Art Journal Covers

I made some covers to keep my art journal pages in, using my new favourite colour...orange! (Notice the blog's zingy new look as well!)

Another Technique: DIY Stencil

I have decided that my art-related goal for 2012 is to be more adventurous with techniques.

I tried the basic monotype print technique in my last post and this time I'm making my own stencil from acetate. The original picture which I traced the shape from is actually a design for surfboard artwork, by Stina Persson. I thought it would work perfectly for a stencil, so I traced it onto a sheet of acetate and cut out the negative shapes using a very sharp blade. Voila - a unique and very cheap stencil.

Blue Sky Thinking...journal page

We went for a walk on the beach today. It was cold, but the sun was shining and the sky was so incredibly blue that I couldn't help feeling wonderfully cheerful and positive.  I wanted to make a journal page which captured the blueness of that sky, and the uplifting feeling it gave me. 

I found the perfect colour and painted a background onto Yupo.  Yupo isn't absorbent, so you can use a damp paintbrush to 'lift out' areas of paint, like this:

Then I drew in some cheerful floral-type doodles which I'd sketched a while ago.  I didn't add any other colours to distract from the blue.

I could have just added the journalling in black but decided to make the blue 'pop' even more by matting onto a black background and journalling in white.  Quick and easy, but I was pleased because it really does capture my feeling about that blue sky.

Return to Art Journalling

After months of cardmaking and photography projects (plus the Sketchbook Project), I have finally got back into art journalling.  It was great to crank up the music (African Guitar Legends - great background music) and get the paints out again after so long.

The compass is a Tim Holtz mask (which I failed to stick on straight!) and I used a lovely huge skeleton leaf on the other page, which adds a nice bit of texture.

Last Sketchbook Project Pages

A couple more pages from my Sketchbook Project, which I managed to finish and which is now winging its way over to Brooklyn NY.  I was trying out my new Rotring ink cartridge pen here, plus watersoluble crayons.

3D Wedding Cards

I'm really enjoying my cardmaking at the moment and have been having fun making boxed wedding and anniversary cards. I've been giving the Cuttlebug a workout, using embossing folders and Spellbinders dies.

A bit of Nature Photography for a Change

I've had enough of pylons and carparks and man-made stuff for a while, so I took my camera to West Dean Gardens near Chichester...

I loved the shapes of the flowers and the leaves of this blue Echinops flower.

(I held a sheet of white paper behind the flower to take the photo, and I have altered the brightness using Photoshop, but the flower really was very blue.)

Willow Sculpture