A slew of art journal pages

It's been 3 weeks since I posted, but not because I haven't been journaling ... quite the opposite! Here are 8 pages that are finished, and I have 6 more spreads I'm still working on. I don't usually have that many going at once, but they're just piling up on me LOL! That's okay, though ... gives me places to jump around depending on my mood ... I can do a little collage on this page, or doodle on that page, or write a little here and a little there. They'll get done when they get done, right?

So, onto the 8 pages. The first one is quite sad. A family friend's son-in-law was killed in a car accident ... he left behind a wife and 3 young children. I did this page while we drove from the memorial service to the graveside. This is only the left side of the spread ... the right side is the same background, but is currently blank. I plan to journal my thoughts about it all, but haven't had a chance to really sit quietly and dwell on it. And once I do, I don't think I will want to share that.The next 2 spreads were done using Sarah Whitmire's soul journaling prompts. She did about 3 weeks' worth of prompts on her blog, and I've done the first 7 or 8 days, I think, but these are the only finished spreads so far. I hope to keep working on her prompts, but it'll take awhile.








This next one was a fun page to do! My stepmom wanted to take me and my girls to find this guy that makes really great hotdogs and brats and such, but we had a little trouble tracking him down. After a few wrong turns and such, we discovered he wasn't even there that day ... must've been his one day off. Oh, well, maybe next time!I have a 10 year old!?! I can't believe how fast that went by ... people always say that, but it is still shocking just how true that is. Anyways, I just had to memorialize the passing into double digits. I love you, Emily!!This spread shows our misadventure with the train ... we got up really early to catch a train to Chicago to go to the planetarium, but because we had trouble finding a place to park, by the time we did find a spot, the train was coming and there was no way to catch it before it took off again. (Say that 10 times fast ... whew!!) The next train was an hour away, so while we waited we changed our plans and went to the (free) zoo instead. Hopefully next year it'll happen!Yeah, I told you I had a slew of 'em LOL! This next one was really fun and challenging to do. Nancy started a private Flickr group where she posts a collage sheet each week and we are challenged to use at least 3 of the elements in a spread. This is from week 1. I used 8 of the 10 images given. Unfortunately, I didn't get it done until the middle of week 2! Now we're on week 3 and I have week 2 and week 3 elements cut out and waiting for inspiration ... I wonder if I'll ever make any of the weekly deadlines LOL!And, finally, here's the last one of this post ... my stepmom, sister and sil had a "girls' day out" and I used some of the brochures I picked up to journal about it. Fun!Well, that's all for now ... gotta catch up on those other 6 spreads before too many more come along ... hope you have a great day!

Zentangle ... had to try it ...

The latest doodling technique is the Zentangle ... my understanding is that you divide a space into irregular pieces, and then doodle different designs in each piece. So I tried it with my handprints. A very relaxing art form, at least while doodling. Trying to come up with a different design for each piece? Not so relaxing LOL! And I'm not even sure if I'm doing it right ... some people just draw the designs into the spaces, like I did, but others make the design stretch and skew to fit the space. Whichever way, though, it looks cool! And it was fun, so I may do some more of this in the future.

And Volume 2 is finished, too!

While the kids played at McDonald's today, I was able to finish up the last couple of pages in Volume 2 and now it can be declared full, too! The girls' dance recital photos came sooner than I thought they would, so I was able to finish the recital layout started here.Then I finished journaling about our watery weekend.And, of course, I just had to document my love of Pinochle! I waited until my grandparents retired their last deck and got a new one so I could use actual cards in my layout. They are well worn and have seen lots of play LOL!I wasn't going to bother showing this page, but since I had the camera out, I went ahead and snapped a pic. This is the last page and the pocket at the back of the Moleskin. One of the best tips I got in the online class was to use the "back door" to test things out before doing them on the page. Such a great idea! I will do that from now on.Now I can focus on Volume 3 ... I've already started the first two pages ....

A few random journal pages

Well, I'm still playing in my art journal, but I've slowed down quite a bit ... I did this when I got close to the end of my last journal, too, when I wasn't sure what I was going to use next. Except that this time I do know what I'm going to use next ... I made a journal out of a composition notebook cover and some manila folders, using Kira's instructions. So what is it that's stopping me ... going back to a bigger size? The daunting task of having to fill all those blank pages? What?! I really need to just get on with it ... maybe if I scribble on a few random pages, it'll get me past it, whatever it is ....

In the meantime, here are the few pages I've done recently. This first one is a just a bunch of random events that happened over the course of about 2 weeks that I just kept adding until the layout was filled.My girls got to be in this year's 4th of July parade ... they had a blast! While I sat on the sidelines with the grandparents and waited for their group to come (they were 2nd to the last in a looong line), I doodled the title and glued in the scrap from a flyer one of the parade groups passed out.
The other night my mil had a bra party. A what?! Yes, a bra party ... it's like a Tupperware party, but with bras. The bra lady talks about getting the proper fit for good support and lift, then everyone gets measured and is given several bras to try on for the best fit. See the ball and star stickers on the bra? Well, when she measures you, she has you take the stickers and put them on your shirt, right where your nipples are in your current bra. Then you go and try on the bras and when you put your shirt back on, you can see how much lift you got with a better fitting bra ... one lady at the party had a 3 1/2" difference!! And she looked like she had lost 20 lbs., too! It's amazing what a correct size bra can do for your figure. Anyways, I just had to add my stickers to my journal ... it's what we art journalers do LOL!

Art journal at a lecture?

I created this page during a lecture on thread at quilt guild yesterday morning. The background is watercolor crayon smeared with a babywipe. The lecturer had some beautiful art quilts hanging behind her and I did a very rough coloring of a landscape one ... the brown in the middle ended up looking more like a tree trunk with no leaves, but it's supposed to be a path LOL! Fun and easy to do and made a much prettier background to the notes. I also got the lecturer to sign the piece up near the sewing machine. Love it!

Lots of brown in my art journal

Last night and this morning, I worked on these two pages. The first came about because my girls are always asking me to "tell us a story about our day." This is how I always start those stories, so I just had to put it in my journal somehow. We live in a house with brown cedar siding, so I attempted to draw that for my background ... I'm very pleased with how it turned out!
Then this morning, we got up very early (well, not super early, but early for a Saturday) and went to the local bakery for some German pretzels. While waiting in line, I decided I needed to journal about these yummy things, so when I got home, I drew the pretzel before eating it (I think that was harder than the actual drawing LOL!) Then I taped in bits from their brochure while savoring the pretzel. Sooo good!Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!

A sketch

This is a sketch of the back of my dad's house. I doubt Architectural Digest will be knocking on my door anytime soon, but I'm pleased with it all the same. I especially like the garden plants ... I tried to loosen up a bit and just give the suggestion of them, and was pleasantly surprised at the results. No color because I didn't want to mess it up LOL! Maybe next time ....

A whole bunch of new pages in my art journal

I haven't posted for a couple weeks, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been journaling ... I'm glad to say that I am keeping up with it, though still not as much as I'd like. It doesn't help that we do not have a printer right now so when I want to journal something with pics, I can't. But I'm currently working as editor of the newsletter for my quilt guild and when I was picking up the newsletters from the printer yesterday, I had the forethought to bring a page full of pics on a thumb drive for them to print out for me. Now I can't do this every time I want to print something out, but it was nice to get some pics into my journal last night. Depending on how long it takes dh to decide on what new printer to buy, I might be bringing a new file each month along with the newsletter LOL!

Anyways, here are the pages I've done in the last two weeks. The first two are quotes from a book on tape I was listening to at the time.











Then I did this page on a Bible verse that jumped out at me one night.
Here's a page I did after I fainted and hurt myself ... yeah, it wasn't fun, but the page was LOL!The girls and I went to a fishing derby at my parents' and in-laws' church ... I face-painted the kids with my mil, while my girls fished with grandpa. Somebody was going around taking pics of the kids with a Polaroid, so I just had to put them in my journal.Just a fun page where I listed some of the things I love about my girls.This is a page about my Great Aunt Meme who died last weekend at age 96. She was an amazing lady and I just wish I could've spent more time with her. I sketched the flowers that were embroidered on the inside of the lid while the pastor spoke, jotting down verses he mentioned. Then the next morning I created this page.Last weekend was my girls' dance recital ... this page is of the snapshots that I took during the rehearsal. I'm going to save the facing page for when the formal dance portraits come (which will probably not be until the end of summer).

A garden in my journal

I finished planting this garden in my journal:We are studying the fruit of the Spirit at church right now, so I chose plants that have those meanings. This was the work-in-progress spread that ended up with splotches on it from the inkjet transfer mishap. I'm not all that crazy about the blue background ... if it weren't for the fact that I needed to try to camouflage the splotches, I probably would've left the sky plain. It's a bit too busy. But overall, I'm pretty happy with it. Now to move on to another page ...

Brownies ... mmmmm ...

My brother makes the bestest brownies and on Saturday he brought not only a huge batch, but the recipe as well ... what a great guy, huh?! I just had to memorialize them in my journal. Now I know I will never lose this recipe LOL! My 9yo dd and I plan to make our own batch very soon ...Thanks, Mitch! Love ya!

I fixed it!

In the last post, I showed a page with inkjet transfers that I had a few problems with. The result was pink splotches around the transfers that also bled through the paper. A couple days later, I realized there was a way to fix it ... color! I took a watercolor pencil that matched those pink splotches and colored in the background. Now the splotches are covered up ... love it! I just can't believe it took me a few days to think of it LOL!Then on the backside of the right page, there were five big pink splotches ... since there was nothing else on the page yet, I thought maybe I'd cover it up with collage or paint. But Sunday we were at my in-laws' house and everyone was gathered in the family room doing various things. I wanted to sketch in my journal, but I was also thinking about this ruined page. While looking around the room, I noticed my mil and one of my girls doing a puzzle. And that got me thinking ... we LOVE puzzles! I could draw puzzle pieces around the splotches, color them in, and journal about this love. So I did ... I sketched the puzzle pieces in, then the next day I colored them and journaled. Another fix, and a great page, to boot. Can't beat that!I'm still working on the backside of the left page ... that has a few splotches, too, but was on a work in progress. I've got some ideas, but it'll be a little while ... will post it when it's finally done!

Who doesn't love a good shoe sale?!

My girls and I went shoe shopping yesterday ... 8 pairs came home with us LOL! That evening I wore my new faves and drew one while the girls were at dance class.
Then this morning I attempted to do some inkjet transfers based on this video. I did not have the same success, but I learned a few things. First, do not choose "photo" under the ink quality ... normal would've been fine. Second, make sure your spray bottle shoots a very fine mist. And third, if possible, use pigment ink, not dye ink. As you can see, the ink ran and left pools of pink at the corners. That wouldn't have been so bad, but it bled through to the back of the pages, too. In fact, on the left side, it bled through not only that page, but the next page, too. Actually it was the shoe page above ... luckily, I hadn't finished the watercolor on the shoe, so I was able to cover it up pretty well. Can you tell?Next time I will use what I learned to do it a little differently ... hopefully with much better results. It was fun to play, though ... that's what art journaling is all about ... playing! Now I get to play with the page that's still in progress and now has pink splotches all over ... who doesn't love a challenge!

More art journal pages

Since taking that online art journal class, I have really enjoyed working in my art journal again! I think I was focusing too much on the art side instead of the journaling side. I'm more comfortable with words than pictures, and I've been learning that it's better for me to decide what I want to journal about, then make art that complements the words. Not that I still won't occasionally do art on a page just because, and then journal randomly on it later ... gotta mix it up a bit sometimes LOL! It's just nice to learn something about yourself, and then be okay with it (even embrace it). These are my pages from the past three days.

Oh, to be young again ...

I think that says it all, don't you?

On the other hand, if I were to be a kid all over again and I did things differently, I might not end up with the wonderful kids that I have now. Unthinkable! So I guess I will leave things be (like I have a choice, right?!) Here's a page I did, sketching and gluing to represent all the activities of the weekend. Hope you had a great Mother's Day weekend, too!

Memories of my grandparents' house

On a private Yahoo group (that I mention at the end of this post), one challenge was to draw a floor plan. I'd been thinking for quite awhile to draw one of my grandparents' old home and this was just the push I needed! I had so much fun working on this ... so many memories came flooding back that I hadn't thought about in years. Try it, it's fun!

More class pages

Here are some more pages from the class:

An Online Art Journaling Class

Recently I mentioned an online course I took to learn more techniques for art journaling. It's called "Love This Journal: Become an Art Journaling Diva in 21 Days". The instructor, Jessica, presents you with daily videos showing new techniques and ideas for playing in your art journal. She also includes lots of tips on how to draw things so that they are recognizable (this is a great class for people who don't think they can draw at all ... I learned so much!) I can't show all the pages we did, because many of them would reveal too much of the class, but I do have permission to show these pages (Blogger is being a little finicky today, so I will post more pages in another post). If you're interested in trying the class yourself, hurry and sign up ... the next session starts today! You won't be disappointed!Another great feature of the class is that at the end, Jessica provides a link for a Yahoo group for "graduates" where they can continue to share pages. The participants of this exclusive group also challenge each other with fun prompts. I did one recently that I will show you later. It's one of my favorite pages to date!

Currently, I'm taking Jessica's level 2 course, which students are welcome to take after level 1 if they'd like. This is the first week and I've already learned some great tricks! When I've finished the class (in about 5 weeks), I'll post some pics.