Journal pages

I have so many journals on the go at present, I never know which one to work in. Every time I hold a decorated papers/journal workshop, I end up with another one. I've decided to join them together, I use my fabric strips to join them and it's working quite well.

The page above was drawn with markers then I used a brush and gave some of it a wash with water, the markers run giving the effect of water colour. The elephant stamp is an Indian wooden printing block.




The faces on this page were fun to do, influenced by Picasso. The journal houses quite a few of my experiments.

Stamps

I had a great decorated papers and journal workshop on Sunday. The students all went home with fabulous journals that they had created. The class was go, go, go. We were so busy I didn't get to take any photos, which was very disappointing as there were some lovely papers produced.

I've also been making stamps. I managed to find the blue blocks at Paperific when it was in Melbourne. I made some of the images from Indian wood blocks that I have. The wood blocks are great for using with paint but are not very successful with stamp pads, so I decided to imprint them into the blue blocks. Now I can print them with stamp pads. To create the stamps you heat the block with a heat gun then press an image into it. I would suggest you do this outside and I even use a mask, I'm very conscious of what damage the fumes can do to your body. The black stamps are a material that I got from the reverse garbage Art Truck in Ringwood. It looked the same and I had brought home quite a lot of it. As usual I'd forgotten I had it until Joy, in my altered book class, mentioned she had some and wondered if it would work. I gave it a try and these are the results. The cogs are the cardboard ones that you buy in a packet. I spread them out on a brick then heated the foam and voila, they worked.





This is a page from my journal. I loved the expression on the woman's face.

Buys, swaps and journal pages

I've been receiving lots of lovely mail recently. Firstly some great things from Judy's Etsy store . What a fabulous selection Judy has, look at the 'piece de resistance' in the centre, how cool is that, Judy knows me well. There's something for everyone, and Judy's so generous, she gave me some extras and some beads that she'd had in her collection, which will come in very useful in my jewellery making. Go visit her. I'm sure there will be something for you.



Next I did a swap with Leighanna . I made her some of my stamps and a journal and look what I received in return, a terrific selection of things for my jewellery, look at the optical lenses and crystal drop, papers and butterfly wings and some great paper from Albie Smith, only I've used it already so can't show it here. The icing on the cake was a beautiful painted canvas of Leighannas that looks even better in real life. Thanks Leighanna.



I also did a swap with Gisele . They are three beautiful ATC's joined so I can frame them, again they are so much nicer in the flesh. Giselle also sent me some great pages out of an old stamp album and pages of symbols and music. Another great swap. Thanks Gisele.




Thought I'd show a couple of pages from my decorated pages journal. I have three journals in action at present, all three different styles. The above pages are a conbination of paper napkins, transfers, my stamps, my altered photos and some scribble to finish off.
Now, back to jewellery making.

Oil pastel journal pages

I've started my next altered book, this time I've glued some pages together, added torn paper scraps, scrunched up paper napkins, pieces of muslin, anything that will help created a texture. I've used gel medium to attach the texture materials to the page. When the gel medium is dry I then paint the pages with gesso.



Now comes the fun part, I've used oil pastels and water soluble oil pastels. I add splotches of colour at random all over the pages. At this point lots of the gesso is showing through, I then rub the colours into the page to hide all the white, I let the colours merge to reveal new colours. The only draw back is if you do too many pages at once, you end up with blisters on the ends of your fingers, I speak from experience.



The next stage was interesting, I studied the page to see if it revealed anything to me it didn't to start with, but when I squinted through partially closed eyes I could just make out the dome shapes. That was enough for me, my favourite buildings. I outlined evrything in black, coloured in the domes and walls, then used a thin piece of metal to scrape back the outlines and highlights. I'll probably add other things later, but for now I'm waiting for it to 'speak to me' again.



This is the next page, I think I see a person on either page linked by a pink heart. Well it helps to have a good imagination.