Journal 52: week 2 "a simple place"

I am blessed to have a daughter who lives in Costa Rica with her family.  My husband and go and visit as often as we can.  Whenever I go I take the time to imprint the sights, sounds and smells of the beach and the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

My journal page started with a photo that I took of my best friend, on a morning sunrise walk along the beach.  I printed it on copy paper, using a colour laser printer.  It was enlarged, and a bit pixelated ... To start with I adhered it to a piece of cardstock, using gel medium.

I next took a gelli print that I had made a few months ago .. I picked it because it reminded me of the sandy beach.  It was done with acrylics on watercolour paper.

I cut it to the same size as the photo and then stamped shells all around the edge of the page.  I cut out masks, so I could overlap them. 

I then cut out the centre of the page.

I put the layers together, again with gel medium.

I then took gelatos and water crayons, to add colour to the shells, and to paint out the photo a little.  Finally I highlighted the shells with ink tense pencil.

Finally I added a little journaling .. the hardest part for me ... 

Art class

Last night John and I went to an art class at the Lambeth Art Gallery.  It was super fun. Something I will try again. It was an instructor led group, and we each did a painting in acrylics ... Only four colours - white, two shades of blue and black.  We started by wetting our canvases, by just brushing water all over them.  We then painted a white circle.  Next one blue, then the other to surround the circle and fill the canvas.  Then we sprayed with water and moved the paints around.  After drying, we started on our trees.  Finally we splattered white snow flakes all over the canvas.  Here is our work.

John's is on the left.  Here are the close ups. 

I really like John's tree!

Up, up and away

Music always takes me up, up and away - the prompt for this week for journal 52.  Started by adhering a torn piece of music note wrapping paper to my base with gel medium.  Then scraped a thin coat of gesso and allowed it to dry.  I then used distress inks (walnut) around the edges, to give it a worn look.

I then used some modelling paste and a stencil and put raised feathers on the background.  Some were white, others I mixed some acrylic paint into to give some colour.  

I then randomly applied gelato crayon all over the piece, then took a waterbrush to them to spread the colour around.  I didn't really like how the feathers looked, so I touched them up with sparkling H2o's.  Stamped on the words and the large music notes.

I like it,  might go back to it and accent the raised edges of the feathers at some point.

 

Journal52

I found a group on Facebook over the holidays called Journal52 - there is more information on this website http://journal52.com.  I decided to try keeping an art journal this year and this looked like a great way to get started.  

I decided to go the 3 ring binder route, so I picked up this one cheap at Target.

I wanted to make it my own, so I started by giving it a coat of gesso and collaging pieces of scrap paper onto it, following the zig zag design.

Next I took acrylic paint and covered it again with bright colours.

Then I stamped it with Stazon ink, and used watercolour pencils to emphasize the zig zags.

Finally I taped the edges to finish it off and gave the whole thing a coat of mod lodge.  This was the hardest part as the tape refused to stick and I ended up having to glue it down.  I think it turned out nicely in the end.  I like the very subtle 2014 on the front cover.

Goodbye Christmas tree

The best Christmas in years .... For the first time in 12 years all my kids were home for the holidays.  A special shout out to Matt for insisting that Joellen and Zoe make the trip from Costa Rica, and to Doug and Kathy for making the trip from Miami happen for Bryn, Jillian and Trudy.

Thank you Christmas tree for watching over us.

Happy 2014

This year I will not be afraid.

November

Perfect way to start November .... Dark blue toes ...