Blogging A to Z: J is for Journal

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

One of the things a lot of artists use as a learning tool is a Journal. This can take many different forms, and in fact I have several journals, each with a different theme or purpose.  These journals can be made by hand or purchased, and can have special paper inside, or just plain white. A lot depends on what you are planning to put inside as to what the paper should be made of.

Over the past sixteen months I have been involved in traveling art journal projects with friends I met through social media--primarily Instagram. Each artist creates her own journal (we have so far all been women) and decorates the cover, outside and inside.  Some people also add a sign-in page for the artists to log their name and contact information, but some just rely on the artist to sign their pages.  The blank journal travels around to each participating artist, who then creates two pages of their own style of art inside before passing it on to the next one.  The end results of these treasures have been fantastic! None of the artists that have been in these round-robins are professional artists, but the work is inspiring, nonetheless!

Here are a few photos of some of the pages I have done in other people's journals:

Usually artists keep at least one journal to draw or practice or record ideas.  I have not been very good at keeping up with the habit, but eventually I would like to add something to my journal every day.  Just like any skill, the more you practice it, the better you become.  It would certainly stretch my creative muscles a bit!

Another form of journal that has gained a bit of popularity in the last few years is called a Junk Journal.  Paper crafters often have a lot of bits and pieces left over from various projects, whether scrapbooking, making cards, or whatever.  A great place to put these things that are too pretty to throw away is inside a junk journal; also called smash books and glue books. The main thing I keep in my Junk Journals is mail art.  Sometimes you can recycle an old book to use as the base pages for the journal, just gluing things onto the pages that are already there.  My junk journal is completely comprised of items I received in the mail, and I repurpose the envelopes I especially like into pockets to hold other bits of mail such as post cards and small inclusions.  I keep it all in 8" 3-ring binders.  Here is a video (my first ever YouTube!) of one of my junk journals.  I have three volumes now. :)

I am still becoming friendly with art journaling. It isn't that I don't enjoy it, because I really do, but I haven't yet made it a priority.  At any rate, I love the journals I do have, and hope to get more consistent through the months to come.  Thanks for dropping by, today!  I'd love to read your comments! :)

Catching up and More Art

Ornery finally got the oven installed at the rental property last night. The electrician recommended by the property manager helped him in the morning to wire it in, but he had to go back after work to finish remodeling the cabinet because of course the oven was not the same size as the old one.

He started working on the new couch table for the living room this weekend, and actually made quite a bit of progress despite not really getting started on it until Saturday afternoon.  He spent most of the morning helping me rearrange the kitchen cabinet contents to make my work space more functional. I am pleased with the results, but still have a bit more to do to finish it up.  After four hours of working on it, I was more than done!

I am not sure why we were in the house over the weekend. The weather was incredible with the high on Sunday 78 degrees! I opened my studio window and enjoyed the day--except for the yappy dogs...

Here are some of the things I worked on from Friday through Sunday.

Pages for a traveling art journal

Pages for a friendship journal.  These are sent alone, not with the journal.

back sides of the pages above.

Altered Rolodex card. I used pieces of art journal pages I had trimmed off to weave the background.

another altered rolodex card. This one is called Family Game Night.

Happy Art Swap cards for February. (#haswap)

An ATC I made for a swap using Fibers

More scraps cut from Art Journal pages, and I added some embellishments I had in my stash.

Metal ATC for a swapbot swap. I have tiny cuts all over my hands from weaving that background!

Junk Journal/Letter for a pen pal

This last item is a conglomeration of odds and ends that people have sent me as extras in swaps and with letters.  It gathers in a couple of piles, and before long I have a huge mess. The pen friend to whom I am sending this always sends me lots of extra fun stuff in her letters, so I decided to do something new and different for her and created this journal. There is writing on all eight pages, plus a wide variety of ephemera and other things tucked in here and there. The back cover has a pocket with string closure and it contains an altered Rolodex card and an ATC. One page has a little envelope on it with a washi feather inside.  The whole thing will take her longer than a minute to read and since she says she re-reads my letters several times, I figured I'd give her more to look at.  :)  I do the same with her letters, and I have really enjoyed the things she has made for me. Hopefully she will have fun with this.

This week we are saying our last goodbyes to wheat. We'll see if the loss will be sustainable, but for now we are hopeful that it will help us to lose some unwanted pounds and improve our health.  Of course on Saturday a neighbor came by selling Girl Scout cookies, but we only bought one box of thin mints and decided they just don't taste as good to us as they used to.  That's a good thing!  It is amazing the number of foods that list wheat as an ingredient. I don't plan to give up all grains, and I am not going to try to maintain "gluten free" practices, but giving up just this one ingredient will be a significant change and require a dramatic lifestyle adjustment.

New Journal Project

One of my friends on Instagram has asked me to swap art with her this year with a friendship journal. We each make a cover for the other person and then send pages monthly to fill it. Here is the cover I made.

Outside back and front

Inside front and back

Front

Back

I started working on a page last night. I'd like to send two pages with the covers. We'll see.

We have a rather long to-do list between now and Sunday. The new dishwasher is scheduled to be installed Friday, and I need to get things ready for that. The temperatures are forecast to be in the 50's so we hope to get errands done before Saturday so we can work in the garden while it's nice.

We've been getting up really early (3:00 AM) because of Ornery's work schedule. It's been nice to get more done during the day, but by 7:00 PM I'm toast! I'm hoping we will adjust soon, and that I have more energy during the day than I have the last couple of days!

Play Day

A couple of months ago I signed up for a class online called Art Journal Conversion by Roben Marie Smith. This was my second time through watching the videos and creating pages. I had so much fun!!

The last picture is cut down to 5x7" for a friendship journal I am sending to another artist. We will swap pages throughout the year.

It was a fun day.

Catching Up

The days fly by and I forget I even have a blog with so many things going on! So, here I am, checking in with my few faithful followers for an update.

Friday night, Ornery tackled the wall in my studio that we had left deep teal colored when we painted in there earlier this year. We still had some paint, which he used until it was gone, then we started Saturday off with a quick trip to Lowe's for another quart. That room was done by noon, and while I worked on putting that room back together, he decided to paint the guest room and hall bathroom, which were also deep teal. That took up the rest of the weekend, and is still a work in progress.

I had a professional carpet cleaner come Monday morning, and they cleaned all the carpet, ceramic tile and a wool rug. I spent that day working on pen pal letters in the garden room, which was the only dry floor in the whole house!

Yesterday I caught up on a bit of art, as I had received two art journals to work in.

Today I am going to hopefully get the house cleaned up, then work more on my pen pal letters. I'm pretty motivated to do more art, so it's hard to focus on mundane tasks like cleaning bathrooms when I'd rather be creating, but soon this phase will be over and normal life can resume.

Playing with Alcohol Inks

A few posts back I mentioned that I needed to add one more page to my friend's art journal.  This is the page I did using alcohol inks and canned air on glossy paper.  I added some gel pen accents.

Here is a closer view in which you can see a bit more detail.  I just love this stuff!  The colors are so vibrant and rich.

Journal Pages and Cover

My pen friend Karen received her ojswap journal almost six months after it was started, and was sad to find several blank pages within. So she asked if I would do another spread to help her fill it up. She hadn't decorated her cover either, so I offered to do the front. Here are pictures.

 I covered the front with gesso to give it a clean surface, then adhered printed tissue paper and a few torn squares of lime green tissue with matte gel medium. I cut the letters free hand from a variety of papers except for the Tim Holtz playing card A.

 Here is the spread. Below are closer shots of each page. The background is twinkling H2O watercolors dribbled on, then manipulated with bubble wrap and a baby wipe. The banner flags are gelli-prints, all but one are made by me, the r is on one made by my friend Jonathan. The spread took me a full (long) day to create.

I wove some strips of paper (mostly gelli-prints) behind the f. The bicycle is stamped and embossed in white. The flowers between the r and i banners are torn bits of washi tape. The letters are stamped with making memories foam stamps using distress paint by Ranger. 

I always try to use some washi tape on my artwork, and on these pages, in addition to the torn strips along the top left and bottom right pages, I cut pieces to hang the flags on the green eyelash yarn, a leftover from my daughter's last shawl. The feather on the d flag is cut from the front of a pen pal letter-- a bit of recycling... The little flower pot is actually metal, and the leaves and flowers came from other pen pals. 

I have one more single page to do before I send it on to another pen pal to work in. I got some new alcohol inks yesterday and plan to do something with them. Happy Sunday!

Instagram Friends Traveling Journal Home!

I posted a number of weeks ago about a traveling journal project I was doing with some friends on instagram, and it came back today with the most amazing art inside!!

All the @references are instagram usernames. I encourage you to check out their feeds if you enjoy art!

Front cover by me! 

Intro letter by me.

Contents page, which indicates there is still room in the 'hood for more artists!

First page by Kim Burk (@kluvmy4js) "Gossip in the 'hood"

Second page by Kim Burk. Shimmery, textured goodness!! 

By Darlene Winter (@dar63) "Crafting in the 'hood"

Second page by Darlene Winter. Amazing textures, rich colors, such amazing attention to detail!! 

First page by Ramona Samuels (@ramtalk) "Romance in the 'hood"

Second page by Ramona Samuels. Such fun collage elements! Love the ribbon banner and the washi tape!!

First page by Syda Howery, (@kreativenotions) "Night in the 'hood" 

Second page by Syda Howery. These pages are awesome! Texture, rich saturated colors, just so fun!

First page by Karen Adams (@yeah_its_mom) "Happy 'hood!" 

Second page by Karen Adams. Both pages are reminiscent of cards I have sent to her. The style and theme is very much her own, and I love every sparkly colorful bit of it! 

Both pages by Nicole Bray, (@wholeheartedart) She is in Canada, and sent her pages to Karen to be added to the journals. 

I added a page in back for each participant to add a few snippets of washi tape. I love this page! 

And, finally, the back cover, made by me, my gelliplate, and a fun sticker by David Icon (@davidicon)