All posts filed under: Get Messy

Get Messy Season of Kindness Week 7.

Published by

I have been practicing my faces this week guided and encouraged by the talented Katie Smith from Studio Katie and Get Messy Art Journal in the run up to the new class called ‘Sketching Faces’ and hosted by Get Messy. The top ladies are painted in black ink using a sumi brush and using a template provided by Katie which I put under my paper as a guide.  I like to put my own style on my faces and I am learning so much from this class and getting more confident at faces which are not straight on, like profiles and turned to one side slightly. I used my new favorite paper for these sketches which is ‘Tomoe River’ paper, it is lightweight but still stands up to ink without warping too much. The middle faces are painted onto vintage ledger paper which has a nice rough texture and absorbs the ink giving an interesting look. The last girl has painted botanicals in her hair and I used a stencil with ink in a mister to get …

Get Messy Season of Kindness Week 4.

Published by

This season of Get Messy Art Journaling I seem to have hit on a winner as far as my most enjoyable page goes – simple, simple, simple with an extra shake of simple. I like a white background and I like colour but I am not good at layers or explosions of colour. Some people are amazing at both of these things, but through my journals and over time, I have come to realize that I am a simple art journaling soul! This two pages were made using collage components cut from gelli prints of vintage doilies along with some humans from old National Geographic magazines. I don’t often use red but I like it with the black here. If you are interested in learning more about Get Messy, click here. This post contains affiliate links which are at no cost to you my lovely reader. Happy Thursday x

Get Messy Season of Kindness Week 3

Published by

I noticed these strands of seeds on the ground when I was walking home from my pilates class this week and picked a few up thinking hey, they would be good to draw.  Yes, this is how my mind works! I carried them carefully home in my gloved hand in the rain and it turns out that they were a lovely addition to my season of kindness journals. This season I am making a concerted effort to let myself experiment and do whatever comes to mind in my journals.  If I want to make another journal, I shall, if I want to use the same quote on two pages, no problem. I don’t often use quotes or words in my journal, but I have had this one from JM Barrie written down ever since I read ‘Wonder‘  to my boys a few years ago and I made a note of it in the diary for future use. I am very guilty of doing ‘what I think is the correct thing’ sometimes instead of what I …

Get Messy Season of Kindness Week 2.

Published by

  I am enjoying this Get Messy season so far, and working in my little hand made journal is a good place to be. However, I seem to have started a trend last season when I made a small journal and then I made a big one to give myself more options and ended up filling them both (bear in mind that I don’t put hundreds of pages in my books!). Following this apparent new tradition, I made another journal this season too!  I really do like to work in different sizes and on different paper when the mood/idea strikes.  For my new book I removed the text block from a children’s cook book and replaced it with hot press watercolour paper and a couple of pages of brown paper from a grocery bag. The new sketchbook (on the right) is a book I found in a thrift shop and it is the American version of my first cook book when I was a kid in England. I remember making food from it and I …

Get Messy Season of Kindness Week 1.

Published by

A new year and a new season for Get Messy!  The kick off season for 2018 is the Season of Kindness which is an ideal start to the year in my opinion. I made my journal using a vintage book cover and half ‘warm white’ paper and half ‘cream’ paper.  It has six signatures each with four pages and the book is pretty small at 4 inches x 8 inches. I decided to make the whole season about being kind to myself and my art journaling as I sometimes put pressure on myself to try all the techniques and then I wander off from what I actually want to do.  This journal is going to be full of stuff I want to do and I think it is going to be pretty simple.  I am not an ‘add all the things’ person, so I will be embracing the keep it simple method I like best! The first page has literally three components, a cut out window, a gelli print on vintage ledger paper and words …

My year of art journaling

Published by

All of the journals I filled in 2017 including my daily Moleskine planner. Books I used solely for art journaling. Books I filled as daily challenges, travel journal (Cape Cod Folks), general Moleskine sketchbooks and my daily Moleskine.   I was looking back at my art journals from last year and I was surprised at what I found.  Even though the years seem to fly by, a year ago can seem so much in the past and some of the pages and even the sketchbooks seemed so distant to me. When I was pulling out journals, I concentrated on the handmade ones because that is what I thought I had used all year.  I didn’t realize that I had spent the first three or four months using random sketchbooks including a Moleskine and a  Dylusions book.  I like these sketchbooks a lot and what I made in them, but I really enjoy the handmade books I made for each Get Messy season and for some of the monthly challenges I played along with via Instagram …

Get Messy Art Journal. Season of Nature Week 5.

Published by

I have been busy with my gelli plate this season, I just keep wanting to print flowers!  No bloom is safe when I get my paints out! Some of the pages were printed before I bound this book and some I have printed over collage elements, like the last page shown here where I stuck down the periodic table and butterfly and then printed some flowers on top. Nearly as popular as my gelli plate has been my sumi brush and black sumi ink which I have used to make patterns over pages. I love the depth of the deep black ink when applied with a nice thick sumi brush. I have been enjoying using the Jane Davenport Inkredible inks which smell as good as they look!  I used ‘Limeade’ on the page with the butterfly and gave it a little spray with my water bottle. I am ashamed to say that I have not followed any prompts this season, I have just been jollying along in my journal filling it up a little each …

Get Messy Season of Nature Week 2.

Published by

  It is the second week of the Season of Nature in the Get Messy community and I have got started in my hand made sketchbook.  I have been gelli plate printing seed pods and leaves and dipping pages in hand made ink from black walnuts and red cabbage. The page I enjoyed making the most is the sketches of the dried seed pods and I like it next to the printed same seed pods. So far, a lot of the pages are just started, a print or a colour added.  I like to do this just to be rid of the dreaded blank page, then I can come back and add to the page or spread later. If you want to see more Season of Nature art, go to #getmessyartjournal on Instagram and if you want to see what I have been making I use #catseatdogsgetmessy. Happy creating and happy Thursday x

Get Messy Art Journal. Season of Connections week six.

Published by

The last week of another fab season of Get Messy Art Journal rolls around and I have nearly filled my handmade journal, just a few pages to complete or finish. This week I used lots of collage elements which I don’t usually use so that was good to try, I also got inspired by a page of splatters and I changed the cover of my journal from a giant sunflower to plain brown paper.  Much as I love the sunflower (and it will house a new sketchbook), it just was not sitting with the sketchbook I am creating inside it. The beauty of making your own journal! This is some of the pile of collage materials I gathered together. As the page developed I organically began to incorporate the fold outs and the pages either side into the spread. In the end I had covered four pages with various flaps! Now I want to start this process at the beginning of a sketchbook with a variety of paper and page sizes and incorporate each page …

My Favorite Art Journal Pages

Published by

I had a wander through some of my art journals this weekend and I was very happy with what I found. Some pages I had forgotten about and I loved coming across them again. Lots of ideas come back and bring new ones at the same time as I see what I did on the pages and remember how I made them. This page is from the Season of Fairytales and is a vintage National Geographic image with wings drawn with a Signo Uniball white pen.  The wings on the seated figure are on the next page and can be seen through the circle I cut in the page. A page from the Season of Colour in my journal made from grocery bags and pages from a 1981 giant atlas found at the library while we were on vacation!  I used a lot of butterflies this season and loved making my own marbled paper. This page also has a cut out to see the butterfly on the following spread. This is a page I made …