I’ve been journaling away in this little journal – not too many more pages and it will be time to start a new journal, and I have some ideas for creating that new one – but more of that later.
Here are some of the pages that I have been working on recently:
I have been drawing mandalas.
I was inspired by Karin’s post regarding her hand surgery – so I traced my hand in my journal – and created this healing hand for Karin.
I started giving the studio a bit of a clean-up, who would have known that I had a workbench under all that stuff! It is amazing – almost like having new tools to play with.
This journal was one of the finds – I made it earlier this year (I think!) it was an old desk diary cover that I covered with embroidered fabric. I have sewn two signatures of watercolour paper into it and this is my new art journal.
I bought some water colour paints before we moved to Esperance (nearly three years ago!) and they haven’t been used. So I decided that I would experiment in this journal with watercolour backgrounds – normally I use acrylic paint to create my backgrounds.
For the past month I have been following along the 30 Journals – 30 Days Interviews over at Dirty Footprints Studio and now at the end of the month she has invited everyone to post their own interview – so here is my interview:
–How long have you been Art Journaling? When I was a child I made scrapbooks and I’ve kept written journals for most of my life. I tried art journaling, but it just didn’t seem to ‘click’. That was until I took Kelly Kilmer’s A Prompt a Day Online Workshop in Jan 2009 and then Julie Prichard’s online workshops. It was the kick start that I needed now I prefer art journaling to my written journals.
–How has Art Journaling impacted, changed, or enhanced your life? Writing to me is therapy – it allows me to get everything out – thoughts, feelings, emotions, fears. Art journaling is an extension of that. It allows me to explore things in a new way. I have experienced a lot of pregnancy problems and the loss of 4 of my son’s to Stillbirth and Neonatal death – journaling saved me. I created a Grief Writing Workshop for Bereaved Parents – now I am looking at ways of incorporating art journaling into that workshop.
–What are a few of your favourite Art Journaling materials to use? Acrylic paints, micron pens, glue stick, uniball signo white pens, old books, magazines, scrapbooking papers, photo’s, prismacolor pencils.
–Who are some of your favorite Art Journalers?
–What kind words of encouragement would you say to an Art Journal newbie?
Just give it a go! Play – your journal is a great place to play and experiement. Look to others for inspiration and ideas, but don’t compare your work to others – let your art speak for itself.
–Where can we contact you…give us some link LOVE!!
My blog http://4ravens.wordpress.com
I decided to fill in the raven with the words of one of my favourite Beatles songs – Blackbird. Not sure if it is finished yet – I think it is a work in progress.
I was inspired by Roben-Marie’s stencilling and thought I would create a stencil to finish my blackbird painting. I found an image of a raven that I liked and thought I would try using it as a mask rather than a stencil. After trying it out on a sheet of paper I thought it would be a great addition to the cover of the journal.
Here are a few pics of my new art journal, it is for a new project that I am working on (more on that later). 
The cover is made from recycled card, the fabric was a gift in a swap parcel. There are 6 signatures of 4 sheets of paper, totalling 96 pages. 
It is bound with embroidery thread – originally I was going to use tacket binding but it didn’t work out, so I devised my own binding through the holes that I had made for the tacket binding.
Now to fill the pages, with art and writing.
I couldn’t sleep this morning so I thought I would take the opportunity to create. The above page was created using prompts from Kelly Kilmer’s – A Prompt A Day Classes - from April that I really needed to catch up on. The map and the bird came from an ephemera swap that Kelly organised for the group. I think it is great to use items that other people have selected – there are images and other items that I hadn’t even considered.
I’m also submitting this page to Kathryn – Collage Diva - True North Arts Map Prompt. For map making inspiration check out the blog roll on the TNA blog.
I’m pleased with how it turned out – now I’m off to journaL it and I might do another page in my other journal – stay tuned. In the mean time go check out the Crusade blog and the other crusaders.I was inspired by Lynn Fisher’s Ginormous All-purpose Journal instructions hers is 10″x10″ I thought that that might be just a bit big for me so I started a little smaller. Mine is 7″x7″. Usually I work in a journal that measures 8.5″x5″. So working in a square format is a new experience for me. When I have filled this journal I might just have to make one that is 10″x10″. I found it so easy to fill the space today.
I used some of Lynn’s instructions for the journal and used binding instructions from the online classes that I have been doing with Kelly Kilmer.
The spine is covered in fabric and the covers have a Jack Daniels advertising poster adhered to them. I knew they would be useful when I asked the bar manager for them. I think they look cool!
I couldn’t wait to try out my new journal, and in my blog surfing today I found that Julie Prichard from The Land of Lost Luggage had uploaded a video to her blog of how she starts a journal page. I was really interested and inspired because Julie’s technique is quite different to what I do. I’m still learning about Art journaling so I like experimenting.
The following pages are the result of that experiementation.
More pages that use portion control – don’t know what I am talking about see this post or check out the GPP Street Team Blog.
After painting the background for this journal page – I stencilled portions of the patterns onto the page. Once dry I could ad images and my journaling. The journaling is done with a white gel pen – I love how the writing appears to float above the background.
For the next page I used a large flower stencil – that I have had for ages but never used. The flower on the right is the stencilled one. The flower on the left is a monoprint from the stencil.
With the collage added.
I write a lot in my journal pages – that’s just me I guess - I’m a writer and I have a lot to say. For this page I tried to write in a more expressive open script and limit how much I wrote – exercising portion control with my writing. I think it worked.
