Friday In The Studio and A Return Of The Mixed Media

This past year my art Journals have been left on the shelf while I concentrated on other things. I didn’t know how much I missed it until I got involved with a journal project with Canvas Corp called The Traveling Art Journal. Over the course of a year, a group of us are sending out our journals to friends all over the world where they’ll be worked in before being sent on their journey and finally arriving back home to the owners. Along the way it’ll make a fantastic monthly project on the Canvas Corp web site for anyone who wants to follow our progress.

For my journal I chose to make a Travelers Notebook style binding with two simple hand sewn books inside. The pages are watercolour paper so should stand up to most mediums and as the paper was very white and stark, I tea dyed every page to give it a bit more character.

I used, texture paste, inks and stamping to create a background and collaged some papers and images on top. At the time of creating the page, the weather was anything but Springlike so I added the title to reflect how I was feeling while I was working.

These are the tea dyed pages before putting them together  in the journal. I loved how they came out, it made them look so old.

If you want to see how everyone else created their journals and pages then go to the Canvas Corp web site here and follow along monthly to see how it’s going.

Have a good weekend

Jaine xx

Spring Flowers Challenge

We spent this weekend in the garden weeding, digging and getting rid of cubic metres of moss from everywhere. It was truly exhausting, but I’m satisfied we did a brilliant job and it’ll surely pay off when the summer comes.

It’s lovely too to be able to draw inspiration (literally) from the garden and for my Messy Monday journal entry this week I did just that. I went out and took a few pics of the Spring flowers, then sketched one or two in my sketch book. My favourite was the pot of primroses which I thought I’d transfer to my journal.

primrose sketch Continue reading Spring Flowers Challenge

Hello Spring

Last week was a particularly draining week emotionally but this week I’m ready to pick myself up, leave that behind and move on. Signs of Spring are all around now and the weather too is giving us some really lovely days to get out and tidy the garden. It’s nice to see the covers come off the furniture at last and we’ve even cranked up the bbq.

It was so nice to open my journal again this week after what has been a long few weeks. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until I started laying down some papers and glue.

spring page

Continue reading Hello Spring

Confidence Art Journal Page

At the end of last year I posted a photo of how my Moleskine journal looks now it’s at the end, since then it’s become even fatter and is bursting at the seams, so it’s definitely time for a new one. This time I’ve bought myself a Strathmore to see how that stands up to my beloved Moleskine.

moleskine

While I was waiting for it to arrive I created a new page in my much smaller Dylusions journal and as usual it was while Facetiming with Clare who was also testing out a new journal, her first Moleskine.

journal dyl

I got out the Dylusions paints and as usual I reached for my favourite colours, turquoise and green so to try and push myself out of a colour rut I thought I’d go for something I don’t normally do and put on some pink. As you can see I wasn’t so confident and didn’t slap it on too much but I was happy to know I’d broken out of this colour funk.

journal dyl2

I thought I’d put the word Confidence on the finished page as it was the word of the moment. Confidence to try something new, confidence to believe in yourself and how quickly it can be taken away too with just one word.

I think it’s important for me to remember that not everyone has the confidence to slosh paint around and mess make in a journal like I do and there are people who would very much like to get started in journaling but have no idea where to start. So in the shop I’ve put together a series of kits which include a hand made A5 journal, two Dylusions paints, a stencil and stencil sponges and a stamp. The journal is 8 pages of 300gsm mixed media paper so well able to stand up to paint and wet mediums and is bound with a vintage manila file folder as a cover. There are 4 kits Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, each one with different stencils and paint colours.

journal kit spring

My motto for the year will be “Try something new this year” so I hope you will.

Jaine x