Art Journal Cover

Heroines Journal coverMy Heroine’s Journey art journal is finally  finished! I wanted a fittingly gorgeous cover for it (I always wait until a journal is completely finished before I do the cover) and I came across this idea of using aluminium duct tape. I watched a couple of Youtube videos to see what to do.

Heroines Journal back coverThis is the front cover and the back cover, finished.

 

 

First I chose some stencils and applied Light Molding Paste (Golden brand) through the stencils. I let it dry overnight before applying the duct tape. Be careful what sort of duct tape you buy. I wasted $16 on a roll from Bunnings which turned out to be no use, it would not mold itself. You need the one with a paper backing that you peel off. I found it at FDBs. (Fair Dinkum Bargains) for only $5. As I had seen on Youtube, I cut the tape into pieces about 8cms to 10cms long and applied them overlapping, over the molding paste patterns. tapeCover 1

back cover 1toolsI embossed the tape onto the patterns, first I used a white coloured pencil and a blending stub which worked ok. Then I borrowed some embossing tools from a friend and that worked even better.

When I had covered and embossed both back and front covers (time consuming!! but meditative) I painted over it all with black paint, then rubbed most of it off again while it was still wet. Some black paint still hangs around especially in the creases which gives it an aged pewter look. I love it.

Here you can see the stencilled molding paste, before I applied the silver duct tape.

Busy Times

Busy timesMy life and my mind have been very busy lately with arranging songs for choirs and organising several upcoming Heroine’s Journey classes. I didn’t realise that’s what this page would turn out to be about when I started it. I wanted to experiment a bit more with painting over magazine images, so i started with this image of the woman with hat…it was a black and white image and her coat appeared to be all black. First I swirled some yellow and purple together on the background, adding white to blend the colours together.  Next I stuck down the woman and painted over her with clear gesso. I was wondering what colour to use for her clothes and was contemplating taking the purple and veering either towards blue or pink. I went with the pink/purple. I also had a few new stencils that I’d never used and wanted to try out. Once I’d used the stencils it started to become apparent that the page was about my business with all the creative projects I have going lately. Mostly I enjoy to have lots of creative things going, but occasionally it becomes a bit much, especially when I have deadlines (like with the choir arrangements) and a lot of organisation, as with the heroine’s journey classes, ordering art materials etc. The parrot joined the page and told me to stop squawking and complaining because I asked for a colourful life (I have a SoulCollage card called “Colourful life”)

It is fun painting over magazine images but its also easy to stuff up the face, so I’m always very careful there. Sometimes I just leave the face and don’t do much to it at all, but in this case since she was black and white, I wanted to colour her face, so I had to totally paint it. I’m quite pleased with how it tuned out, but I needed a REALLy fine brush!

I’m still wondering whether to write some larger words on the page, I’ve nearly always done that. But I notice increasingly people  (on Facebook groups like “A Stand for Art Journaling”) don’t seem to be writing much on their pages, especially large words/headings. What do you think?

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Handcut stencils and masks

Tonic 1Inspired by nature! I cut some simple stencils and masks from both thin plastic  (special stencil acetate I bought at the art shop) and also from cardboard. I chose a variety of different greens. I love the combination of stencilling and masking together on the same page.

Next I added a few stencilled shapes in burnt sienna as a  contrasting colour .Tonic 2 Had to remind myself not to overdo the contrast!

I was loving it and could almost have written something on it like this and called it finished…but I decided to add some collage images, so i needed to cut the tonal contrast back a bit so the images would show up. This is very easy to do by painting a semi transparent layer of gesso (I mixed the gesso with water, a tiny bit of yellow ochre paint and a bit of fluid matt medium) The matt medium will make it transparent without you having to add too much water.

Tonic 3It doesn’t show very well in this photo but the whole thing is quite a bit paler and has less contrast.

Then I added some images, a nature spirit , dragonfly and butterfly (also nature spirits!)

 

Tonic of WildernessThe title of the page, the tonic of wilderness is from a famous quote by Henri Thoreau ““We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”

But i ended up writing a quote from a poem I love by Mary Oliver. here is the poem:

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?

Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth

and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all,

over and over, how it is that we live forever.

My third journal

I’ve decided to get back to my blog, now it’s 2016! Here are a few pages from my third journal which is almost finished. Church in the Pines World Traveller Son Gerrit in NZ Guilt into Gold Kabir's Song Mandala page Autumn Tree poem Door to FreedomI mostly love my pages actually. This is what I use: Acrylic paints, stencils (home made and bought, including a plastic lace tablecloth), collage, scrapbook patterned papers, home made foam background stamps, gesso resist, occasionally a spray ink. And of course black and white pens, mostly uniball gel.

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