It is Round

The letter R was our prompt for Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week. I found a quotation by Dada Bhagwan that reads: "This world has been changing from times immemorial. But because it is round one cannot find an end to it". It inspired me to work with as many circle stencils (from different sources) as I could find and many layers of colours, finishing off with black and white. I used quite a few of my Lindy's Magicals too. It started to look like the universe.

I then went to my stack of gelli plate printed pages and punched more circles from them. They were glued onto the pages as shown to represent planets and the sun.

I hand wrote the quotation using a white marker but it didn't show up too well on the page so I also added it in black on the big circles. There is a lovely bit of gold sparkle on the pages (in an A5 journal) but sadly this is very hard to spot on the pictures.

The Dreamers of Dreams

Our mission this week on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to add texture to our pages. My spread in an A5 journal was therefore started with a collage of washi tapes, using black/white and neutral colours. Once I was happy with how that was looking, I used Distress Crayons and Fluid Acrylic paints and removed them through the small stencil from the January 2017 StencilGirl Club as well as M155 Random Lace stencil using a baby wipe. I then used yellow spray paint and the small stencil from the October 2016 Stencilgirl Club to add the circles. I also dropped on some Magicals powder in dark blue.

The text came from Ode by Arthur O'Shaughnessy and reads: "We are the music-makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers, Of the world for ever, it seems. 

Finally I added some sparkle using a gold Perfect Pearls Misters and stencil M080 Repetition and some imagery in the form of postage stamps.

Two Kinds of Light

The prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week was to use the letter G. I found a great quote that covered it, from James Thurber. It reads: "There are two kinds of light. The Glow that illuminates, and the Glare that obscures. 

I wanted to keep it simple and used just one stencil: L270 Cornish Petals Large by Stencilgirl Products and combined it with light molding paste mixed with Lindy's Magicals. The colours I used were: Peony Scarlet Red, Batchelor Button Blue and Bells of Ireland Green.

I then also used some of Lindy's gold sprays for the centre and messed around with some luminescent neon paint.

As you can see on the picture above it all resulted in a very textural spread that illustrated the quote very well. After outlining in black I called it done.

I is for Imagination

Our latest challenge for Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to use the letter I and optional to add a floral element. As you can see I did both. It was a bit of a full on week so I grabbed the 6 x 8" journal that I use to mop up any left over paint, try out stamps and clean stencils, so that I had a ready made background to work on.  I think all the stencils in the background are from StencilGirl although I don't remember the exact details.

Then I added more background in the shape of the circles and the lines. StencilGirl has been having a blog hop with Lindy's Stamp Gang and while following the hop it dawned on me that I had some Lindy's goodies already. Always great to discover new stuff in your own supplies. (For those who know me I need hardly add that didn't stop me buying some more!). They came in the shape of Magicals, little pots full of pigment that can be activated by fluids. I mixed various colours with Golden glass bead gel and used a palette knife to press it through the stencils I choose.

The red circles were made with the L491 Organic Roots Large Stencilgirl stencil, the blue lines came from the large stencil from the January 2016 StencilGirl Club and the thistles came from L594 Thistle stencil. I used the mix of Magicals in purple and glass bead gel for the flowers, while the stems were done with ColourArte Radiant Gels. As you can see below it made the spread very three dimensional as well as lovely and glittery.

The quotation that I added in my own handwriting is by Carl Sagan, and reads: "Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." 
The spread was finished with some outlining with markers and water soluble oil crayons.

6 People Present

The prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week was to use the number 6. I found a quotation I liked very much. It's by William James and it reads: "Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is". Definitely something to remember when meeting other people.

The background started with collage, using magazine images and wrapping paper. Over them and on the uncollaged areas I used Distress Crayons and paints which were then removed with a baby wipe through stencil L608 Soulful Scribbles by Stencilgirl. I also dribbled fluorescent paint and ink down the pages till I was happy with how the spread was looking.

For the two people meeting I used the two ambassadors from Hans Holbein the Younger's painting. They felt appropriate for the quote as they both look rather full of themselves.

The quotation itself was stamped unto vintage looking scrapbook paper with a variety of alphabet stamp sets. Then some doodling and outlining was added with both black and white markers.

I worked in the 9 x 9" Bee Paper Mixed Media journal, which is ring bound as you can see on the above picture. Despite that I like this journal very much, mainly due to the great quality paper.

It has a Song

The Joggles Art Journal Adventures prompt last week was to incorporate a bird. As you can see I added quite a few! I knew from the start which birds would make it as focal points. Several years ago now, I bought someone else's scrap journal in a second hand book shop. In a book about Belgian art this unknown person had glued in images from all kinds of (unknown to me) sources. Fortunately after many years the glue had deteriorated enough for me to be able to gently remove the images. I loved these birds immediately (sadly artist again unknown to me) and this proved the perfect opportunity to use them.

The background was collaged first using a variety of vintage pages, maps, wrapping paper and music sheets. The next step was made by adding water soluble oil crayons as well as paint and then removing them using stencil L565 Loopy Leafy Vines Background by Stencilgirl® Then I added the leaves etc. from a piece of scrapbook paper coming from a Somerset Studio magazine. The big birds were glued on and outlined. Hopefully with the much better archival glues we have nowadays they will stay put this time.

More little birds were needed to fill the background and they came from the large stencil from the May 2014 Stencilgirl®Club while the circular leaves pattern originated on the large stencil from the June 2014 Club stencil set. 

The quotation I used was printed using the computer. It's by Maya Angelou and reads: "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song". 

Time Travel

The prompt this week on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to use the letter T, and in honour of Stephen Hawking I went with not one but two Ts: Time Travel. The quote by Stephen Hawking reads: Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible". 

For the background I used the large stencil from the April 2014 Stencilgirl Club. To that mix of clocks I added collage using an image from a Titanic poster, a clock, as well as two postage stamps with images of space travel.

The quotation was printed with a Dymo writer on self-adhesive tape and after some outlining the page was done. I'm working in an A5 sized notebook that I turned into an art journal by gluing pages together to make them more sturdy as well as gessoing the pages heavily before I get started. On the detailed pictures you can just see that the journal was lined originally.

New York, New York 2016

In a wonderful moment of synchronicity the prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week was to use the letter N and to include an animal. You should have seen me sitting behind my desk and almost shouting YES at the computer screen.

As it happens, it's exactly two years ago since the trip to New York and the most iconic image I have taken away from it is this view, taken from our tour bus, of the woman with her small dog standing on a street corner in Peter Cooper Village on the east side of Manhattan. I still find it hard to put my finger on why she made such an impression on me but she did (you will have seen her before on this blog if you are a regular reader), and consciously or not my little Flora bears a striking resemblance to her (at the time we still had our previous dog). It was one of those pivotal moments in life that remain in your memory forever.

You can also see her in this video of the trip.

 So I knew it had to be New York in my A5 journal this week and the background was done using the TCW729 City Buildings stencil from The Crafters Workshop. In the foreground I used the NY skyline mask from The Ink Pad shop, located in New York itself.  That was pretty much it, apart from the addition of some luminescent pink and the photo of the little dog and her owner printed from my own photograph by Social Print Studio, as well as a New York themed washi tape.

If this was a book (and it isn't!) perhaps I should go looking for her but I would rather she retained her air of mystique, and I will remain wondering about her, her life, and her little dog.

Calm

Our prompt last week on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to use a word and also feature it's definition. As you can see I went with CALM in honour of my beloved Calm App, that provides daily 10 minute meditations as well as meditation specially geared towards a certain issue, such as anxiety, sleep, breathe and of course calm. It has beautiful music too.

To me an owl is the perfect embodiment of calmness. So he (or she) became the mainstay of my pages done in a 9 x 9" Bee Paper Mixed Media journal. I also wanted the spread to reflect calmness so stayed with a subtle, subdued colour scheme and only used one stencil to do the background. It's the large stencil from the March 2018 Stencilgirl Club. The only other addition was some paint splattering in white.

 I also found some very fitting postage stamps (all French) to tone in with the pages and showing calmness enhancing imagery.

Veni Vidi Vici

The challenge last week for Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to use the number three, and if we wanted, use 3 words that go together. The first thing that I thought of was: "Veni vidi vici". That classical education sometimes produces starting results! This saying that means:" I came, I saw, I conquered" is usually attributed to Julius Caesar boosting after a quick victory. I could not resist incorporating the man himself in an image cut from a book I used during Classics lessons in school. A bit of nostalgia never does much harm.

The background  of this spread (done in a 9 x 9" Bee Paper Mixed Media journal) was made using the L607 Soulful Scribbles Let Go stencil designed by Traci Bautista for Stencilgirl Products. I added collage using Tim Holtz's tissue wrap  as well as rubber stamping with small round Tapestry stamps as well as a stamp from the Mish Mesh stamp set designed by Nathalie Kalbach for Stampendous.

 The focal image came from a magazine although I have no idea which one any more. I have a big box full of stuff cut from magazines and this one seemed to suit with the big eyes and glasses. The stamped eyes on the right hand page came from a set designed by Jane Davenport.

Silent Sea

The letter S is what we were told to use on Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week and as you can see I went with the sea. I had a great quotation by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner that reads: "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free; we were the first that ever burst into that silent sea". 

The background was made entirely by using the S480 Symmetrical Waves stencil from Stencilgirl Products, and midway through I added more texture by tearing up strips from previously made gelli plate printed papers and glueing them on. I then added some more stencilling with the same stencil.

The ships came from a vintage book on seamanship and I also found a great postage stamp to add to the page, which is part of the 9 x 9" Bee Paper Mixed Media journal.

Mica spray paint was also added although it is hard to tell. In the background above you can also see the wave marks I made when I gessoed the page at the beginning.

Moon Walk

What with snow shovelling, trying to prevent the snow from coming in and prolonged dog walks due to the weather conditions there was not much time left for anything else. But I wanted to do the prompt for Joggles Art Journal Adventures which was to use the letter W. It stands for many wonderful (!) things but walking is what I love to do so walking it was. I found the words Moon Walk first, and then I grabbed an 5 x 8.1/4" Moleskine sketchbook in which I use up left over paints, clean stencils and rubber stamps etc. I do all this on one spread till I feel the page has had enough and then start on the next one. This journal was full of such pages and it was about time to do something with them.

I found a walking figure in my box of magazine cut-outs but she proved to be way too large, and because walking was the focal point of this spread I simply made sure her legs made it onto the page but was forced to cut off her head. Then it struck me the head would look good on the facing page so there she is. There are times when working fast produces fun results.

I added washi tape images (by Jane Davenport) of figures. I'm not 100% sure but believe all the stencils used in the background are from Stencilgirl Products although I could no longer tell you exactly which ones they were as the background was finished in stages, quite some time ago.

This sketchbook will continued to be used when time is short and I still want to produce a spread. Looking through it, there are some great backgrounds in there crying out to be put to good use!

Dreaming

For this week's prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures we had to use the letter D. I found a quotation I liked almost immediately and as a bonus it contained two words starting with a D: dying and dreaming. It's by Brian Williams and reads: "A person starts dying when they stop dreaming". Then when rummaging through my box of cut-outs I discovered a copy of Christina Rossetti's poem: When I am dead, my dearest. Not only did this contain even more Ds but it also resonated beautifully with the quotation.

The background was collaged with vintage text, partly from the D pages in a vintage dictionary. Then paint was added and removed again using the small stencil from the December 2015 Stencilgirl Club set, as well as the M083 Little Eddy Rose stencil, also from Stencilgirl Products. I dropped some luminescent pink paint down the pages too.

The collaged figure comes from the Joan of Arc painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage (1879), now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. 

I'm not that over the moon with this spread (in an A5 sized journal). It was done in haste as it has been a very busy week where I have been de-stashing even more as well as trying to put everything back in my studio while at the same time trying to remember where I am putting it all. But I already know that I will spend the next few weeks (months, years???) trying to find things again. On the plus side however it all looks very organized, lots of stuff has gone to charity shops, and I feel like weight has lifted off my shoulders. Now to get back to work properly and start a new quilt but not before a binding has been added to the last outstanding project.

We are also battening down the hatches for the coming onslaught of extreme weather conditions. At the moment the forecast is talking of about 8 inches (20 cm) of snow coming our way. There will be more white pictures coming up, and we will make the most of it all while trying to stay warm. At least, that's the plan!