Documented life project 7th March 2015

Today I would like to share with you my finished documented life project art journal page for 7th March

The art challenge is - as a layer element
The journal prompt is - surviving the elements.

I have been doing a lot of practising drawing and colouring faces.  I think all my practise has paid off.  What do you think?

 

 

The majority of this page was done in spectrum noir colour pencils. The background however is tim holtz distress paint.  The wind swirls were done with inktense pencils. The making marks part of this month are the swirls.  I first used pencil to mark them before painting with the distress paint.  I then went over them with inktense pencils using blue and purple then activated with water using a paint brush so that the swirls were made using more than one layer.  I am very pleased with this page. 

 

I find it interesting that the more I create my pages the more I am liking the different pages.  I did not think I could top the last page but ended up doing exactly that lol

 

Thanks for stopping by

 

T x

progress

Hi folks,

Here I am sharing a photo of my latest colour pencil drawing.  I thought I had better expand from draying just the face to the full figure.  I am reasonably happy with this next sketch.  I will need to take my time a little more and focus on the detail perhaps.  Maybe get the colours looking a little less like pencil and blend a bit more.  I am still very new to the colour pencil as a tool so I may not even be doing it right.  The spectrum noirs are advertised as being blendable but so far I am not seeing much blending going on.  Perhaps I need a blending fluid or they do a blending pencil perhaps it is time to invest in a blending pencil.  I shall do some more investigating on this one I think.  Anyway here is the picture.

 

 

I admit I think I have done better in terms of colour but not a bad first attempt at a full figure.  I used the draw simple shapes and angles then draw round them and erase lines no longer required technique.  The pencil I was using for drawing was not sharp enough to get the finer detail but I will work on that at a later date :) The practise I have been doing will go towards the art journal page I am working on.  I have a plan to use colour pencils to work on my page.  So I want to be a little better at using colour pencils before I attempt the next layer to the page :) So watch this space :)

 

Thanks for stopping by

 

T x



practise with colour pencils

Hi folks.  I have just purchased myself some spectrum noir colour pencils.  So have been practising with them.  Here is my first picture.  It is not perfect by any means but I think I have done not too badly drawing from my imagination on this one.  I am not very good without a picture reference so I am very pleased with how this one has turned out.

Thank you for dropping by

T x

documented life project 28th February

Hi folks,

I am almost there.  I am almost caught up with the weekly challenge.  Here is my page for the DLP 28th February

The art challenge was - using at least 5 layers
the prompt was - give me a high five

 

 

I am rather pleased with this one.  As I have taken one more step to just letting go and letting my creativity loose :) 

 

The rhyming verse is mine (yeah I know its cheesy but I don't care lol).  Just go with the flow, get ink, paint, water & throw.  I am 5 again don't you know, go on have a go :) Now I see from my picture I had forgotten to put the & on the page at this point but rather than muck about and get another photo I decided to leave it and post this picture anyway.    The story behind the verse was that I had been chatting to another journaler friend of mine on facebook and I happen to say letting go and throwing the colour about on this page was like being 5 again and that's when it hit me.  I instinctively chose the age 5 and that was part of the prompt for this page and so the verse was born. 

 

Thanks for stopping by

 

T x

documented life project week 8

Well I have finally got round to posting this finished page lol This is the documented life project 21st February 2015 I have really began to embrace the concept of letting go and unleashing my raw creativity.  It is amazing what can be achieved once you get your page past that ugly stage, I have found that every page actually has one lol. The art challenge was repeating elements. The prompt was it's worth repeating.  I had a number of different ideas in my head and not one of them is on the finished product lol I started off with promarkers on the full background, in greens of varying shades some slightly bluer.  Then I sprayed dylusions ink.  The marker meant the ink just sat on top of the page (lesson learnt), however I thought of a cunning plan.  I decided to try something I had seen on youtube tutorials a couple of times here and there.  I put gesso on top again and used an old store card to spread it.  I really loved the effect.  It was lovely and smooth with no brush strokes (not that there is anything wrong with brush strokes) I just needed to try something different.  Well, this was certainly different.  The ink coloured the gesso a lovely green/blue colour.  What was left I wiped off onto another journal I had handy. I then saw some circle shapes and thought oooh they look like balloons in the sky.  I drew them on initially with a fine tip pen.  I then thought about a park and kids playing with bubbles.  The bubbles are a repeat element as well as the balloons.  Then I realised the bubbles where going over all the balloons and I wanted some bubbles to go to the back and brought the balloons to the front by decoupage :) It was not until this dried I then saw fish swimming, the wrong direction of course but none the less I saw them.  I did not change the page at this stage as I was committed to balloons.  I then drew on a small figure soaring high in the sky and balanced the page out with some stamped butterflies and dragonflies.  So anyway I hope you enjoy the page, perhaps I will try a repeat of the process and go with the fish the next time :)  thanks for stopping by T x

My first hand made journal

Today I would like to share with you my first attempt at a hand made journal.  It was made out of a variety of card stock that I bought at the payper box stall at the Glasgow craft fair in the SECC.  I was inspired by Jennibellies tutorial how to make a recycled journal out of cereal boxes.  Ok I realise my journal is not recycled but the video did inspire me to use what I had in my stash as I had no cereal boxes.  Then I discovered that I did not have any card stock left I had used it all so it waited until I bought more card.  I plan to make many more of these with better covers as I made this particular journal to gift to someone.  This person I work with and just before I left for home we got into a discussion about art journaling and how I had newly discovered it.  She expressed a desire to start and had been meaning to do more arty/crafty stuff.  I decided there and then that if I made and gifted her an art journal (albeit small) it might give her the gentle nudge she needs to bring out her creative side and have a go.  So without further ado here is my finished journal.

I am pleased to say that the person who received this book was delighted with it, so much so that she initially said "I cant possibly accept this" I of course replied "yes you can" lol.  She even noticed that the beads were hand made, again thanks to Jennibellie and her tutorial on paper bead making So thanks Jennibellie :)

Thanks for stopping by and reading this post. Hope you stop by again

T x

Not a bad haul for a days work lol.........

Today I was at the SECC in Glasgow at the craft show It includes both papercraft stalls and sewing stalls.  However, this year was a big disappointment.  There was even less stalls there than the last March show. Everyone was crammed into one hall and there was hardly any space to move, I was very irritated by this and left the hall early to have lunch then went back when I was in a better frame of mind lol, I think I needed my lunch.  Of course I still managed to spend a great deal of money :) as I was not  so much disappointed in the stalls that were there, just the show organisers and the show organisers.  I still loved what they had to offer, I just do not think it is worth the £7 parking fee and £9.50 fee to get in any more.  I have also just noticed that there is a whole £1 off for seniors wooptydoo.  That is appalling.  I did not realise that.  I did get given a flyer for another papercrafts show that is in both Glasgow and Edinburgh.  I may go along and see what that is like in the Edinburgh one.  See photos below for details as I have taken a picture of my flyer :)

 for further details here is the sincerely yours shows link

Thanks for popping by and reading my rant about the show today :)

T x

And todays project is..........................

A knitting needle bag made for someone I know at work to give to their mum for mothers day.  I hope they like it.  There will be a tote bag to match but for now I have only done the needle bag as that was more complicated with zips and the likes lol

 

As you can see the bag is fully lined.  I used the tutorial by Debbie Shore I just added straps.  I think this turned out not too bad considering its only my 3rd ever zip I have sewn. 

 

Thank you for stopping by.  I am off to the craft fair tomorrow so no doubt I will come back with loads of ideas for new projects both crafty and arty :)

 

T x

Documented life project February 7th

I have managed to catch up on the 7th February challenge from the  Documented life Project  The Art Challenge was - When not to stop, the prompt was - Don't stop til you get enough.

This page has turned out soooo much better than I ever expected. From this................

 kind of ugly right??

 

 ..............To This :)

 

 

 

I think I may be getting the hang of this art journaling fun :) I definitely let go of my need for a perfect page on this one.  I got myself in a right mess, using inks and pastels and pens and as well as starting off with the collage of different papers.  IT Was Absolutely Great Fun :) I had soooo much fun that I forgot, again to take more pictures of the process lol The words I wrote using my dip pen.  I am very glad I bought this tool as I love the way it writes and my lettering looks fab :)

 

Thanks for stopping by T x 

 





 

 



 

 





Documented life project - January 31st 2015

Wow, two posts in one week lol I have finally finished this page for the documented life project January 31st 2015 .  I have not fully documented the process of this page as I got lost in just doing it rather than thinking about taking photos every 5 minutes.  I can say it has taken me several weeks.  I would do a bit really like it then not be sure what to do next, as I am just learning how to do art journaling.  It also took me a few weeks to have a bit of under paper I actually had a reasonable amount of interest on.  So I took the paper and started to rip it into pieces to collage on my page, I had no idea at this point what I was going to do.  The way the paint had gone on the page it really reminded me of a mushroom shape and texture so the fairy idea was born.  The only part of the page that is "under paper" - the art challenge are the two small mushrooms/toadstools that the fairy is sitting on. The prompt  for this week was what lies beneath, well beneath my name ie the meaning is apparently Fairy Queen.  You could also say that fairies lie beneath the trees/plants at the bottom of your garden. So fairy theme it was.  I sketched the fairy on a separate piece of paper and glued her onto the page.  I think it turned out ok, considering I did think at one point, it looked more like an illustration rather than an art journal page.  So without further delay here is the finished page.............................

 

 

The text was written with my new dip pen set, using the 2.55mm wide tip.  I confess I am still wondering if there is more I could add to the page but I am declaring it finished for now :)

 

Update- After a lovely comment left by my friend over at bastelmania I have now entered my "I believe in fairies page into art journal journey march challenge all things with wings. Why not pop over to their page using the link I have provided and see what they are all about :) 

Documented life project - 14th February 2015

Well, a little out of sync but that is ok.  I have been playing catch up with the Documented Life project for a few weeks now and so I have a few to choose from.  I have almost finished the one for 31st January and when it is I will blog a post.  I confess I had started the page for Feb 7th, however once I got so far I thought it fitted the art challenge for Documented life project - February 14th - Cover up the good stuff instead. 

You see, I saw this and thought, I really like this a lot so decided that I in order to carry on I would have to "cover up the good stuff".

 As you can see from the above photo I was still trying to go with the page without covering up the flowers, thinking maybe I could blend the page together. I decided it was looking very ugly at this stage so I gave in and covered up and painted a girl using inktense pencils on the right hand page.

 

What you don't see in  the above photo is I actually did not put the white over the flowers on the left page to begin with, I was still in denial I think.  But eventually I just went for it covered up the left page with gesso. I then got out my one and only distress paint and started to add to the page, I also used my geletos to add just a tad more colour.  I then used more of my watercolour pencils (not the inktense, just cheap watercolour pencils)

 

 

In the above photo I think I am starting to get there and the page is no longer looking quite so ugly. yeah!!!!

 

 









So here it is, my finished page, though I am not sure the photo does it justice.  I added some extra flowers and voila :) I am rather pleased with this page considering it was rather ugly at one point.  It just goes to show that sometimes covering up is what it takes to make it look even better.  I will be adding some journaling but as it is going to be personal I thought I would post the above pic as the finished product :) So I hope you have enjoyed reading my rollercoaster ride that is my latest art journal page.

Thanks for stopping by

T