Cover art for my completed journal

In January 2016 I embarked on a new altered book for my art journal practice. It was an old art book purchased in a library book sale and looked like this : 

In April 2017 it needed re-binding to give more room in the spine

so it was just as well I hadn't started by arting up the cover....it had the treatment again in more recent months, 

and since I completed my Christmas pages, although I had a few spreads left, I decided that it was time to finish. I had some pages falling out 

which I stuck back in with washi tape and that was okay

but I was having increasing trouble closing the journal

so I took a deep breath and removed the remaining pages before gluing my angel magic page to the back cover

This art journal holds 3 years of my art journal practice. Although it's not the whole story, it's fabulous to have so much of my art journey contained in one place.

I've learned a lot - I've learned to work bigger, I've learned that such a large book is a big commitment to fill, I've learned it's heavy and a bit awkward to carry something this size easily to share with friends who want to see your art.... I've decided to try something smaller next year - that will be the subject of a later post. 

I usually leave altering my journal covers until the book's completed. I started with these simple thoughts : gold background, lovely serviettes, my current colour palette....began with white gesso so I had a light surface for my gold 'base' layer and to have 'tooth' on the spine over that shiny duct tape. Photo taken in the sun after the gold added to show off the gorgeous glow ♥

When I opened my cover to paint those initial layers, it opened to my art symbols spread that I created a couple of years ago - it includes my most loved colours and what they mean as well as the symbols that occur often in my work and why 

Then I checked out my Flickr album for this art journal and my favourite palette was confirmed : 

Iridescents and fluro have to be included - purple, lime, pink, orange, green-gold, turquoise - yum! I also love to include serviettes and stencils in my work :

Not worried about this base layer being perfect cos this will just peek through a lot of stuff on top if I follow my usual practice. Began with some stenciling and then added one of my favourite serviettes in a lot of places cos I love it

I quite like that it has a similar feel to my cover for Documented Life 2017 since that was my companion Daily journal last year.

Although I thought about including a face, I decided it will just be a riot of colour, stenciled layers and the dates of use  

From this

To this ♥♥♥

Love that this is complete and can now live alongside my other finished art journals

....can't wait to begin my new one

Doodled Magazine Faces

I've completed another couple of doodled girls - white pen work over recycled magazine faces...at least that was how these started. These progress photos show how they developed through my #arteveryday practice. 

Was thinking about adding a wash of colour to her garment but instead decided to use a moonlight pen in her hair....forgot that I hadn't given any treatment to her face and didn't like what I initially did on the mouth so had to add extra there! Oh well - it's all learning and I don't hate it (but I don't love it!)

Wash of colour over her garment = a tragedy averted cos I realised quickly that the pen I am using (uniball signo) is not waterproof! Wiped off and re-did the white pen work. To do that technique (which I did to such lovely effect HERE) you must use a waterproof pen like a sharpie paint pen. I do like how I am experimenting a bit more and learning along the way....Decided to go all out with colour using more moonlight pens for a big finish!!

I love taking the process photos and seeing how these evolve and the spread is transformed from the original glued magazine pictures

These have value for the meditative process of doing them no matter how they might turn out. I never know at the start how they will look finished! See all my recycled doodle journal art HERE.

Christmas pages in my art journal

About a month ago, I shared a random ink and paint background on a journal spread

When I was working on my latest project, I cleaned off some gold paint/stencil on the left and tried out a different version of Effy's ink and rubbing alcohol technique on the right

And suddenly I knew how I wanted to finish these pages. I handmade some candle masks and added turquoise glaze around them

Added outlining with gold pen and adding some extra metallic purple paint to help define the candles

Some meaningful found words

And then I had to have a think about what else the page needed....taking a photo often helps

It just needs a little more in the background I think - to deepen it and make the candles burn brighter ♥ But I'm in New Zealand and it's Summer Solstice time, so didn't want to go too dark. The answer = a darker cerulean blue glaze around and between the candles and some lovely Pebeo iridescent bleu noir through that stencil in several of the brighter background spaces

It's amazing how small touches can make a big difference to this feeling finished. I find it REALLY hard sometimes to use glazes to cover beautiful backgrounds but I am happy with how this turned out in the end. 

To the other side : 

this is obviously going to be a galaxy painting along the lines of the one Effy Wild released with her FREE To See Us Through : A Cosy Winter Workshop this year. 

Next steps in how mine developed : 

Effy's demo above uses watercolours, I used inks with water to help them move. The blue below is Goldens transparent high flow acrylic spritzed with water - when all dry I added the stars

That's my final art before Christmas. Wishing you peace, joy, hope, love and magic ♥