Murmurations

Trees in winter

Geese on the Low Pond

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". 

Free as a Bird

This week's prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was: Birds. The first thing to do in my A5 sized journal was to make the background with sky and forest related colours using the large stencil from Stencilgirl's October Club set. Once I was happy with how it looked I added the branches and leaves using the medium stencil from the same set.

Then it was time to add the birds. By this time I had enjoyed seeing MaryBeth Shaw's latest video on the Stencilgirl Products Facebook site where she demonstrated how to use washi tape collage to fill up shapes. I remembered I had some Stencilgirl Bits (as in the bits that are left over when cutting stencils) in the shape of birds so I used her methods to produce the birds on this spread. And what fun it was to put my collection of washi tapes to good use. This is a very versatile technique and I can't wait to use it some more. My birds turned out even better than I expected. They were adhered to the background with gloss gel medium.

 The birds were outlined with a black Stabilo All pencil and the leaves with a sparkly copper gel pen.

 The text was added with a Dymo writer.

Mood of the Moment

I finally managed to finish my spread for last week's prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures just before the new one will appear at midday today. The prompt told us to: transform the edge of your page. The reason it took so long was the amount of layers on these pages. I tend to let my pages dry au natural rather than using a heat gun, and the cold, damp weather last week here in Scotland didn't help.  The layers also mean that it is hard to see the collaging I did in the background. It consisted of paper from Flow magazine, vintage cards and receipts as well as a transparency of one of my own photographs. I also added washi tape although the only sign of that now is the texture. The imagery on them has mainly disappeared under other layers, and paint. Touches of fluorescent paints in pink and orange helped to brighten the mood of the pages.

I used the large stencil from the 2017 February Stencilgirl Club and also the large one from September 2014 in the background.  The latter one also provided the blueprint for the edge of the page on the right hand side. The spread was done in the very last pages of my A4 Dylusions art journal so that I won't have to deal with that edge in future spreads.

Rubber stamping was added for more texture. Both are from unknown sources which means that there is no name on them and the packaging has long since disappeared.

I added further collage on the top layer using the bird image (from Country Living magazine) and the words (no idea where I cut them out from). I'm an inveterate cutter out of whatever catches my eye at any one time.

The shapes and images were outlined with black and white markers. 

Wings of Change

This week's prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was: create a page with an initial text layer. I used my new Inkredible pen from Jane Davenport (permanent when dry) for the writing. You can see some of the words still peeking through here and there. The text I spontaneously wrote was the starting point for the theme of the pages that were done in my Peacock art journal measuring 6x8".

The next layere consisted of stencilling using stencil L471 Hamburg, designed by Nathalie Kalback for Stencilgirl Products, with Distress Paints. I added rubber stamping, using the Marks stamp set,  also designed by Nathalie Kalbach. The other stamps I used of the spirals and the geometric shapes have been in my position for years and I have no idea any more where they were acquired.

I collaged on pieces of Tim Holtz's Postale tissue wrap, as well as the Irish postage stamp and the large bird. I collect imagery from here, there and everywhere (a great excuse to indulge in magazines) and have them in a big box. I try and write on the back where I cut them out from but sometimes forget to note this down before gluing them down, as was the case with this bird. All I can tell you is that it originated in the Country Living magazine, October 2016.

 The Wings of Change words came from a magazine too. 

The circles were stamped on from a lid and surrounded with water soluble oil pastels, and I did some outlining with a black Stabilo All pencil as well as a white marker.

Cold and Bright

It was a much brighter but very much colder day and that was good news for the dog walk. It was also enjoyed much more by the birds in the garden.

The Tide of Time

Sometimes the new prompts on my various projects hit a little too close to home and that was the case this week with the prompt on Colour Me Positive. It was: Change. The art challenge was to write something on your pages that you want to change. What I would want to change at the moment is time. I want to hold it back, stop it in it's tracks and even push it backwards. To make my beloved dog young again and healthy. I know it can't be done and I will have to accept that fact one day in the all too near future. Not yet, though! He is holding his own.

Thinking about that brought me to contemplate how life ebbs and flows and sometimes covers us with tidal waves. Hence the image of a beach and the sea, or is it the sky? Maybe both, using artistic licence.

Techniques used: collage in the shape of the woman (from a fashion magazine), the beach image on the right (from the travel supplement in the Sunday paper) and the flowers (from an old Flow calendar), stencilling, and rubber stamping.

Materials used: acrylic paint, including glitter paint (Martha Stewart), stencilling using the following stencils from Stencilgirl Products: the large stencil from the Sand and Sea Stencilgirl Club set June 2016, the medium stencil from the July 2016 club, S349 Nested Squares and S176 Osprey Wings. I used rubber stamps from the Kaffee Klatsch set designed by Nathalie Kalbach and a letter set for the text. I also used sparkly gel marker pens and water soluble oil pastels.

The written text at the bottom reads: "Change is never easy, you fight to hold on, and you fight to let go".  The other words written along the edges of the right hand page say: "At some point you have to realize that dogs can stay in your heart, but not in your life". I substituted "dogs" for "people".

With all my Heart

To my delight the Colour Me Positive prompt for this week was: "art feeds the soul". It was set by MaryBeth Shaw, the owner of Stencilgirl Products. The art challenge was to put a bird on your pages.

This gave me the opportunity to celebrate the fact that I saw Vincent van Gogh's painting The Starry Night with my own eyes during our visit to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) while in New York.

The background  of the spread was painted to reflect the sky in his painting. I then added text about art with a variety of rubber stamps. I had my own photograph of the painting printed and then distressed the edges and roughed up the picture to that it merged in better on the page, and could take some paint.

More details of other Van Gogh paintings were added on the left hand page. They are from the bottom to the top: The Yellow House, Cafe-Terrace at Night, and one of his sunflower paintings. Everything was integrated by stencilling with the smallest stencil from the July 2014 Stencilgirl Club.

For the birds I wanted to add crows as Vincent featured them often in his paintings but the best I could come up with were a black raven (sitting on the right) and three black swallows (all from Alpha Stamps). A bit of artistic licence is allowed!

Finally I wanted to add Vincent himself to the equation and I found a postage stamp with one of his self-portraits. I also borrowed his own words for the quotation I used that reads: "I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart".  Who could ask for more? I try and follow his example.

The Soul would have no Rainbow

The Documented Life Project 2016 started a new theme last week with the arrival of April. It is: Reaching for rainbows; creating outside the border lines. I'm combining both week 14 and 15's art challenges. Week 14 was: use black and white, and week 15: add a face. I also seem to have incorporated a fair amount of white space to make the rainbow stand out.

The background is white gesso with a little bit of blue paint mixed in. The rainbow was made using water soluble oil crayons (I used Caran d'Ache Neocolours II).

I frequently doodle faces while reading magazines or newspapers. Most of them don't amount to much but occasionally I like one and cut it out to add it to my stash of collage images and I fished one out to add to this spread (done in the 8 x 8" art journal).

I found a Native American saying about rainbows that I really liked and wrote it down. It reads as follows: "The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears".  To represent the soul I stencilled on the black birds which are from the Osprey Wings stencil by Stencilgirl Products. They were outlined with a black pen.

For the black and white part of the challenge I added a wavy border line by hand and then added the black and white stripes. This is an unusually simple spread for me but I liked how it came together. And it is also very satisfying to be able to combine two weeks into these pages so that I'm up to date with The Documented Life Project 2016. 

Listen to Your Inner Voice

Some time ago I started work on one of the lessons from the Fall 2015 21 Secrets series of classes (now no longer available but a new series of classes is coming up soon). It was the class by Robin Kalinich and I worked on it in my large vintage ledger art journal (size of a double spread = 16 x 22"). I had come to a bit of a stop with it when up popped the newest week 11 prompt for Colour Me Positive. It was: Intuition. And the art challenge was: use an animal somewhere on your page.

What I had done so far in my ledger already had several birds and butterflies on it and the words: "Listen to Your Inner Voice" rose up in my mind almost immediately I started thinking about finishing the spread for this week's Colour Me Positive.

This was a wonderful example of synchronicity and the spread came together beautifully after I geared to towards the prompt.

As this was a class I won't give you a lot of info about how I started off but I will say that the birds and butterflies all come from vintage books. I used stencils from Stencilgirl Products in the background as follows: the words come from the Mixed Media stencil (designed by Carolyn Dube) and I also used the Kilim stencil (by Cathy Nichols).

The title was stamped on using a metallic stamp pad. Then for no good reason other than that I happened to come across it while locating that metallic pad I finished off my pages with Special Effect Wax by Liberon, colour Verdigris. I had completely forgotten I had these waxes (and have no idea now how or why I obtained them) but I love the effect they had on these pages. The colour looks wonderful,  the wax has added a lovely smell to the pages and they are now completely smooth and don't stick together. The wax has sealed in the acrylic paint completely so it's fair to say I will be using these again.

It's Cold Outside

 A very cold day but of course as it's Valentine's Day we are all feeling warm and fuzzy inside! 

Pity the poor birds though who have to manage without cards, chocolates and flowers. I do my best to keep them happy too, not just today but every day.