December Daily-ish and my JIYA journal is complete

I love a December daily-ish project and this year I decided to take part in the combined inspiration of Care December with Kasia Avery and Art Journal Advent with Michelle (@raspberrybluesky) and Tamara (@marakreativstudio). I wondered if I might make myself a new journal, but as I was thinking about the pink theme for Care December, I realised that I had 24 spreads left in my JIYA journal.  I started it at the beginning of 2023 so decided I would love to finish it before the end of 2024. Check out some of the "before" spreads here. I did my gatherings...

So fun to tie on some embellishments today and get the journal finished 

These are a few of my favourite December pages.

You can see the rest on my Instagram or Facebook Artist's page. See the rest of my JIYA blog postings here.

January Review

I looove my long Summer holiday from mid-December to late January : long sunshine hours, swims, lots of social catch-ups and a time of high creative energy for me. So here's what I've been up to creatively this month. Birthday cards for January friends

I do prefer to create in batches - even 2 at a time is fun and you can try different variations. 

Sad to have to create a couple of bereavement cards

My husband asked me to make him a bookmark. I can't decide which side I prefer...

I had lots of fun in Fodder School 2 with Liz Constable - first making fodder

and then using it to create my To Adventure tag book (link includes video flip through)

and then was inspired by more bonus lessons to make some more fodder using different surfaces 

Then made some clusters and strings

I've been so busy making extra fodder I haven't quite got to making my Imperfect Porfolio, but I'm sure I'll be sharing that soon and I know I'll be playing with these techniques long after January is finished. While I am trying to be more sustainable this year and use what I have, I know when I see supplies I need. One of my criteria is to be able to support artists that I love so I have ordered Liz Constable's latest book (available Feb 2023 - currently you can pre-order) - she is a fabulous teacher and I'm sure there'll be more fun in here to support more play from the techniques I learned in Fodder School this month.

I bought Megan Quinlan's class Journal into Your Art in October last year and it re-inspired my monthly journal practice in November and December. I had decided not to continue with a monthly journal practice, but by the middle of January I was missing documenting and writing to support good self-care. This time I've made a proper JIYA journal as per class instructions. You can see more about this journal HERE in my previous post. 

I promised I'd share more progress photos in my monthly review, and I'm excited to say that my stencils by Leaca Young arrived yesterday on 31st January! (I ordered them 11th January so that's not bad from Alaska to New Zealand) 

I thought they would be fabulous in my JIYA journal and I was right! I have only had one little play with them so far using only black paint and a cosmetic sponge. 

These are the large faces straight in my journal

This lovely soft version is cleaning the stencil off into the gaps with a baby wipe

And this is the top stencil done on paper and collaged in

Medium sized face to show difference in size directly in my journal

And then I tried it on paper to make a paper doll. And had to try the small paper dolls with collaged dresses

I can't wait to have more time with these. 

Every year, I think it would be great to have a small stitching project to take to my Monday night quilt group. In my post thinking about my creativity for 2023, I talked about Roxy's Journal of Stitchery for 2023 which is a themed large snippet roll called "Down the garden path". I promised I'd share if it became a project I love and it has 💚 The project began on the first Wednesday (Italian time zone) of January and there will be a new video each Wednesday (Thursday in NZ) from Rachel and Sarah with new prompts being announced every 2 weeks until June. You can still join in. See all videos on YouTube here. I decided to use a gorgeous green leafy batik for my background, and I want to include mixed media elements as well. I am keeping it small so I stand a chance of completing this alongside my other projects. Here's what January looked like. 

That turned out to be a very long post. So great to have so much to share with you. I am back to normal hours at work now but hopefully with the long daylight hours of Summer I'll still have time to be creatively busy. I'll keep sharing my main projects on this blog but please check out my Instagram or FB artist page for more regular updates of my projects in progress.

My JIYA Journal

I bought Megan Quinlan's class Journal into Your Art in October last year and it re-inspired my monthly journal practice in November and December. 

See her video on Youtube about this class here. I had decided not to continue with a monthly journal practice in 2023, but I've been missing documenting and writing to support good self-care. My experiences in those last 2 monthly journals last year were trying out ideas on file folder bases. This time I've made a proper JIYA journal sticking more closely to the lesson plan. 

I am so excited to have started working in this journal. 

Megan provides some formulas so that you can create pages with enjoyment and freedom instead of wondering how to start. 

It's also a really freeing experience because she gives us permission to jump around in the journal instead of going from first page to last and I can just do the next thing I want to do and not have to finish a page until I feel moved to. I love this punched circle giving a glimpse into the page beyond.

I'm including focal images cut from old calendars and magazines 

and want to include more faces and female forms in my work so I've been thinking about how I've done that previously and I'm linking here to the relevant blog posts for my future reference : using magazine collage, silhouettes of figures and faces, 

magazine makeovers inspired by Alisa Burke, using image transfers, making paper dolls, 

and using stencils. With gifted Christmas money I treated myself to these stencils by Leaca Young. 

I figured since I had to pay international postage I might as well make it worth my while. Not sure how long they will take to arrive from Alaska but I'm very excited for when they do! She has a cool technique where she uses her face stencils on the gelli plate and that also got me thinking about using the gelli plate to transfer magazine images. I'm sure this will be one of those journals where more ideas come as I work into it so I'll share more progress in my monthly reviews.