said she sounded worried and he had been trying to phone her back but could get no reply from her house phone or mobile.  What should he do?

I told him not to worry as there was nothing he could do and if it was important she would phone back.

About an hour and half later he phoned me again “I knew there was something wrong” he said.  He had just found out that Dad had fallen over in the street and been taken to hospital.  I left work early and went to the hospital.  Dad looked a mess, his face was swollen, he had tapes over his left eye which was red and swollen closed.

No-one knows what happened except he fell over and into the road (fortunately he was not hit by a car), bashed his head on the road and knocked himself out.  He was unconscious for about 3 minutes.  Someone called an ambulance which arrived very quickly.

They had been out shopping together and Mum had called into a clothes shop, Dad didn’t want to go in there so he walked on alone.  About 10 minutes later Mum was making her way home on her mobility scooter and saw an ambulance at the side of the road.  As she passed by she looked over to see her husband being carried on a stretcher and almost passed out herself.  A kindly policeman looked after her scooter so she could accompany Dad in the ambulance.

By the time I got to the hospital (about 3 hours after them) my brother and his wife were already there. Mum looked as white as a sheet and Dad looked like he’d been badly beaten up.  They did lots of tests on Dad and eventually said he could go home.  My brother thought he should be kept in overnight and was quite persistent about that, but I thought Dad would actually prefer to go home.

Anyway it all looks pretty bad but ‘tough old boy’ that he is he’s OK.  He has a black eye, bump on his head and a cracked rib, he’s going to be sore for a few days but will eventually be OK.  He’s not allowed out for at least a week and then he’s not to go out on his own.  How anyone is going to stop him from doing that I can’t imagine because he loves his independence and doesn’t want anyone fussing around him.

We went to visit yesterday after I got home from work and he is looking much better, but his cracked rib is aching and his eye is very black and bruised.   By the time we got home I had a terrible headache and went to bed early.

Maybe in future I’ll settle for the boring stuff without complaining.

The page above is the last page of my 5th Teesha Moore inspired journal.  The quote is an aboriginal proverb which I really like.

Note to self ‘I must start doing some more collage journals soon’ but I need to get the Christmas presents sorted out first!

I hope you all have a good week and if you are in this part of the world I hope you keep warm because it’s getting distinctly ‘chilly’ now.  I’ll be sleeping in pyjamas AND bed socks for the next several months.

Big love

AJ 🙂

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Nothing Domestic About Her!

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Nothing Domestic About Her

 

Hello friends!

I hope all is good with you, I am fine and well.

I am a bit tired today as I was busy at the local library all day yesterday with an exhibition on local history and talking to people about how they can use archive material for research and also how they can create their own archives using scrapbooks, journals, memory and story boxes.  It was a great day, but I was on my feet all the time and they hurt by the the time we had to pack up and transport almost everything back to where it came from.  We left one big display board up and that will stay at the library until Christmas.  Anyway it was another success for the local history group Ryde Social Heritage Group.  I am so proud to work with such a fun and enthusiastic group of people.

I have started thinking about Christmas and some things that I might make for people who are close to me.   I just hope I have time to complete them all before the deadline. Christmas always has a way of sneaking up on me before I am ready for it.

I got some copies of Amy Johnson’s book Being Human on Friday and my artwork looks good in black and white.  Amy also sent me a Kindle version so I can see what it looks like in full colour (much better).  Either way I am pleased just to be part of this book and I have set up a page so you can see all the images in one place.  It was a great project to work on and I am so grateful to have had this opportunity.  The publication date has also solved a lot of my Christmas present problems for this year, so I need to order some more soon 🙂

The page above is page 7 from my 5th Teesha Moore inspired art journal.  I am not sure where the quote comes from or who to attribute it to, but I think it’s an excellent description of women.

Have a great week

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013 unless otherwise stated. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.