five layers of journaling

Still catching up on sharing my pages from my moleskine planner, inspired by the Original Documented Life Project and this is another of my favourites.

Art Challenge: Using at least Five Layers

The challenge was to use at least five layers and I was hugely inspired by the fabulous Art to the 5th Cardboard Crush workshop.

I painted up a strip of paper with a repeated mark and created five separate 'pages' that I then stitched together.

Each of the five 'pages' has five layers on it....

...and they lift up so are journaled on both sides.

I hope you get a good idea from these photos; it was hard to get good images of the way this page was put together!

I'm loving adding doodling to my pages :)

The above 'page' started off as a scrap of paper that I'd added some watercolour paint to.  I then doodled around a leaf shape and added some collage.

I'm not sure where this little guy came from - possibly an old lotto game.  I just loved him and decided he'd be happy in my journal.  I added art journaling to the other side of the card ...

Another page featured a verse from Documented Faith

I really can recommend this art challenge.  I'm loving it :)

15 min art journal challenge

I've seen the idea of a 15 minute creative challenge on a few blogs so decided to give it a go.

I'm not great at planning out an idea for my journal pages; I journal intuitively... but all my inks, stencils and favourite stamps are within easy reach of my desk so I figured I'd see what happened!

I even managed an action shot within the time!

Time's up!  I was pleased with how much I got done - which included cutting out a couple of stars from underpaper that I ended up not using so they'll go in another project.  Have you tried giving yourself a 15min time limit when working in your journal?

circles on a journal page

I am very happy with this journal page spread!

It started off as a bit of a rubbish gelli print which I painted over with some turquoise brusho, thinking it might lift it - it did!!

Then I started playing around with Daniel's circles cube from Stampotique

and lots of variety in text and numerals.  The background numeral piece is from my scratch paper on my worktable; it's how I clean my stamps - by stamping them repeatedly on scrap paper!!

Add some doodling ... and Sarah is a happy art journaller!!

Stampotique Stamps used:

Daniel's circles cube  #6184  by Daniel Torrente

Romantic Text  #10028  by France Papillon

Numeric  #7164  by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Baroque Background  #7109  by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Antique Description  #7228  by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

more doodling in my journal

That nasty chest infection I had meant I was floored for a good couple of weeks and spent the time sleeping, reading and pinning (on pinterest!).  Oh, and I finally got to watch the Lego movie!  All that time off work and no energy to play with my art supplies :(   

The second lot of antibiotics meant I started to pick up and I managed some brusho backgrounds (I can recommend brusho if you're not feeling 100%, or if you've lost your mojo!)  I have a glass worktop protector and I just sprinkled the brusho powder on it (having made a hole in the lid of the pot with a thick safety pin), sprayed it with water, then took a print from this with copier paper.

Some stenciling with white paint and my paper was ready for some doodling, which was easy to do in front of the tv or in bed with my newly devised transportable art journaling kit! (see Tuesday's post).

What does make me smile is that I got the date wrong with my date stamp.  Not the only thing I got wrong whilst I was ill!!  I am now fully fit and back to my usual self, thanks for the best wishes many of you sent :)

BiG doodles

Whilst blog hopping the other night I came across Catherine Scanlon's blog Art from the Heart and noted that she had a class just about to start that sounded right up my street!  I've been working for a while now on transferring my art journal work onto a larger canvas and any help and advice I can get is gratefully received!

The first class was on Friday and involved lots of large scale doodling.

I worked on A2 size paper with a very large, chunkie Sharpie.  At first my brain was getting in the way and trying too hard but then I realised that all I needed to do was play with lines, just like I play with paint and stamps and stencils in my journal.

So this was just a wandering line, with a few added circles before I then went back and added some more weight to one of the lines.  When I got this out to photograph I spotted a rabbit - can you see him too?

I used my whole arm to make these dramatic shapes, which look plant like to me, with a base of pebbles.

I wasn't keen on this doodle at first, but after I added the leaf like doodles it started to 'grow on me' (sorry, couldn't resist that pun!)#

I was enjoying making these connected circular shapes and this one brought to mind shells, seaweed and pebbles on the seashore.

After my doodling session, which lasted about 15 - 20mins, I got out a recent Amazon purchase entitled 'Expressive Drawing' by Steven Aimone.  The author discusses the fact that not all drawing needs to be an accurate copy of something but that it can be about "internal realities - feelings, imagination, fantasies, dreams, the spirit".  The first exercise in the book is all about the "simple pleasure of making marks on paper" and doodling on big sheets of paper!

So I've decided to do these activities alongside those set by Catherine.  I'll need to head down to the DIY shop though for paper, I couldn't believe the prices at HobbyCraft yesterday, and I need to practice BiG!!!