Don’t know what to make of this spread, definitely not my greatest achievement, but it is still part of my journal and contributed to the learning process.
I used acrylic paints, a Tim Holtz mask, images of bird and bees from the Graphics Fairy and images of Morning Glory searching the web.
Oh, well… onwards…
Big love
AJ
This spread combines two passions – art & history. I wanted the pages to have an aged and vintage look. The background for both pages are old maps, the first page has an old map of London and the Thames and the second page has a very ancient map (a copy) of the island where I live. The collage images are my attempt to give depth to the pages, while also prettying them up, the piece in the corner of the second page is an extract from a story I found on Google Books. Sketches of a pedestrian in the Isle of Wight was published in the New Monthly Magazine in 1816 and tells of a walking holiday on the Isle of Wight at a time when there were few roads and many of the small towns, villages and hamlets were fairly isolated. The story is serialised in the magazine over a number of months but unfortunately is not complete. I have transcribed all of the episodes that were in a magazine to put into a folder for my local history group.
I realised a few days ago that some of the images in recent post has been resized incorrectly when I saved them for the web. The images look a little ‘squarer’ than they should do, but as I didn’t notice for a while I won’t be resizing them. In future though I will keep the pages to the correct dimensions.
Big love
AJ
I do have a French connection, one of my brothers married a French girl and they live near Paris with their family. I’ve never visited France though even though I always love to see my brother and his family when they visit England. We had French lessons when I was at school, but I didn’t get on with it very well so I can’t even speak basic French, I’m a typical Brit and can only speak English! Shame on me, my brother and his family are all bi-lingual.
This spread came about because I wanted some script on my pages and I haven’t got a script rubber stamp. I found this hand written letter in French on the internet and then found images that I thought would compliment it. For the background I used various shades of blue acrylic and water colour and stamped over it with white ink. I don’t think you can see it online, but the lady from the Folies Bergeres was coloured in with glitter pen and on the page she really sparkles. I quite like the effect but I think I need to try and find a way to lighten my pages, they all look too dark to me.
I’m not sure if the image of the Gold Dust Twins is really politically correct so just wanted to say I mean no offence, I had never seen this American advertising before, it’s from the late 1800s/early 1900s, and I just liked the image of the two children juggling the plates.
I’ve been watching lots of YouTube and Ustream videos made about mixed media and art journals and I am blown away by the talent and creativity of so many people, they are really inspiring. However I have become aware that watching these videos is also making me want more and more things, I’ve been thinking “I’ve got to have this and I’ve got to have that, how can I do art journaling if I haven’t got all these things”. But now I’ve decided that I really need to try and be creative with what I’ve got, and use what’s around me or what I can find. I have a few paints, stamps, papers, pens and a few basic masks and stencils so I will just have to make do with those until I can get to a decent craft store (there isn’t one anywhere near where I live) or go online when I can afford to buy stuff. I will have to buy more gesso fairly soon but apart from that my challenge to myself is ‘Let’s see what you can do with what you’ve got’.
This spread uses a Tim Holtz mask I purchased, some advertising images from the web, a white paper border I found in my craft box, some acrylic and water colour paints.
This spread was inspired by some old music paper I found in an art magazine I bought years ago and never knew how to use before, fortunately I didn’t throw it away as I always knew it would be useful one day :-).
I did some layers for the background with acrylic paints and gesso and collaged torn pieces of the music score, some musical instruments I found in some vintage adverts on the internet and the laughing man, from an old advert for a comic act (I think). I also used a Tim Holtz mini mask and I printed the heading on my computer. I’m pretty happy with the finished spread, I like the light and dark effect.
I’m not sure I do live my life out loud though, generally I don’t like being the centre of attention I’m more the kind of person who just gets on and does things in the background. Today though I did two things that did put me ‘in the spot-light’ (as it were) and whereas I would normally have been awkward and self-conscious today I felt confident and relaxed, lots of people smiled at me and that made me feel good.
There is something in my life – a trivial matter but it causes me some anxiety and, even though I know it really is unimportant it still plays on my mind and I spend far to much time mulling it over. It is almost becoming an obsession. I know because I keep thinking about it in a negative way I now see the problem far worse that it actually is. This is my note to myself that I just need to breathe and let go – concentrate on what I do that is good and worthwhile and stop stressing about things that don’t really matter.
That’s good advice if only I would listen to myself and actually do it 🙂
There are lots of layers on this spread. Most of the images are from ‘free to use’ stuff from the web and the more I look at it the more I can see the significance of how all the images came together: the time piece and the two ladies because ‘the problem’ is historic, the two funny heads that can be one thing or another (two faced), the squawking crows; the word Snappy in the background, the pointing finger and the big scissors because I just need to cut myself off from that part of my life. The white bit in the centre of the first page is a metallic white paint I bought, it gives a nice glow and I’m telling myself it signifies the light at the end of the tunnel.
On the other hand I could just be reading far too much into a collection of random images I made and then gave a title to.
We’ll probably never know 🙂
Big love
AJ
