Finished! For now...

So, anyway, I decided to crack on with my journal page. I didn't want to do too much more, but it did look a bit bare, and I thought that if I was a proper artist I would do more. Um.

So I did a bit of stamping (that was OK), and handwrote my journalling - and immediately decided that I didn't like it AT ALL, so time for Big Thinks. Paint over it? No, not really, I was far too likely to make it worse. So that left printing it out and sticking it on, which I wasn't keen on, either. Then the lightbulb flashed, and I remembered the Dylusions stamps that I like so much, and how they are lettered. "I can do that" I thought, so I did - I printed out the words and drew a box around them with a pen, cut them out and stuck 'em on. I left one line at the bottom in my writing, cos it looked better that way somehow. I added a bit more stamping with some TH leaf stamps  - not sure about the results, but heigh ho, and here it is :

Would I done anything differently? Well, I think I will add more texture to the page before I start painting next time, and try out the stamps on scrap before I commit them to my page, and remember to put something under the left hand side to support it before I stamp, and wait for the glue to dry when I do an image transfer before I start rubbing...and practice my handwriting!

The story behind this page relates to my grandson, Cameron. He looked out of my bedroom window one day and, in awed tones, said - "Grandma, look! there's a Dodo in the garden!!" The pheasant in question would have been very surprised to find it had been promoted, if only it had known...


I used:
Dylusions art journal, A4
Fresco finish paints
Sizzix Tim Hotz alterations die
old book page
Claudine Helmuth multi matte medium
Tim Holtz Leaf print stamps
the doily is off an Indigo Blu set
Faber castell pitt pen
some old bottle tops

See you later,

Janet x

WIP...

So, anyway, I have been meaning to take up art journaling for some time, and never had time. I've covered a lot of techniques over the years, but never really knew what I wanted to do with them - deep and meaningful stuff makes me squirm, to be honest, so it doesn't appeal at all. I think I know where I want to go with my journal now, so I took a deep breath and actually put paint to paper...

I am using a journal I got a couple of years ago from Art From The Heart in Harrogate (and have been admiring ever since) and the leaves are die cut from book pages taken from an ancient tome I got from a 50p stall in my ex-local Tesco. I stuck it down with matte gel medium and I'm using PaperArtsy fresco finish paints, which I love. 

When I had a layer of paint down, I printed out an image from the internet that suited my subject, with the intention of using it as an image transfer. This turned out to be an instance where patience is a virtue - I got over excited and started removing the copy paper before the matte medium was completely dry and ended up with bald patches. Humph.

OK, lesson learned, time to put it right - I set to work with a Faber-Castell pitt pen, and 2 hours later

I had a decent image on my page... and yes, that is a jigsaw, also a WIP.

I have used a soft pencil and a paper stump to add some shadowing to the leaf die cuts, and sanded them very lightly to make them stand out a bit more.

That's it for now,

See you later,

Janet x