Tag Archives: mixed media

One Little House challenge Abstract with Discarded Material

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Sweet Dreams

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Hello friends!

This spread in my recently started ‘Altered book journal’ is a response to a challenge over at One Little House.  There is a free group called One Little Book Club and Jeanette, our host, was inspired by Mary Beth Shaw’s book “Flavour for Mixed Media”.  I have to be honest here and say I’ve never heard of this book before and never read it.  However Jeanette created a fantastic page and I was inspired to respond.

I went though my rubbish bag and also through the piles of mess on my work desk and this is what I found:

The StashThe journal already had paint on the pages becasue I had some left over from another project, and I found some used (paint covered) baby wipes, old photos, bits of torn map, some jigsaw puzzle pieces, an old letter, a bingo card, some die cut scraps, a quote cut out from a magazine, various scrap papers and some pieces of ribbon. I began to collage it all onto the pages:

CollageAfter that I randomly added gesso, paint, texture paste, stamping, some plaster tape and glitter.  Towards the end of the process I decided to add the thin black ribbon.  It was really difficult to get it to stick to the pages and to be honest with you I thought I had ruined the whole spread.  It did not look good.  So I just added more ribbon and in the end I was pleased with the results.  I hope you like it.

I have had a very productive weekend – I am making progress with sorting out the mess in my art room and today I took 4 big bags of rubbish to the local landfill site.  T and I have made a start at redesigning the kitchen, it’s  difficult as the kitchen is long and very narrow, but we think we have worked out how to maximise on the space.  It is going to be hugely expensive and disruptive once we start, but at least we now have a plan. 🙂 Today I’ve done some housework and we purchased a lovely oak dresser which will eventually have a home in what will be our ‘rustic’ kitchen.  We had also planned to go and get a new computer for T, but after buying the furniture it was too late so maybe we will do that tomorrow?  We need to get it while it is still on Sale price.  Anyway we have both been feeling quite well this weekend so all is good.

I hope your weekend has been productive too.

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

Let Your Heart Soar

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Let Your Heart SoarHello friends!

It’s the middle of the week already!  Thank you all for your kind wishes.  I am feeling much better, T is still suffering and the doctor says it is some gastric problem and has prescribed some tablets which will take a while to start working.  In the meantime he feels sick whenever he eats and is having to drastically alter his diet.  Fortunately his mood has improved though.  It is always a worry when he is physically ill as it can trigger a bipolar episode, usually a massive low.

Today I went to our head office at work and met my manager for the first time.  He talks to me on the phone several times a week but today was out first face to face meeting.  I got a good vibe from him.  I spent the rest of the day with one of the team who showed me some of the complexities of the database I use.  Wow!  I was really impressed, what an amazing woman!  It was a good day.

The snow has just about gone now which is good but it’s really cold and wet now (not so good), I’m looking forward to spring and some warm weather.

The spread above is from my 6×6 journal, it’s actually the last page in the book.  I only have the first page and cover to do now and it will be complete. 🙂

I hope you are all keeping well and happy

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

Happy Holidays!

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Finished-journal-cover

Hello friends!

PICT0285Happy Holidays to you!  I don’t have to go back to work until January 2nd and I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am just to have a break!  On Saturday I decided to put up some Christmas decorations and attempt to get myself into the Festive Spirit.  I went out to buy a Christmas Tree, I wanted a real one, and I honestly thought that having left it so late I would be able to get one at a reduced price.  Wrong!   They had sold out!  So I bought the only artificial tree I could find and now that it is decorated I think it looks fine in the corner of the living room.  Christmas TreeThe cats don’t seem to mind it either.  The first Christmas we had the cats they were about 9 months old and they both completely freaked out when a large decorated tree materialised in the living room and until it was removed they refused to come into the room.  Last year we did have a real tree but it was TINY (only about 1 foot tall) and the cats took no notice of it so this year is it in our new dining room.  You can probably just about see it in the corner 🙂  Fortunately this year ‘the boys’ are not at all concerned about the tree in the corner, they haven’t attempted to climb it yet but both of them have had a turn at sitting beneath it.

So my big news is that I have completed my A4 Journal which I started in October 2011.  As always I did the cover last –  I used texture paste in which I embedded some little mirrors, I sewed a big black button on the front to act as a sort of door handle and I used loads of different coloured acrylic paints to give it an ‘aged’ look.  The title letters are from a word game – coloured with distress inks and topped with glossy accents.  Finally I decorated the wire spine (which I have come to hate) with ribbons.  It feels so good to have it completed :-).  My 6×6 journal is also just a few pages away from completion and, because a new year is coming up soon, I have made a start on my 2013 Revo-lution book and I will be sharing both with you soon.

A4 Journal finishedFinished Journal Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Quantum Entanglement

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Quantum EntanglementHello friends!

I hope you are having a great weekend.  I must admit I am not feeling too good at the moment, so I am not going to blog (it would just be full of self-pity and whining if I did), so here is a spread from my 6×6 journal instead.  I hope you like it.  The theory of Quantum Entanglement, also known as Einstein’s theory of “spooky action at a distance”, is really too much for my tiny brain to take in, but that doesn’t stop me from being interested in the subject.

Have a good week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Home, a place of safety

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Home, a place of safetyHello friends!

I hope you are all well and happy.  I have had a busy weekend.  Yesterday I had to make myself go and do the voluntary work in the cemetery, it was hard because I knew RoseMarie wouldn’t be there, but I also knew it’s what she would want me to carry on.  It was a lovely sunny morning and my friend Kate came to join me and we spent a pleasant couple of hours recording inscriptions from some of the memorials.

In the afternoon I went shopping, I was hoping to be able to buy some old National Geographic magazines cheap from one of the charity shops, but I couldn’t find any 😦  However in one of the charity shops I did find a rather fabulous scrap book of newspaper cuttings someone (unknown) made in the 1930s, I probably spent more than I should have done on it, but I couldn’t resist!  In the same shop I also got some good artist brushes for a bargain price.  Well you can never have too many brushes can you?

It is now 6:30 pm and this is the first time I’ve sat in front of my computer today.  I had to resist switching it on because I had chores to do today.  I got up early this morning and started to clear out and tidy up the cupboard under the stairs.  Eventually we intend to move the washing machine in there to free up some space in the kitchen.  It’s hard to believe that so much stuff could be crammed into such a small space.  I was ruthless and threw of lot out!  When my husband got up (much later than me) we spent time working out how we are going to deal with the plumbing and then we went to a big DIY store to buy the materials we will need.

It was too late to start by the time we got back so I went to see Mum and Dad, who are both fine, and I’ve just got back from that visit.

This image above is a single page from my A4 size journal and was done fairly quickly (I guess you can tell that) as part of the Fall Fearless and Fly challenge:

Headline prompt: Security, what makes you feel safe and secure? What rattles your sense of security? Where do you go for comfort and refuge?

Color prompt: Cool colors (blues, greens, violets, etc)

Quote prompt: You can’t make a place for yourself in the sun, if you keep taking refuge under the family tree. Helen Keller.

Well, my home and my art room make me feel safe and secure so that’s where I go for comfort.  I managed to get my two cats into the image, but not my husband, he is probably around the back of the house tending to the garden, either that or he is upstairs haveing a nap 🙂  By the way my house is not as big as the one depicted on the page.

I’m not sure who to attribute the quote I used to, I have seen several similar quotes attributed to different people, but nevertheless it is what I feel about home.  I feel that I ruined it with the terrible writing, but never mind…

Have a good week everyone and I’ll be back soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Focus on the Journey

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Focus on the JourneyCLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Hello friends!

I hope you have had a great weekend, mine has been OKish.  I woke up with a horrible headache on Saturday morning and that kept me in bed all morning.  I finally managed to get rid of it and at lunch time I got up to make myself some toast.  The phone rang and my husband told me it was a friend wanting to speak to me.  I groaned as I really didn’t feel like talking to anyone but he had already told her he would get me so I answered the call.  Then I was hit by a bombshell, I was told that another friend had collapsed and died that morning.  It was completely unexpected, I had only seen her the previous Saturday when she came and volunteered in the cemetery with me, helping to record inscriptions from the memorials.  She has been helping me do this for several years.  In all that time I hadn’t really got to know her that well as she was a very private person, but gradually she began to open up and chat, especially when it was just the two of us working together.  She was a kind, caring, thoughtful soul who did much to help other people.  The last time I saw her she cheerily said “See you in a couple of weeks”.  As far as I know she had not been ill and her death was sudden and unexpected, she was only in her early 70s.

Rest in peace Rosemarie, dear kind soul, I will think of you and miss you every time I go into the cemetery to work.  The work you did will be appreciated by many people from all across the world who carry out research into their ancestors from our town.

She has been on my mind a lot ever since I heard, I had to phone several other people to impart the sad news and then I spent the rest of the time working on my art which has helped me to stay grounded.

The page above is from my A4 journal and was completed in August.  I used  pieces from an old cycling map as the background and then gave it a wash of watered down gesso and acrylic paint.  The bicycles in the bottom r/h corner were an image transfer.  The image and quote on the left hand page I found on the internet and it made me smile as I can imagine how precarious it was to ride a pennyfarthing bike.  The photograph of the girl is me aged about 18 on a bike ride in Nepal.  I stamped on the page with a Tim Holtz reflections text stamp and a number stamp.  I think I probably used Portfolio water soluable oil pastels to edge the page.  The quote sums up what I feel about art journaling – the process is more important than the end result – It’s All Good even if it’s not always good art 🙂

Have a good week my friends and I will see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Do What Matters Most

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Do What Matters Most

 

 

Hello friends!

Apologies I am out of sych again with my blog posting because I have been super busy again.

This journal page was made back in August, I used a lot of ephemera for the background including a leaflet a got from the doctors about a (rather unpleasant) medical procedure I had to go through, and a leaflet my husband had about access to work.  The colour scheme is a bit odd, I don’t think that acid green and purple really go together that well but it’s just what happened when I made the page.  The words were originally done in a different way and I hated how they looked and re-did them.  To be honest I’m not really that pleased with this page, but I love the sentiment.

At the moment what seems to matter most to me is creating art.  I have just finished my first Teesha inspired journal and I love it.  Creating it has definitely been feeding my soul and given me some ideas which I shall be pursuing in the next few months.

On Friday I gave my presentation to the group in Ventnor and it went really well, I enjoyed it and, judging by all the smiling faces and the comments I received afterwards the audience did too.  I have one more presentation to do tomorrow evening and then I can relax a bit and try and get my life back on track and hopefully regular posting to my blog.

This weekend we successfully constructed the window blind for the dining room (it took several attempts to get it right), so I will soon have to start looking at how to improve the kitchen (and you know how I feel about that)!

Have a good week and I’ll see you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

Courage

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Be Inspired

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…

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Ready to welcome the ecstatic experience

 

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

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Create Everyday

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 🙂