Looking for Wisdom

 The travelling art journal
Words of Wisdom arrived with winter, things were insanely busy with trying to sell our house and homeschooling and just family life.

I wasn't too concerned as I can usually create a reasonable spread in our allocated month fairly easily and incubation time always takes up the begining of the month for me.

I love the arrival of a new journal.  I love the anticipation and excitement and I love that first perusal over a cuppa. 

I tend to put it on the shelf then and let my ideas brew. Sometimes I will look through the journal a few times in this process until my idea starts to form. 

Sometimes I dont get an idea at all!

I just start playing and let it happen.

And this page is one that evolved on the page, intuitively.

 After 6 days sick in bed I was desperate to art despite have no wisdom on what I would create.

I just doodled all over the page with intense pencils then activated with watered down white and a tiny brayer. Looking at what came out made me think of pebbles on a beach and away I went.

Tree (as Spirit) is ready

I have been making my Tree journal
for the next round of the Australian Art Journal Swap
that I run through our facebook group
the Australian Art Swap Group

I am a passionate tree lover
and see trees as sacred
 and have so many ideas of pages to do on this theme

My journal is made using Stonehenge print making paper for the signatures - this is my favorite mixed media paper ever and I usually use it for any hand made book binding I create, and I used some repurposed Arches heavy weight water colour paper for the covers. I wanted a really heavy strong cover as I knew I wanted to include a "tree" 

 The tree I wanted to include I found in a local street it is an actual branch but resembles a whole tree and has been flattened by being run over by cars but was still so beautiful I saw it as a metaphor for life, so often we can be run over but we do still have a real beauty.

Tree (As Spirit)

I was well enough to finally start my travelling art journal today and its coming together very nicely :)

Myth and Magic Mini Art Journal Swap

I am trying to create a very safe and inclusive environment for the Australian Art Swap Group, I don't always achieve this and sadly there are some who have left the group because they did not feel either of those things, however for those of us still there I am  constantly working on improving it.

One of the ways I strive for inclusion is to encourage everyone to host or co host swaps or to share their ideas for swaps or any other group activity they would like to see happen. Consequently we have a wonderful diversity of artists who all bring different skills and inspire us in different ways. 

Janie O'Brien, one of our ladies recently introduced a mini booklet swap  and her theme was Nature. I was looking for something to work on over the long hot summer holiday time and remembered how I had enjoyed working on "Birds on the Brain" so ran a "Myth and Magic" mini art journal swap.

I  enjoy this swap format, it is 12 A5 size pages - just 3 A4 sheets folded and bound and is an ideal size to really explore a theme and the number of fairly small pages is really manageable. It also fitted easily into my bag so I could take it out and work in it and some days it is just nice to art out in the world, particularly on those hot and humid days we have been having lately, the peace and calm of the air conditioned library was such a relief.

I explored the Wheel of the Year and wanted to make it look old and weathered, like it has been a well thumbed reference for many years, laying about in kitchens and getting splashed on, taken on long rambling walks and journeys, carried about and shared.

Inspiration Deck Swap

The friendly bunch over at the Australian Art Swap Group are really hopping this year, with swaps travelling to all corners of the country, we are always welcoming active new members as long as they are residents in Australia. 

So far this year we have been making Dottee Dolls, a few rounds of A.T.Cs, a Myth and Magic mini journal, deconstructed art journals,  journal prompts for our own journals and Joan has started another amazing monthly prompt- dot...to....dot that is bringing out some incredible art. 

We are also running and Inspiration Card Deck swap where we all alter half a deck of playing cards and then they all come to me to mix them all up and send them all back- sounds like fun :) 

Birds on the Brain

I am deep in study this year 

but still in touch with the fabulous women of the Australian Art Swap Group on facebook

 and while I am not doing many swaps I could not resist this one. 

Janie OBrien hosted a Nature Booklet swap and I of course chose birds.

It was fun to just play and make art.

Happy Mail

To give and to receive

it is one of the real joys of living, 

I get real pleasure in creating art for other people and getting happy mail in the post in among the bills and junk mail flyers is such a treat.

We recently had a lovely fun swap over at the
Australian Art Swap Group 

It was a supplies and ephemera swap,
we needed to fill and envelope with things we wanted to share
then our packages were sent all over Australia 

to bring joy and inspiration to each other.

It is amazing just how much can fit in one of these envelopes
and how much fun it is

 to include some art from our online friends in our own work.

We have lots of different swaps and not just for the big kids,
these ATCs were made by my 11 yo son and I,

Australian Art Swaps

Who loves getting Happy Mail?
It sure beats bills-
Who is missings Milliande's  wonderful Art Community for Women?
I know I am and my friends and family have been missing the art swapping as well.

I have been thinking about hosting some swaps again for ages, 

I started up an art journal swap to kick of in January 2014 and to save on postage costs and hopefully cut down on lost journals and missing people I decided to keep in in Australia only. This swap has been fantastic with a really great group of women and we all keep in pretty good contact on a private facebook group and share our work on our blog.

I was still hearing the need for art swaps-

From my fellow artists and from the homeschool community who wanted to make and swap ATCs and postcards and other little works so I started up another facebook group this one is The Australian Art Swap Group  I am really liking it just being for Australians as postage time is much shorter and costs much lower.

So far we have done a few ATC swaps,

 some for the junior artists- fun in the sun and animals

and a few for the grown up artists as well,
the little cutie at the top of the post came from Wendy and

 these are the three I made for the summer days swap.

We also share ideas and interesting things and are developing a nice little supportive community. One of our members posted about cheap erasers available in the back to school sales so we have been talking about carving our own stamps and I took a photo to share, of some of my well used ones.  

We welcome all levels of art and are open to all sorts of swaps.

So please come and ask to join The Australian Art Swap Group  on facebook.

As an added bonus you can use the gorgeous envelopes as pockets in your art jourals.

Reveal your True Self- Wendy's travelling art journal

I have spoken before about how I love to be in a journal swap,

 I love having the journals travelling around between us all, and I love having them arrive to be mine for a short while. It is like having an intimate gallery arrive right into your home, that you can visit over and over while it is here, and can share with your friends and visitors. 

And then it is gone- 

you have done your piece and added your energy and sent it on its way and then you are eagerly awaiting the next one and contemplating the theme.

This journal belongs to Wendy Pepyart 

who is a very talented and creative member of this round of 

The Australian Art Journal Swap

Wendy's gorgeous art journal is a repurposed childrens story book and her title is 'Reveal Your True Self'

Well, asking me, Who my true self is?, 

just about turned me inside out, lol- I do love how these journals challenge us and as Wendy is a very intuitive artist I just got out some supplies and started to play and let my own intuition guide me.

I pulled out some colours that were calling to me on the day and arranged them into a rainbow and then I started to get some ideas.

My thinking went along the lines rainbow, 

colours, 

colour groups,

 different aspects of me are all my true self

- paper dolls!

 I chose six colour themes and six aspects of me,
I pulled out the gelli plate, a brayer, some stencils and some watercolour paper and just played.

Once I had created my 6 dolls, I then played with stamps building up their mixed media texture and finally I journaled on them about who this aspect of me really is.  

Momento Mori - travelling Art Journal

Happy New Year and Solstice Blessings to you all.

With the long hot summer holidays here we have been doing a bit of travelling

 so I have found it hard to get to the waiting art journals I have.

Both of the journals I have waiting for me for the Australian Art Journal Swap
at the moment are altered books and
I chose to work in Mary's amazing "Momento Mori" first.

 Mary has created the most incredible sculptured cover, the detail and colour are amazing for something I was initially thinking quite macabre.

Mary is one of the artists from The Art Shed in Townsville Queensland and her journal shows her sense of fun and colour from the start.

 I really appreciate the challenge of this journal,

I love things that make me think and reconsider and feel.

Come with me for a wander through this gorgeous journal.

This is a lovely page Deb Parkes ,

I find this page so beautiful and moving.

One of the really lovely things about doing a journal swap like this, is getting to know your fellow artists and their work. These pages are by Sharon Williams from WA and I have fallen in love with her beautiful style and use of colours.

I also love Sharons use of printmaking.

Over to Victora and these pages are from our gorgeous Nicole Dixon and her quirky style has won all of our hearts I am sure.

Nicoles pages are always fun and make me smile.

Still in Victoria, Jan Mullane did these hauntingly beautiful pages.

I love Jans use of the skull in these pages, so subtle and ethereal.

Jan also shared some personal experience of a loved one in ICU and the significance of the 1000 cranes- the book we are altering is about the cranes as well. 

Now we head up to NSW for Roz Willoughby's  beautiful pages

her colourful skull looks rather friendly I think.

And I really like this page by Roz, 

all the pages in this journal are beautiful, 

I feel so lucky to receive an art exhibition in my mail box once a month.

Into NSW Janene McAnally did this delicate and beautiful page,

Janene's grungy style is also distinctive and she loves to play with texture and detail.

This is my page and after lots of thinking

 about just how mortal we are and how little time we get

 this is what I came up with.

My flying clock because "Tempus Fugit"opens up to reveal an hour glass and a quote

 We really do need to make the most of this wild and precious life.

And I close with Mary's back cover that is all about infinity and rebirth.

We have a new group on Facebook

 if you want to join in with art swapping within Australia

 in an effort to save on postage - 

we would love to see you at Australian Art Swap Group 

and we also have another blog for this journal swap

 and I have shared some of my process in making my Momento Mori page today.