Week 39 : DLP 2015

Hello - please don't expect continuing daily posts from me! It's school holidays and I wanted to get caught up on my journal pages for Documented Life. While the creative ideas were coming, I thought housework could wait...can't it always ;-)
Information about the FREE weekly Documented Life project is HERE. 

This was last week's challenge and yikes - that means we've only got 25% of this year left! I know, because I write the weekly challenges in the front of my journal :

Last challenge with the theme of Photos for the month of September. This week was the first of our school holidays, and we had a lovely trip away to Rotorua, as well as watching lots of DVDs together as a family, and me reading some lovely books, so lots of photos I could use. I had just seen a very useful Youtube video from Dyan Reaveley about using her Dylusions inks and how she thinks of them in colour families so she makes beautiful blended backgrounds and doesn't make mud - particularly interesting to hear about the Crushed Grape purple ink (my favourite colour) - watch it HERE. That was therefore the natural choice in my mind for my background this time.
{as a side note, if you have trouble with mixing paint colours to blend instead of making mud she has also done a really useful blog post about co-ordinating her paint colours HERE}

I must admit that I couldn't bring myself to use quite as much ink as her, but a wet paintbrush can blend out any gaps. So pretty - almost a shame to cover it. I said I had lots of photographs from the week - first step was to cut them into either circles or leaf shapes depending on how key they were to my day, and then I stuck them down in a particular way

so that I could doodle with these pens

to create a flower garden of my days in photographs. It was a simple idea and fun to do

Click on the photo to enjoy it larger or see it in the Flickr album I've created for all my Documented Life 2015 spreads HERE. You can see all my posts about this project HERE.

Week 38 : DLP 2015

Information about the FREE weekly Documented Life project is HERE. 

I've got a little bit behind again on DLP challenges, so I did my journaling block ahead of my spread this time around. Keeping the daily journaling going is an important part of this project for me. I enjoyed the lovely background colours I used the other day to start my journal cover (see previous post) so began again with one of my favourite turquoise iridescent paints. Also from the journal cover, I used the middle layer of a black printed serviette to get some subtle layering. Since I know I am going to be using black for at least one silhouette here, I decided to use the top layer of the serviette for some pattern.

The overall theme for the month is still photos, so I printed one of myself onto photo paper and then cut it out leaving a silhouette.

First thought of light was a window so I added a lovely cathedral window stencil using bronze and gold metallic paint

My theme is that even when I have a migraine or am in the dark creatively (ie. the creativity is just not coming easily) I know that I will come out of it at the other end. There is always colour and hope in my world - even if it is messy at times. So I layered more colour and pattern til it became messy - but also lovely I hope :-)

Added some feelings to my silhouette figures

A few more doodles - a Bic white corrrection pen adds just the right spots of light

And my joyful figure to finish "Ta Dah"

Click on the photo to enjoy it larger or see it in the Flickr album I've created for all my Documented Life 2015 spreads HERE. You can see all my posts about this project HERE.

Journal Cover

If you follow my blog, you will know that I've been doing both Life Book AND Documented Life projects this year. Mostly they've been separate, except in my very first week when I combined the bonus lesson of the tag (by Roben-Marie Smith) from Life Book

with my Documented Life spread.

I've not been as creative as I'd like lately, but I got my creative mojo back this last couple of days and it came from combining those projects again...My Documented Life spreads are created is this large Dylusions journal : 

Only criticism - the stretchy elastic closure band came off only a couple of months in so I'll have to use something else to keep it closed...no biggie.

I've been waiting for creative inspiration to strike before I tackled the cover. That happened this week when I watched Life Book lesson week 39 by Roben-Marie Smith. I decided this was the perfect inspiration for creating a lusciously layered cover. I guess having no band actually makes it easier - just have to cover up those wee metal circles that held the band. I realised fairly quickly that I needed to add a layer since my background was brown instead of white - so out came the gesso. 

Then Roben-Marie used watercolour - I love the soft look, but they don't behave as I'd like on the white gesso. Solution - using some lovely soft metallic paints - I know they're fairly expensive (the lumiere brand is anyway) for a layer that will mainly be covered up, but the colours make me happy and there's no point in having supplies that you don't use - right?

Time to layer some collage. I love to use paper serviettes and was thrilled when I started to peel this one apart to discover the soft print of the middle layer

Ended up using just that layer rather than the darker black - love the ethereal effect as it blends over lower layers

Click on any photo to enjoy the details larger
I love using all different kinds of papers in the layering, including inky underpapers from other projects. As the layers continue I feel happier 

and happier

The highlighted definition there is the word Nourish - my Word for 2015. Important for me to have that included on the cover and a good reminder for me to think about that again at this stage of the year. The other new focus for me to explore this year in art journaling has been Faces. I really need to include some on my cover. In Week 31 of Documented Life, you may remember that I re-used a face from a previous spread by copying it, re-sizing, printing on photo paper and then repainting it onto the page. So I copied a couple of faces and did that again.

The one on the right is from my Inner Artist Guardian (a Life Book project) - I left her as is. I think maybe because in the original she had the word Nourish included so this felt right.

Interestingly, the face on the left was the one I mentioned above that I originally altered! See her originally created HERE for Documented Life Week 28, and again I felt the need to alter her for the cover.

A bit deeper colouring, and I especially like how the purple metallic dots added to her new look. And I'm done and very happy that I indeed have luscious layers :-)

Front cover :

Back cover :

Spine view :

The entire spread :

Click on the photo to enjoy it larger or see it in the Flickr album I've created for all my Documented Life 2015 spreads HERE. There's also a Flickr album for my Life Book projects HERE. And you can see all my posts about Documented Life and Life Book by clicking on their respective titles.
Next up - what to do with the inside front cover....