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. 

Shine

I'm so glad I have an art journal with pages ready to fill because yesterday (my New Year's Day in New Zealand) I got an email from Effy Wild which included a speed painting to inspire embracing your wildness. Here's the email with the link to the painting. After a nap (stayed up til midnight - not used to it!), and a swim (my weather app told me it felt like 29 degrees celsius), I jumped into my journal. I love how her face started off looking so kind.

One of the things that attracted me to Effy's version were gorgeous silver doodles in the black spaces. I am wanting to incorporate more of Klimt's style into my work this year, and this seemed the perfect place for that. I decided to use my new stencils.

As I added all that gold and iridescent turquoise, she evolved into a celebration of my word Shine. This has been my word since 2017. In 2022 I want to Shine, to continue being intentional, with an emphasis on releasing what no longer serves me so that I can live with ease. I explained it more fully last year if you are interested in exploring my acronym focus words in more detail : Self-care, Home, Intentional, Notice, Ease.

I had no idea that I would be in my art journal so quickly into the new year. Last time I used it was early September! It's been completely unexpected and a great way to start the year given my previous post where I acknowledged that my creative time is precious and I really want it to be time that is making me feel fulfilled and is heart led. Unplanned creative joy for the win 💜 

A Year of Mary : Give in to Joy

I've been catching up on Effy Wild's "A Year of Mary" monthly lessons. Time for April's lesson and Mary Oliver's poem Don't Hesitate. This painting is a way to welcome in the magic of Joy. I used my favourite iridescent colours for my base

And ended up with this spread

See all my art from this class HERE. Also joy with news that we are moving to Delta Level 2 = back to school on Thursday with more normal routines but more mask wearing than at last Level 2. I've made some for us and some for extended family. A couple of black ones for the boys, but I really enjoyed working with some fun patterned fabrics.

I hope you are finding creative joy in your days.

A Year of Mary : Pay attention

I love Effy Wild's "A Year of Mary" monthly lessons and am having a bit of a catch-up. I've been picking my lessons using a random number generator. It's time for August's lesson and Effy used Autumnal colours but encouraged us to use colours that are reflective of our situation. We are still officially in Winter here in New Zealand but are being blessed with some gorgeous days of sunshine to hint at Spring....also my Magnolia is starting to bloom which always makes me want to use pink. 

This was a layered technique using glazes or washes of colour over white doodles. I used white ink for mine and they faded into my watercolour background.

But I love the look with my glazes added over the top - these paints are fluid acrylics and for this technique I just used a few drops of colour with water added to give more transparency

I took a photo of her to use as a print on future cards before I added the quote

And here's the finished spread - I was thrilled to find the gold rub-on letters in my stash.

Effy Wild is doing "A Year of Mary" as a monthly lesson exclusively on her Patreon at the $5 (speed painting) or $10 (full length tutorial and PDF) per month levels. Lessons are released mid-month. See all my art from this class HERE.

A Year of Mary : Keep some room in your heart

I love Effy Wild's "A Year of Mary" monthly lessons and have been rationing them out to make them last. So far I've done January, February and May. I can't believe it's been so long since I completed a lesson! Since it's Lockdown in New Zealand, I thought a bit of Mary and Effy might help 💜 The lessons are all so beautiful that I couldn't choose, and used a random number generator to pick my next one. For July's lesson we're working again with the Mary Oliver's poem Evidence. Last time we worked with kindness & mischief, but this time it's "Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable." We're in unimaginable times. I'm keeping room in my heart for love, for kindness, for empathy, and for gratitude. I am counting my blessings that I am in a bubble with people I love and that we can work from home. 

We began with a black gessoed background and metallic watercolours.

I suspect there will be more of these lessons to share in the near future...See all my art from this class HERE. Effy Wild is doing "A Year of Mary" as a monthly lesson exclusively on her Patreon at the $5 (speed painting) or $10 (full length tutorial and PDF) per month levels. Lessons are released mid-month.

Fodder Challenge : Paper Dolls

The free #FodderChallenge (details below) has lessons from 9 different artists. The first of these is Paper Dolls with Megan Whisner Quinlan. See examples of hers HERE and HERE. I thought I'd try some different faces and they need to be on cardstock so I dug through my stash for some suitable bits. I have an acetate one which I machine stitched onto the base before cutting around, a face from an old stamp catalogue, and an actual stamped face.  

I also copied and pasted some faces from my own art into a word document and printed them out to try as well.

These were so much fun. I love to see them all lined up and see how something on one inspired another.

Lessons available right now from 9 different artists. You can still sign up HERE with one week left to play. Free access to the classroom ends August 8.

Paint over collage

Sharing a page from my larger watercolour journal that I made during my blog break. This lesson was inspired by a session with Tam from Willowing in a free class in June which I shared HERE. You can see Tam's sample there. This was my base collage - I took a photo of myself specially for this page and just printed it on normal printer paper

This page faces my Journal Jam page that I shared HERE. I already had a tinted background to start since I had used this page as a paint palette and then felt I couldn't turn it into something lovely so applied gesso over the entire page.

This is an expressive self-portrait and not supposed to look exactly like me at the end. The metallic word sticker on the music says "today is full of possibilities". I always enjoy this process. See other examples of my work using this technique HERE.

A Year of Mary : Kindness and Mischief

Effy Wild is doing "A Year of Mary" as a monthly lesson exclusively on her Patreon at the $5 (speed painting) or $10 (full length tutorial and PDF) per month levels. Lessons are released mid-month. See all my art from this class HERE. Mary Oliver's poem Evidence was the inspiration for a delightfully fun spread from Effy this month. You can see a shot of her 'in progress' painting here. Here's mine

A Year of Mary : I want to be light and frolicsome

I've got behind with these wonderful lessons but they're not going anywhere and I'm going to do them in order for the year. This is February's lesson inspired by Mary Oliver's poem Starlings in Winter. Decided to include a fantail since they epitomise "light and frolicsome" for me. My spread was inspired by these words from the poem :

I want to be light and frolicsome.

I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings.

My fantail block stamp and pretty scrapbook paper to inform my colour choices

Began with metallic watercolours and then added some collage of both sides of that paper. 

Face using another watersoluble pencil but not the usual Stabilo black so it's softer

She is silver and light 💜

The wooden block stamps can be tricky to stamp directly into the journal (especially with collage elements already there) so I stamped with black staz-on ink onto white tissue resting on an old mouse pad to get good contact, then tore around it before gluing in with gel medium.

Effy Wild is doing "A Year of Mary" as a monthly lesson exclusively on her Patreon at the $5 (speed painting) or $10 (full length tutorial and PDF) per month levels. Lessons are released mid-month. See all my art from this class HERE.