31 days of Art Journalling

I signed up to do Laura Kemshall's workshop: 31 days of art journalling.   I am up to date with watching the videos but not so with the actual pages.

I chose a small square Seawhite sketchbook for this project.  Before I started I took out the centre pages of each signature.  I learned from the class I did with Laura before that the binding doesn't like all the extras pasted in.  It also means there are less pages to complete.

Laura introduces a different idea or technique each day so none of the pages I am going to show you are anywhere near finished.

Some previously painted papers ready to put into the book.

Machine and hand stitching

Letters cut from a newspaper and a magazine

Laura suggested a variety of themes to choose from but I retreated to one of my favourites- canals.  I cut some photos from the Towpath newspaper that we get.  And this Roundhouse from the National Trust magazine.

I had a go at a Ransom Note headline

And I've glued in a couple of my own photos.

 

The workshop is a third of the way through and I'm intrigued to see what Laura comes up with next.  I am a bit behind but not to worry there's plenty of time.

Why not come and join me.  You can find all the details here: DMTV

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

A for Authentic

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.

 
The first page had lovely lines to write on.  To connect the two pages I drew circles on the left hand page to echo the ones on the right.  I used an alphabet sticker for the A.

I have chosen Authentic for my A word.

I started my study by listen to this podcast on Authenticity - one of my church's culture word.

Through that I found these verses which I thought would be good to write out.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  Romans 8:1-2

So keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always. Philippians 4:8 (TPT)

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.  1 Cor. 15:10

As I listened to the podcast I also wrote down words that stood out particularly in terms of the definition of authentic.  I wrote these words into the circles.

My finished page:

Thank you for joining me today.
Bernice

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year

Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.

 Living Your Word of the Year 2019

Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.

20 days in North America: Art Journaling Workshop

My last post about our trip to North America is a return to creativity.  We had organised the whole trip around me being able to take an inperson class with Valerie Sjodin.  I had signed up for her online courses but it is so great to be able to be in the same room as the tutor.

The workshop began on the Friday evening playing with paints and shaving cream.  First we looked at the paints we had taken with us.  Or in my case - had nipped into Blicks and bought on our arrival in Portland!  Lots of photos coming up.

Some of my painted papers.

Preparing the shaving foam and paint.

The scrapings from the shaving cream prints.

Over the next two days, Valerie showed us different techniques and we all worked at our own rate producing very different books.

Shaving cream prints

Stencilling

I sewed the pages of the book together.  I drew through a stencil on the cover.

I didn't like the green stencilled page so I stuck one of the sheets od Deli paper over it.

I really struggled with this centre page.  You will see what I ended up with later.

Valerie was available the whole time to encourage and to suggest ideas.  Many of her journals were on display so you could find ideas.  Here are the pages of my finished book.

I ended up cutting out circles from the very first paper we painted and then using a Michelle Ward stencil to doodle over the top.  It reminded me of the Chihuly glass we'd seen.

This is my favourite page.

And here's everyone's books opened at their favourite page.

Thank you Valerie and everyone else for such a great weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Dyary time

This year Dyan Reaveley introduce a new line of products - The Creative Dyary Collection.  I pre-ordered some of the products and fortunately they arrived by the end of February so that I could start my Dyary on March 1st.

I started by checking out Dyan's blog and looking at what I had done with Documented Life Planner.  Fortunately manufacturers have now starting producing narrow washi tape.  In 2014 I had to slice the standard tape into 3 to use as dividing lines. 

The dyary comes with some of Dyan's artwork on the right hand page and I thought that this would make it easier to journal with.  But in fact I have found it just as difficult as having a blank page.

Then I got busy and didn't have time to keep up with the pages.  However it was still on my mind as whilst I was in the States I bought more washi tape and some pads of stickers.

I spent a couple of days last week catching up with all the pages.

 

 Currently I'm leaving the bird page as a black and white drawing but I may come back to colour it in.

I am pleased with my left hand pages.  It's a great record of what I've been up to and possibly makes my life look rather more exciting than it really is!  I don't love the right hand pages but now that I'm up to date I want to investigate how I can make the pages more my own.

Have a look at Dyan's new blog post.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Up North!

Last weekend I went to Yorkshire - known to the locals as God's Own Country.   I was going to a weekend class with Dyan Reaveley at Art from the Heart.  I decided that rather than sit in a traffic jam on the M1 on Friday afternoon I would drive up in the morning and visit York.   I left the car at a Park & Ride and took the bus into the city centre.

I have been to York before so I concentrated on visiting Fairfax House which I hadn't been to before but had seen on the television.

Unfortunately there was a ban on photography in the house but I did manage to sneak this one of the window on the main staircase.

I went for a boat trip on the river.

And saw about 50 or more geese going for a walk.

Then it was off to the hotel in Harrogate, dinner and the start of the workshop on Friday evening.    The workshop was called 'Expanding the Page' and was described as being 'Not for the faint hearted!'

At the start we were given one of Dyan's square journals and we were off - tearing pages out as a starter!  And then cutting a wavy line on several pages which produces this effect:

We didn't add the paint until the next day.

Over the weekend Dyan introduced us to old favourites and new techniques, showing us how she works when she starts a new journal.

We had a great time chatting, discussing, laughing, eating and oh yes - painting and spraying pages.  We also cut things out, pasted them in, and generally just played.  We weren't allowed to think about what each page might be.  The whole point was to have as many pages as possible having a background with random things stuck on so that whenever I want to journal I can just open up the book and journal.

On Monday and Tuesday I carried on with the pages - painting those I hadn't managed at the weekend, doodling and generally playing.

I took these two pages out because I wasn't very enamoured with them

And I stuck one or two pages in the journal together because I didn't like them at all.  I expect I could have gessoed over them but I didn't.

Here's a flip through my journal.

I bought another square journal and I hope to make another one using all the same techniques and principles but using other colours.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice