Playing Walkabout With My Creativity

Yesterday, I had so much fun painting out the first colour layers of my art journal. I had picked up a childrens book last week from a charity shop for 50p. It was one of 'The Secret Histories' series. When I blocked out the cover image, I kept 'The Secret Histories' title. I like it. It has nice thick paper pages and a padded hard cover. I covered the front cover panel with a lovely Suzanne Woolcott, Gorjuss, card illustration, which says on the lower right corner 'I found my family in a book'. I love Suzanne Woolcott's illustrations and this image just seemed to fit the purpose of the art journal.

I thinned the book out by taking out a number of pages, and the remainder I pasted three pages at a time together, so I was left with, including the inner back and front covers, nine double page spreads. Most evenings last week were spent applying white gesso to the pages and I only painted one layer of gesso fairly thinly to allow some of the print through.

I went through my set of Derwent Art Bars, scribbling groups of colour across the double pages. Then, using a small spray bottle (travel size from Superdrug), spritzed water over the scribblings and blended with a paint brush. Because I am way too impatient, I then applied my heat tool to speed up the drying process. I worked this way throughout the book. The Art Bars, when dry have the look of a dense water colour wash, but with quite a matte wax finish....

Aside: I completed a page in another journal with Art Bars a couple of weeks ago. After researching online the best pens to use for journaling, I purchased a set of Sharpie 'Write on Anything' pens. They do not write on top of an Art Bar layer! The wax residue from the page lifts off onto the pen tip and this prevents ink flow. Had a very interesting conversation with the very knowledgeable gent, who works in the Blackwells book shop art department (Newcastle Upon Tyne), about the best pens to use. He highly recommended the Posca pen... Yes, it works fine on an Art Bar layer....

Back to my art journal. Where was I... Ah, yes, so after creating my first layers, I went about creating more layers with collage. I'm always cutting things of interest out of magazines and junk mail, which I sort into three trays: Imagery, Background and Type. I have quite a range of collected (hoarded) ephemera.

This is the first double page spread:

I am rather pleased that I had the type print to be able to put this in. 'I am playing walkabout with my creativity' encompasses the exploratory theme of this art journal. Enthused, I started playing about with another page spread. I went a bit wild with this one. I have no initial plans for the page designs, I just let my mind wander and see what comes up. This next picture I will entitle 'Dark Romance'. It began as an Art Bar layer of blended Alzarin, Primary Red and Black. I collaged areas with some torn magazine paper in shades of red. Pasted some type, imagery, flower dies cuts and sequins on. Sprinkled some lovely fine burgundy glitter here and there. Then I wondered if applying white tissue paper would add a distressed look. I am pleased with the result:

So, this is what I have done so far. I cannot work in silence and I find listening to podcasts in the background keeps me productive. Yesterday I listened to various episodes from 'Layout a day: The Simple Scrapbooking Podcast', 'Stash and Burn' (wonderful knitting podcast), and 'FAMM Radio' (Fiber Arts and Mixed Media podcast).

Okay, so, I am cat sitting Harris from upstairs and he has just plonked himself on my knees, front paws on the lap top. I think he wants to blog too! I'll sign off now and give this gorgeous boy some attention. Bye for now.

In Love with Art Journaling

Hello again. It's been quite a while.... Six months of ups and downs, uncertainties, anxieties, horrendous work stress, personal stress, a sudden (unexpected and utterly tragic) death, friends with serious health concerns.... A lot to cope with, and I, at one point, wasn't coping very well at all. 

Suddenly I became a sponge for every bit of worry and negativity that was affecting the whole wide world. Every time I tried to pull myself through the mire of dread, something always seemed to slap me back down. I was trying to be strong for everybody, but I wasn't strong enough for myself.

Anxiety and depression signs and symptoms seemed overwhelming. I turned to comfort eating. Weight gain added to my feelings of despair. I turned to my GP for help. Apparently I am not the right kind of person to take antidepressants. 

My GP... I am SO glad I ended up with a holistic, mind and body positivity, philosophically inclined doctor. She's fantastic. She won't hand pills out willy nilly. She knows me better than most and for this I am thankful. I am thankful that she reminded me at my lowest ebb about the kind of person I am. I always look for the positive, in everything. Yin and yang, there's always a positive to be found somewhere. She reminded me how proactive I was during my slipped disc injury. She told me hat she looked forward to seeing me in an appointment because I always make her smile. I like to create smiles. I like people to know that they are doing a wonderful job in every small way that they don't even think about. She reminded me of my creativity. She switched on the light for me when everything had seemed so dark. "You will find your path through this. You always do".

A dear friend, suffering debilitating back pain & depression, my co-creation inspirative muse, told me she was going to look into training to become an Art Therapist. Curious, I looked into it. The more I read, the more I thought, this might help me.

This blog, amongst others,  has been responsible for so much new found positivity: 'Art Journaling as a creative process' (http://artjournaling.blogspot.co.uk/p/why-art-journal.html). Thank you so much Kelley Luckett! - I have learnt to let go and not take responsibility for things I have no control over.

 I had a fortnights holiday in July, and I decided to begin an art journal and complete a page every day of my holiday. I can't wait to get my pages up onto Flickr to show you what I have done! Art journaling has released me from months pent up stress and uncertainty I was feeling. The process of creating a page, drawing with some writing, it's really relaxing. I feel a sense of achievement afterwards and I look forward to the next page I will create. I like to draw directly with black ink, decisively, no messing about with pencils and perfecting rubber marks. Any accidents are happy accidents, and the process is one of deep concentration. I almost zone out into my own bubble of relaxation. Presently, I am very fond of the transportability of water colour pencils and Art bars. So, I can throw in some colour and wash it later. My sketchbook and pens are always in my bag nowadays.

Art journaling has come to the fore and reawakened my love of altered book art. I feel quite guilty. Today is Wednesday. Woollee Wednesday. Tonight I am hosting for the knitting and crochet group I created over a year ago. I'm waiting for the Woollee Wednesdays to arrive and I'm blogging about my love of art journals....Not done much crocheting for the past 2 months!

I have '4' art journals on the go at the moment. The first, 'How To Feel Better', is constructed from an altered paint samples booklet, containing the most part of my summer holiday. I'm just finishing it off from photos that I took back then. I have a big A4 artists ring bound sketchbook that I'm filling with paint and collage, with many thanks to the inspiring work of Journal Artista (http://www.iamjournalartista.com/). I have a journal in which I am practicing drawing people and faces skills, and a journal of favourite words, quotes and doodles (I've quite gotten into Zentangle too!). I've also gotten my lovely mum into making an art journal habit, and I've started a regular post card swap with 2 friends.

Some of my previous altered art and mini albums can also be seen on UK Scrappers (http://www.ukscrappers.co.uk/ ), where I am ' Artful Adorner'.