Hello friends
Here is my spread for July for Kate Crane’s Calender Challenge. I seem to have a butterfly theme this month 🙂
June was really busy for me so I didn’t get much time to doodle on my June spread, just recorded day by day what was happening in my life. Here is the completed June spread.
Sorry, no time to write anything else today, Tony and I are going away for a week on Friday and I have loads of preparation to do before then.
Have a good week.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello friends!
OK so I promised something ‘prettier’ this time, the scan doesn’t really do the spread justice because you can’t see all the glitter and shine on the page.
This spread was a challenge from a friend. She went to a craft show and when she came back she gave me this small bag containing lots and lots of tiny pieces of fabric saying “I expect you can do something creative with those”. Hmmm, I looked at the bag for a while and wondered.
These pages were already painted a very dull and pale pink colour and I just stared sticking the little pieces of fabric over the background, using ModPodge, until both pages were covered, you can just see some of the pink background. I kept thinking about the little things in life, the moments, when they are all brought together can turn into something significant (deep eh!). Then I started adding, glitter, gems and embellisments to the pages to give some dimension. I couldn’t find an appropriate quote so I made one up (based on many that I’ve read before).
That’s it for now, I hope everyone is well and happy. Today, at least for now which is early morning, the sun is shining – a rare event in recent weeks here – so I need to go out and make the most of it!
See you soon!
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello friends!
It’s another wet weekend in the UK! Oh well don’t have to feel guilty about staying in all day doing art 🙂
This page almost didn’t make it to the blog, because I’m really not that happy with it. I was tempted to just paint over it with gesso and start again, but I spent so much time getting it to this sorry state it probably deserves to be just as it is. I always try to do the best I can, but I’m not a perfectionist, I reckon if that’s the best I can do at this time then I should be satisfied. It’s a bit of a struggle with this page because it’s ugly, but I hope it might grow on me.
There are so many layers I couldn’t even begin to tell you the whole process, but the page includes textured gesso, acrylic paint, stamping, acrylic ink, lots of torn paper (of course),tissue paper, holographic paper and rub on lacey bits. I bought some small letter dies to cut the letters from holographic paper for the quote. The dies were cheap, and unfortunately they don’t really work in the Big Shot, so I had to improvise and add layers of card until eventually the letters punched out. The words ‘Best’ and ‘Moment’ are stamped with some vintage letter stamps that were being thrown out at work, there is not a full alphabet but I didn’t realise until I tried to find the N so I had to use Z on its side! I stamped with Perfect Medium and used black embossing powder.
Because of the way the light from the scanner reflects on the holographic paper you may not be able to read the quote, it says: Doing your Best in this moment, puts you in the best place for the next MOMENT.
That’s all for now, hope you are all enjoying your weekend, next time I will post something that I think is prettier.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello friends!
I hope everything is good with you all.
Here is my mid-week posting, it’s a page from my A4 journal. Unusually it’s just a single page, not a spread and I’ve already shown you the opposite page here.
There are quite a lot of layers on this page, torn papers, images downloaded from the internet, home made washi tape (inspired by my friend Carolyn at a Colorful Journey), the stamps are by Lost & Found My Mind’s Eye range, I think the set might be called Rosy ‘Everything’, I stencilled black and red acrylic paint through punchinella and added the quote to finish it off. The page was made some time ago at a time when I was struggling with some conflict in my life.
I have realised that making art like this really grounds me, I can sort stuff out in my head, breath, calm myself down. I made a page that I think is pleasing to look at from a situation that felt really ugly and uncomfortable for me. I hope you like it.
I hope the week is going well for you.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello friends
I hope you have all had a good weekend, mine has been busy. Spent the last two days working in the Heritage Centre in the Cemetery helping to set up an exhibition on Royalty and Ryde for our two Open Days next weekend. There is still quite a lot of work to do but nevertheless we made good progress and it will all look good. Now we just have to hope some people turn up to make it worthwhile.
The spread above is about my wedding on February 2 2007, I’ve written about that event before so I won’t bore you with the details again, except to say that I absolutely love the Island of Tobago and in particular the quiet fishing village of Castara. Our wedding was just before sunset on top of Mount Dillon overlooking beautiful Castara Bay, it was perfect.
To make the spread I first covered the pages completely with images cut from magazines, all the images were predominently an intense blue – the colour of the Caribbean sea, then I lightly gesso’d over the top, stamped and stencilled in red, yellow and green also colours of the Caribbean, and blue fishes. Then I added three images; the ‘Welcome to Paradise’ sign was on a tree outside Cascreole beach bar (where we had supper after our wedding), one image is of the wedding party – two locals, Susan and Horace Jackson (Horace was one of the witnesses), me, T and the lovely minister Brent Hart, the photo was taken by Paul T’s best man. There was no-one else there. The third photo is of one of the many beautiful sunsets you can see from the beach at Castara. The blue heart is a die cut baby wipe I had used to wipe some blue paint.
This spread makes me happy.
It’s my Dad’s 90th birthday on Wednesday and we are going out for a meal to celebrate that night so I probably won’t be able to post anything until next weekend.
I’ll be thinking of you all and I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello friends!
I hope you are having a good week. Mine is going fine.
For this spread in my 6×6 journal I started with a page that had some horrible dark green paint on it and the opposite page had dabs of pink ink. Not a great combination! I collaged copies of old maps and papers from the Papermania Bookprint collection onto the pages. I coloured them with Inktense blocks and water. Where I had used Mod Podge to stick the papers down it acted as a resist to the colour – a nice effect. I finger painted the whole spread with an ‘eggyolk’ yellow acrylic paint and then added the circles by stamping brown acrylic paint using bottle caps. I thought it needed some contrast so I stencilled blue acrylic paint through punchinella and a big dot stencil. Finally I added the words using brown Stazon and a set of tiny letters I purchased at Hobbycraft a while ago.
Making the spread was a bit of a journey, I had no idea where I was going with it when I started and I wasn’t sure where I was when I finished. It was good fun though 🙂
Enjoy the rest of your week.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello friends
Well we finally had some sunshine, and oh boy! doesn’t it make a difference, everything looks and feels better when the sun shines.
Yesterday I did a lot of work in the garden. The only area of responsibility I have in the garden is cutting the grass, but because I don’t do it very often, the two grassy areas are more weed patches than grass and look very scruffy. This contrasts very badly with the rest of the garden which is very neat and tidy, as are most things in my husband’s life (apart from me). I really don’t know how he puts up with me, he is obsessive about tidiness, and I live my life surrounded by clutter and stuff!
Anyway I cut down the two weed patches and they now look slightly more respectible, however I am pleased to say I have finally convinced T that we should do away with the grass altogether. The area at the back of the house where we occassionally sit on the rare occasions when it’s warm enough will be paved (when we can afford it) and the garden at the front of the house is going to have raised beds so T can grow even more vegetables. This is a huge relief for me I can tell you, and gives him more growing space – he loves his home grown veg.
Today was even more glorious but I woke up feeling poorly and spent most of the morning in bed. When I did get up there were chores to do and then a visit to my parents. Fortunately I have a day off work tomorrow so I will be able to enjoy a day that I felt like I missed today – if you see what I mean?
This spread is from my A4 journal, it looks a bit busy, but I was pleased with how it turned out. I did it a while ago so I can’t really remember the whole process, but there are ripped and die cut old book pages, acrylic paints, gesso, stamping and a really cool, but very long quote I found. It starts “As we grow up” and ends “live in the moment because every second you spend angry or upset is a second of happiness you can never get back”.
I think if you click on the image you should be able to see it big enough to read the whole quote – it’s a good one. I use all these quotes because I am really trying to improve myself – to improve in my art and in my attitude and outlook. I don’t always succeed and I definitely do have negative periods, but I’m trying and slowly I feel that I am getting to grips with it.
I hope you are having a great weekend.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello friends!
Happy Wednesday to you I hope you are all well and happy. I am fine, but I’m feeling physically exhausted at the moment – in a good way I think.
I’ve been doing something completely different at work last week and this week, it’s interesting but tiring for me.
This is a spread from my 6×6 journal. I started by collaging some images I’d printed but because my printer was running out of ink the colours came out really strange. Rather than throw them out I decided to use them as a base for a journal page. I also ripped up some of the local newspaper the was lying on my work table and stuck that down too. Then I finger painted with blue acrylic, I used a handcut stencil and some blue distress ink then I over collaged with scrapbook paper and the quote which I hand wrote. I know I should credit the author, but I’m sorry I can’t remember this time. Finally I overstamped with a paisley stamp and black Stazon and a flower stamp and blue Stazon and I edged the pages with the blue ink too..
Right, I’m off to bed now to get some rest before another busy day of site visits.
I’ll be back soon.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello friends!
I hope everything is good with you. We are in the middle of a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK and it’s unseasonally cold. At least it has stopped raining for the time being, but a little warmth and sunshine would be appreciated… maybe tomorrow? I mean we are well into May now!
This spread is from my A4 journal. You are probably getting the idea by now that one of the things I love to use in my art is torn paper – books, adverts, old maps, receipts, scrap book paper, etc. I just love paper! I also love script and especially script I can’t understand. I can only speak English so all other languages look fascinating to me.
I also like the idea of my soul blossoming, so thank you Marcel Proust for the lovely quote. Fortunately there are quite a lot of people in my life who make me happy.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hello 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
AJ's Art Journaling 