All posts tagged: Get Messy

Get Messy Season of Reflection week 1

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For this season I explored the Japanese stab stitch book binding technique.  I have to admit that I have always looked past this method as I didn’t think it would be a great journal binding as it doesn’t lay flat readily.  I always thought it looked too bulky to work with the papers I like to journal on and I was right, it would not work very well with a  watercolor paper even though I am sure it could be persuaded to open flat. So I explored some different papers. I followed the advice of the experts and went for the four hole binding to start with and I used a soft unbleached mulberry paper and my trusty waxed linen thread.  It opens nicely and I like the folds at the outside edge of the book. This technique does not require folded signatures, you can use single sheets or folded sheets with the fold at the spine or the open edge.  I am thinking of all the possibilities to be had with this book binding …

Art supplies to go

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Tomorrow I fly from the mid-west over to Portland, Oregon and I am a combination of nervous (don’t travel by myself much) and super excited! I am meeting some of the wonderful ladies from the Get Messy Art Journal community who I have got to know over the inter webs and I am thrilled to be meeting them in person this weekend. As we are gathering to make art as well as see some of Portland and eat good food, I am taking a selection of art supplies and sketchbooks. How to decide!? Airline regulations help somewhat as I am not checking a bag so I have to abide by the liquid/gel rules so I am not taking any acrylic paints or inks.  I am sure I could take a small amount but I don’t want to risk losing them. So I thought I would make a new watercolour set and team it up with a selection of pens, brushes , a water brush, some Inktense pencils, a glue stick and some hair bobbles! I …

Get Messy Season of Seasons week 3

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  Week three of Get Messy Art Journal’s Season of Seasons is already here, we are almost half way through!  I feel like I have just started which I am interpreting as a good thing! These are my art journal pages from this week and I have included repeat patterns from Alicia’s tutorial and of course I had to do more gelli prints using leaves and stalks from my garden. I picked some Magnolia leaves which I printed with and drew and cut out for collage pieces.  I also snipped a couple of tomato plant stalks which gave me some very effective prints using the gelli plate and some Sennelier acrylic paint.   Prints from the garden into pages in my art journal.  I am enjoying using this old book for my journal and the addition of library cards in glassine envelopes.  I am considering these tomato plant prints on the old library cards a success! Happy creating and Happy Thursday x SaveSave

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 …

Get Messy Season of Kindness Week 2.

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  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 Art Journal. Season of Connections week six.

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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 …

Get Messy Season of Connections. Week Three.

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The season of connections over in the Get Messy art journal community is in full swing and I am really enjoying it. I suppose I do use things with connections to me in my journal just by the nature of the fact that I chose it or chose to draw or paint it, but I am more and more fascinated by this as I fill this journal. For this spread I painted and sprayed and splattered the pianola paper to get started.  When I was merrily slapping paint around, I didn’t have a plan for it, I was just making some background paper. Once I saw the tutorial on the Get Messy blog which covered mixed media self portraits, I thought I would give it a go. I grabbed a handful of library cards (I work at the library, so there is that connection) and painted some self portraits on each one.  I do these very quickly with no sketch or outline, so they are all different even though they are painted from only a …

Get Messy Season of Connections. Week 2.

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I have been exploring connections of all kinds in my art journal this past two weeks since the Season of Connections started over at Get Messy. Once I started thinking about it, connections are everywhere, physical and abstract. I have a strong connection to nature, so there is usually a botanical theme to my journal somewhere.  It may be flower shapes or organic leaves or a landscape or two. So far in this journal I have printed leaves with my gelli plate onto dry wax paper and stuck them in, I have stitched leaves and painted them with watered down sumi ink. A completely random connection appeared when I printed a leave on a page from an old dictionary and when I tore it up to stick down, I noticed that I had printed on a page which had ‘folk dance’ at the top. This is an immediate connection to my maternal grandparents who used to take me folk dancing when I was a kid.  I loved it and have very fond memories of folk …

Get Messy Art Journal Season of Fairytales. Week Three.

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Week three of the season of fairytales and I am still enjoying filling my little handmade journal.  What I have learnt is that I like to work bigger, this journal was dictated by the size of the book covers I chose, but every time I open it, I wish it was bigger.  We live and lean don’t we?! I did buy a big fat old book this weekend from the local YMCA book fair, which I want to make into a sketchbook full of watercolor paper, but that is another story which I will share when I make it. At the same book fair I also bought a couple of fairytale books which I am using for collage material.  I seem to have landed on The Frog Prince as my fairytale of choice so I am keeping all my book pages from that story. I have been following the daily prompts on Creative Bug this month and today’s was to make a poem from found words. So I pulled a couple of pages from The …

Get Messy Season of Colour/Color Week 5

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This season is flying by and has been one of my favorites which I think may be because I made my own sketchbook from paper bags and an old giant atlas and I have tried to not put any pressure on myself with any of the pages. This has sometimes worked and not always worked if I am honest. I don’t want a half full book, so I am working to fill it and I don’t want to turn over a page I don’t like without finishing it (I would totally do this in a bought sketchbook).  This has meant that on more than one occasion I have had to slog through a page which didn’t start at all well and keep working on it until it transforms. I am happy to say that I have ended up with successful pages in my eyes. I have been enjoying the prompts and the tutorials provided by the Get Messy team this season, to the extent that I haven’t done nearly as much as I have been …