All posts filed under: Art Journaling

Get Messy Thursday. Season of Introspection Week 5.

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I have been rolling out of bed this week feeling less than motivated to be honest, so when I decided I had better get on with some art journal pages, my heart did not leap. The feeling was more of a ‘what I am going to do on these pages which need filling with art and meaningful journaling?’ Fill them of course! As you know I am not much of a journaler, so I concentrated on the art bit.  I sat myself down gathered my paints and started to think about what to do. One of the prompts from this season was to use a silhouette, so I decided to have a go at that, once the silhouette was down (it took a couple of goes and there may have been some ripped out pages!) What else to add? I left it for a day or two while I worked on another background and when I came back to it I decided to keep it simple, black and white flower doodles for the win. My …

Art Journaling. My style

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This title might make me sound all sure of my art journaling self and my style within that.  I am not, but I am getting there slowly but hopefully surely.  I see many artists who have such a distinct style that I can tell their work from 50 feet.  It is not always the same medium or colour or subject, not by a long way, they just have a style which makes them, well, them. I want this, and I hope that in time I will achieve the same. The thing is, I am not sure I am much of an art ‘journaler’ and sometimes I feel like a fraud. My pages can end up tortured looking because I have tried to do all the things all at once! Adding all the layers, then the magazine cuttings (I really don’t like to use magazine cuttings, there I said it), then the journaling. What in the world am I to write about?  I am not spilling my inner thoughts all over a journal page, not for …

Get Messy Art Journal. Season of Introspection. Week 2.

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This week’s art journal pages are full of ink blots (I couldn’t stop!), colour, gelli plate prints, textured gesso and a little self reflection. I am getting along well with my altered book, I am finding it a good size and the pages hold up to lots of media without too much objection. Each of these pages pretty much made itself, in that I had no idea what I was going to do with them until I picked up my journal and got cracking. The bottom ‘owl’ page started as a bright inkblot I made over a week ago and didn’t know what to add at the time, so I left it.  Today I added the owl, black gesso ink blots and some gold paint to mute the whole page. The top page by contrast was never going to be an ink blot, I gessoed and added the lady, then a few days later made the black gesso ink blots.  After watching a tutorial from Carla Sonheim, I made the white gesso swirls, then I …

Get Messy Art Journal and sketchbook pages.

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I brought my sketchbooks on holidays and am happy that I did because I have enjoyed doodling some patterns which I am sure I will use in the future. I often plan with all good intentions and end up doing nothing I thought I would. This time I have enjoyed having my sketchbook to stick old pages in and practice my buoy sketches.  For this season of Get Messy we are using a book as a sketchbook/art journal which is something I like to do anyway, so I am happy with that. I did have a false start though. The original book I was going to use had very thin pages and I knew I wouldn’t be sticking any together to work around this so I picked a new book.  This one is the ‘avocado’ book which I picked up from a yard sale here on the Cape. There is a picture of the front cover in my last post.  For the above page I used three different flower stamps and gave them a painted …

Using an old book as a sketchbook.

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There once was a time when I would not have entertained the idea of using a book, old or new to draw in or cut up for pictures or words or just rip a page out of it to make a print on. Well, now I do all of those things quite happily!  I did a class at the beginning of this year by Lisa Congdon on Creative Bug which required some collage which is something I really hadn’t done before, so I didn’t have any papers to chop up. I decided to pop to the library and see if they had any books in the sale section (25 cents each thank you very much) which were colorful and interesting enough to use.  There were some books which would work,  and with some trepidation I cut the pieces I wanted to use out and stuck them down in a collage-y fashion. Then I joined the Get Messy community and I saw some work being done in old books, not cutting them up, using the actual …

The 100 Day Project 2016 11-30.

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I am very proud of myself.  I have not skipped a day yet or had to play catch-up in this year’s 100 day project.  This is mainly due to the fact that I only have a playing card size piece of art to make.  Sometimes I will cover the card completely and sometimes I work with the image which is already there. As I work my way through the 100 days I am drawing on more and more of my art journaling experience and treating many of the cards as mini journal pages. I like to see the original cards with the altered version.  The only one which I couldn’t tell the original card was number 26 because I layered on so much gesso. I couldn’t see the original card at all, I even tried shining a flashlight through it! Only 70 cards to go!  If you want to follow along with my 100 day progress on Instagram my hashtag is #100daysofalteredcardsbycatseatdogs. Happy Thursday!  

‘I Like’ Friday. Get Messy Season of Lists Week 6.

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I thought I was avoiding the prompts this week and then I realized that I had inadvertently incorporated the ‘write the list outside’ prompt very vaguely in the top page.  The prints are made with leaves, gathered from outside. Ta-dah! The list prompts have made for a challenging Get Messy season for me to be honest.  I don’t often incorporate writing in my pages with much success, but I wanted to give it a go. This week I decided to use the prompts not as a list but as a single sentence or idea, is one item classed as a list?  A single item list?  I think not. I do enjoy writing using a Sumi brush (Home is..) but it often takes a few run ups to get it right.  The thing is when you are working over a prepared background and it goes wrong, it is a ‘start again’ situation.  My first go at this page saw me miscalculating the word ‘paintbrushes’ and I ended up squishing it all up by the time I …

Get Messy Art Journaling. Season of Lists, week 5.

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  I have not been very prolific in the art journaling department this week, my time has been sucked into a new crochet project.  My ongoing granny square blanket is coming along very nicely, but it has grown too big to travel with, so I decided in my wisdom that I needed to start new blanket which would be small enough (to start with) to take on holiday with me and crochet like a mad old lady on the plane and at the beach! I am no sitting on the beach girl, I have the attention span of a toddler, so I need something to do, like crochet. I found the perfect blanket recipe at Meet Me At Mikes and after three goes and one yarn change, I finally got going with it and my ‘cheery wave’ blanket will help entertain me on our two week trip to Cape Cod in a few weeks. Anyway back to the Get Messy Art Journaling!  I managed one official prompt which is the ‘I am made of’ page …

Get Messy Season of Lists. Week 4.

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Lists lists lists!  Most of these pages did not turn out at all how I had envisioned.  I had no idea where my crazy eyed skull was going and I really didn’t like the ‘Six Months’ base page until I added the yellow and black. It just goes to show, the best thing about art journaling is where you end up and the fun and mess you can create along the way. If you want to know more about the Get Messy Art Journal community, pop over to their website and see if you want to join the fun! Happy Thursday x  

‘Get Messy’ Season of Lists. Week 3

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The season of list making continues in the Get Messy community.  I am not sure how I am feeling about the lists yet.  I enjoy a list and I may or may not write them to get through each day, but to use them as art journal fodder may be out of my range.  I don’t normally write much in my sketchbooks, I am more art, less journal. I had a go at drawing a face this week in my journal which I am pleased with. I feel like I have given myself permission to have a go at drawing more in my journal pages.  Some will be spectacularly terrible, but I am hoping to keep practicing and improving! Happy ‘Get Messy’ Thursday!