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