All posts tagged: Get Messy Art Journal

Using a ‘found’ book as an art journal.

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Firstly I ask myself is a ‘found’ book the same as an altered book?  An altered book is one which you transform with your art into a new experience which could start with an old book from the antique mall, a kids board book from the thrift shop or a clothing catalogue which you use as a base to sketch and paint in. A book is a book is a book and all are ‘found’ by whoever owns them.  So for the new season of Get Messy Art Journaling which is the ‘season of seasons’ we are going to use a found book, which sends my head spinning (in a very good way). Why? Because I just can’t decide! Then, someone mentioned cards to use for the season and my head went off on it’s axis again, what a good idea, old playing cards, vintage flash cards, postcards, postcard books. Oh boy this could take a while! So far I have narrowed my search (and pile) down to the following -a 1976 diary from “St Louis Photo” …

Get Messy season of story week 8

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I can’t believe another season at Get Messy Art Journal is almost over!  Almost two months of the season of story and it has flown by.  I took a while to get going on this one but I have really settled on a coherent ‘theme’ in my journal and I love to include the vintage photos and clipping out random words and arranging them into poems of a sort is sheer joy!  I am really loving it! Making art in my handmade books is so exhilarating, I like to work through and fill them up with art journal spreads as well as sketches and practice pages like the portrait over a spray painted background.  It is a place to try things and keep them all, good and bad, a place to learn and improve. I have been trying to add more sketches to my pages to make them ‘mine’,  but it all takes practice and that is what I intend to do. Happy Thursday x

Get Messy Art Journal, Season of story week 7.

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I am loving how this handmade sketchbook is filling up during the season of story.  I am no where near full but I am happy to keep going with this one and see it full of journaling goodness. Almost every page so far has begun with or included a vintage photo of someone or something.  The top page here has a 1923 note from a ledger of the time, an antique post-it!  The parrot has no rhyme or reason except that he is so cool he had to be included and he ended up on the first page, which I never start with.  I don’t know why, but I never begin a journal at the first page, I usually dive in wherever I feel like it and work out until it is full! I photocopied the reverse side of the photos of Dorothy Jean, so the writing could be included in the page.  One of the many things I like about old photos is the writing often found on the back of them. If you …

Handmade art journal and Get Messy Season of Story

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Whenever I visit an antique shop or estate sale I am always on the lookout for old photos, books and ledgers as well as any interesting papers from days gone by which I can use in art journals as collage or inspiration. Sometimes there will be a box of photos to sift through but in my eyes, the real finds are the albums still full of ancient black and white images often with written descriptions on the back or front of the photos and on the album pages. I love to see the names, the date and often a little description of the image. Just look at the poses and the joy in the page of photos from 1916 shown above! I consequently have a lot of old pictures and I use them in my journals some, but I want to use more. One per page at least to and fill my journal with photos and the imagined stories that accompany these people and their clothes and cars and locations. A happy coincidence that the …

The day I made a hand carved stamp set.

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I have been wanting to make stamps for ages now and I have had a couple of goes with some success but nothing amazing. Boosted by the fact that I said that one of my goals for May was to make a stamp set, yes, not just one lonesome stamp, a lovely friendly set of them, I got to work. I am not a get the equipment and dive in kinda girl, I have to look at at least one book on the subject if possible.  I checked out ‘Carve, Stamp, Play‘ by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and ‘Making an Impression‘ by Geninne Zlatkis from the library and got studying stamp making. Of course I don’t get far into any books about making stuff without wanting to jump in and have a go.  I grabbed my carving equipment and some stamp blocks and decided what I wanted to make a stamp of. I love to use sumi ink with a sumi brush so I wondered if I painted a basic design on each of my three …

Get Messy Art Journaling Botanicals class

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This week has been full of flowers in my sketchbooks and art journals! I am so happy to be a student in the Botanicals in Art Journaling class hosted by Get Messy Art Journal and taught by the wonderful and talented Alicia from Vine and Thistle.  I love to draw and sketch flowers and botanical everything anyway so this was obviously the class for me. So far I have been making botanical bits and bobs in my art journal, my new sketchbook and some vintage ledger paper. My favourite technique is from the free class and involves replacing heads with flowers and I can assure you it is super fun and you may not be able to stop once you have started! I am looking forward to completing the class and filling my sketchbooks with all of the botanicals. What classes are you taking at the minute?  Any recommendations? Happy Thursday x

Art journaling, bookmaking and sketching.

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I felt like I was neglecting my little art journal for the Season of Play at Get Messy this week. So one evening I picked it up along with some collage pieces I had chosen, cut out and left to one side. Rather than wait for inspiration to strike I decided to just go for it and make a page with these ladies, a constellation map and some butterflies with a few swipes of paint.                                                                                                                                                        I have also just signed up for Sketchbookery so I did a little sketching practice on this page too in the form of a flower …

I made a giant book!

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I had a case of FOMO this week or keeping up with the Joneses or whatever you want to call it. I saw two different Instagram friends post two books they had made, one was super chunky and amazing, the other was a small pamphlet stitched book made with kraft paper and what looked like old book pages. Well, you know me, old books and bookbinding, I loved them both and wanted to make something similar to combine the chunky and the vintage paper. As this is the beginning of the season of play in the Get Messy art journaling community, I decided to go for it and make a basic structure so I didn’t loose my mind but make it nice and full so I didn’t run out of pages (ha! no shortage of pages here). I used a fancy paper bag as the cover which I reinforced with a cereal box and I cut and folded 17 signatures each with five sheets. The pages are from an old cookbook, an encyclopedia, an old …

Get Messy Season of Kindness Week 7.

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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.

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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