Journal Play- It's for Me

Music can be so healing and moving.

This spread came from a wonderful song by Western Australian songstress Mama Kin

Her words are her personal story but I can identify with some of them 

I used some collage, inks, paints, stencils and doodling 

This is the song- in case you have not heard it.

Art Journaling when you are sick.

I am usually a pretty healthy and busy woman but have recently been sick for a couple of months, once I watched all the documentaries and art videos and music videos on my lap top in my endless days of being in bed I was bored and I needed to journal.

I was limited in what I could do though and lacking inspiration.

I didn't want to have paints and water jars in my bed 

and I didn't want to have to keep getting out of bed to clean things.

But I did want to exercise my little creativity I still had, 

art heals and it always makes me feel better.

So endless hours of worrying about the bush fires ravaging NSW and  looking at facebook turned up some words and quotes I wanted to play with and my waste paint journal has lots of yummy pages prepped and ready for the next step.

With just some paint pens, gel pens and markers I could write on my pages and I had all of these words so I didn't even have to think too much about things. Just play with freedom and it made me happy and distracted me. 

Some of my pages in this journal have had opening pages added and when I found a theme running through the words inspiring me I grouped them all together under post cards and opening pages.

I have so appreciated being able to just play, appreciated my already prepped pages, my lap top connecting me to the world and  the moments when I was up to sitting.

Art really is a healer.

Dreamy Layers

I have been enjoying playing 

with layers and vivid colors lately

\

I love the dream like 

feel these pieces are developing

and I find myself drawn back

 to the easel again and again

to find a little something 

and reveal it

Its quite intuitive and playful

I come to the canvas 

with a lot of supplies to play with

and an open mind.

This one really changes colour through the day

and it just glows in natural light

Bright New Art Journals

I have been really enjoying book making lately

and have made some lovely art journals to sell.

I learned a new skill~

copic binding

and love they way look bound this way.

I used a variety of different papers,

repurposed ones - vintage book pages, vintage atlas pages,

 sheet music and an old children's illustrated dictionary,

and lots of new paper as well

printmaking paper , water colour paper, 

black and white sketch paper and

 different coloured printer paper.

Some have found there way to new homes already

where I hope they will encourage their new owners to 

make art and play in the pages.

Painted Pages

 I have been working through some personal issues and when I need to think I like to play, so I got out a stack of colorful supplies and some old book pages I had removed to make atlered books and I spent a lovely few hours.

 I played with acrylic paints and inks, silk dyes distress inks and alcohol inks.

I didn't have to think about anything, I just kept going until I was finished.

 Using stencils, stamps, punchinella and bubble wrap and some free journaling.

After all of that I was ready to commit to moving far away from my beloved river, and moving my family into a whole new advemture.

I have also been keeping up my BoD

it has been great therapy and a great tool keeping me on track

 

documenting my comings and goings and downloading out of my busy busy head.

 

I wanted to keep this little Facebook post as well so it found its way into my BoD.

30 Days of Art Journaling with Gulfsprite

I have been working in another art journal as well

this one is a repurposed hardcover novel from a garage sale

and I have been using it to do a fabulous art journaling course

30 days with Gulfsprite

Christy Sobolewski

is an incredibly generous and gifted teacher

and I am so thrilled to be able to take her class.

These are just a few pages I have been inspired to make.

The Elements of Art Journalling week 3- Air

This week in Effy Wild's amazing
The Elements of Art Journaling course
we have been working with the element of
AIR

Air is all about deep thinking and meditating, and as usual Effy had a swag of ideas for us to try and work with and the discussions in the studio and the work being done by the participants has been awesome. There is a great network forming here and it really is special.

I have been thinking about Air all week and really noticing things, the local sugar cane farmers are burning off the cane for harvest at the moment and there are a lot of raptors around. I love to watch the raptors soaring through the air, they are so powerful and masterful, searching the ground for morsels to eat.

I have been arting on this, all weekend and this morning I woke with the words to John Denver's Windsong in my mind, I had not heard the song in years though and could only remember tantalising snatches of the lyrics but they seemed to be perfect for my planned page so I had to google them with breakfast and they were just right for my raptor page.


This page was a snap shot of my days at the moment, it is so windy here and with 2 boys I have so much washing, I really appreciate the great drying weather the wind provides.
I had my lovely Mum come to stay through the week so I didn't get to my course work until this weekend, but I did get my Mum art journalling, and she went home with a lovely new journal and has done a few pages in it up here. She also went home with a good selection of supplies and a bundle of inspiration. It was so lovely for me to share my passion with my mum, and to have her take to it so readily, even though she thought she didn't have an artistic bone in her body. Yay Mum.

Mother Earth ATC swap - part 3

Our postie arrived today with more fabulous cards
for the Mother Earth ATC swap,
this time we had to find Italy on the globe.

Then we opened the parcel
to find Letizia's gorgeous textural cards.


Letizia has captured the textures,
colours and shapes of
Mother Nature beautifully.

The Elements of Art Journalling week 1

I have started doing an online
art journal course
over at Wild Precious Studio
with the fabulous Effy Wild

It is called
The Elements of Art Journalling
and it is still open
if you want to join me and loads of other lovely ladies.

Week 1 has us contemplating the elements
and creating our journals
this is the first layer on my
brand new spiral bound visual diary.

I do love a nice new art journal,
all bright and shiny and full of possibilities.

Over my collage I added paints and inks and some stamping
and inside I added a series of tabs for each section.

to finish off my cover on my gorgeous new journal
I quickly made a simple spiral stencil
out of a piece of copy paper,

and added one of my goddess figures.
I also stamped a title-
The Elements

Inside I made a tabbed page for each element,
I also made a pocket to hold any collage elements
or other inspirational bits and pieces
I find on my journey through the elements with Effy.

Next up was some mind mapping on each element.

I loved this part, really thinking about and just
intuitively jotting down my thoughts.

Personally I really identify with Earth and Water
so Air and Fire were going to be really difficult,
So I thought,lol.

I took my journal down to the skate park with my boys
and sat with Air,
the normally very boring time at the skate park
was a great opportunity to have to sit
and have no other distractions
and contemplate Air.


Next up was water~
water is my element,
I love all forms of water and live overlooking
my beloved Clarence River


So water was like a lovely little holiday
soothing and restorative.

I am really looking forward
to exploring water further with this course.

Fire - I love a nice fire on a cold night
or a camp fire when I am out in the bush

Mind mapping fire
was also easier than I expected,
I did this one sitting on the lounge
if front of the fire one night.

Spirit-
this one actually turned out to be the most challenging
and I have not quite finished this page.

I will sit with spirit again and come back to this page.

I couldn't wait to play in my new journal though,
and this is my first page.


I started off with the Charge of the Goddess,


and one of my printed Goddesses
and then I played with colour.

I used Caran d'Ache neocolours
and my new glimmer mist on these pages

and here is my first elements spread.
I worked with my caran d'ache neocolurs again
to represent each element,
Out lined with zig writers
and finished off with my current favourite
silver acrylic.

I am so ready for week 2 Effy.