Every summer I tell my self that I’m going to work in and finish my “The Sea” art journal. The problem is finding my paint mojo. I’ve talked about this before, sometimes I just don’t want to hassle with the mess and clean up!

Well, I decided to try something new to add lots of color, with out having to paint so much.

Although I did end up getting out the paints, a lot of that color is from pastels. I have owned a box of pastels for about eight years now. I may have tried them out a couple of times, but that’s it. They really gave my background the depth of color I was looking for!

The biggest difference between this page and the following one is the journaling. I really love how journaling on the page, as the last step, brings the whole look of the page together.

The first layer is just a wash of light green paint. Then I scraped pastels in green, pink, purple, blue, and yellow on their sides to cover more area. I stamped over that with bubble wrap dipped in aqua paint, let that dry, then added the geometric tissue and pieces of an envelope. When that was dry, I stenciled with gesso and a sea sponge, then went over that with a wash of tinted gesso*. For someone that doesn’t like to paint very much, I sure went to town!

I usually like to keep it pretty simple, but I was having way too much fun with the pastels and I thought the tissue and stenciling would calm it down a bit. Well, it was calm until I decided to add some orchid paint and spray it with water.

When that layer dried, I added the images from a vintage book on the sea and some postage stamps from abroad. They kind of stuck out like a soar thumb, so I went over the images and stamps with a coat of tinted gesso*.  As you can see, I still love fussy cutting my images, it makes them seem like a more organic part of the page than just cutting out a square.

I’m going to need to get used to all that action on my pages if I choose to use this technique. But, I’m willing to experiment until I find my comfort zone!

Let me know what you think, or if you have any questions.

Thank you for stopping in,

Talk to you soon,

~Patty

(*I make my tinted gesso by adding water to white gesso, then adding a little ochre and burnt umber to the mix. When I wash it over my pages, then blot with a paper towel, it tends to calm things down a bit and give the page a more cohesive look.)

This is a little something I worked on over the weekend. I was hoping to write about it sooner, but the week got away from me.

I purchased this little set of books about six years ago. I fell in love with these covers, they are so 60’s with all that color and woodgrain!

Once again, what I had started doing with them didn’t work out, so I put them back on the shelf, and on the back burner.

Then last week, I watched a few videos on Midori Traveler’s Notebook decorating, and thought I might be able to do some of the same things with these,  in my own fashion of course!

I did this on Sunday. I thought this would be a fun way to use up my vast collection of smaller bits and bobs. The first thing I did was to go through each notebook and glue the pages together to give them strength, and to cut down on the numbers of pages.  Then went through and covered those with thin patterned paper, I was hoping to keep the thickness to minimum! Good luck with that!

  This isn’t my father, I found this photo amongst my grandmother’s things. He was either a boyfriend, or wanted to be. Grandma was a busy gal!

I have put together a travel case with small containers of randomness to use up and inspire. Staying within a color story with each page spread is one of my favorite challenges. The plan is to spend time on getting as many pages decorated as I can, so I have a ready place to journal. I’ve decided to use some of my collection of inspirational quotes in them too. I have always loved quotes, so this is a really fun addition for me.

So, there you have it,  the beginnings of getting another WIP under my belt! It’s been such a treat to work in these, I have to put them away to get other things done, Love!

Thank you so much for spending your time with me,

Enjoy the rest of your week,

~Patty

Some out of the ordinary news here. My article in Art Journaling Magazine is out! Yay! It has been quite a while since I’ve written an article for them, so I’m super glad they liked it! I don’t think they will mind if I give you an early peek at my article.

Anybody that followed my olde blog has seen a lot of these pages, but not in print! Aha!

This art journal is kinda long in the tooth, it took some time to decide whether or not to submit it for publication. It’s a bit of a departure from what I usually submit, and I didn’t know if they would be on board.

My technique is still a work in progress, either that or I just get bored easily!

I really need to back to using my own photography in my work again. I just love that shot of our tree in the front yard.

Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning. It’s a fun thing to see your work in print and imagine it being seen around the world!

Thanks for stopping by,

Have a great weekend,

~Patty

I have been meaning to get back to my art journaling for a couple of weeks now, but something seems to always take precedence! So, I decided to shove a few things aside and have some fun!

This is one of my favorite journals, mostly because I love this little book. It’s a story about a colony of mice, a trash heap, and ensuing mouse drama. Lovely!

And of course, my spin…

…in the the form of journaling. I have been adding ready made ephemera, lots of washi tape, and scrap paper to my pages lately, a habit I’ve picked up from working in my list challenge journals.

Coloring in the illustrations is a must, I can’t bring myself to cover them up.

So Cute!

This plain green page was a bit tricky! I tried to think of all the colors that made the least sense, and came up with this: brightness with black and white accents.

More washi tape, scrap paper, circle punch-outs, , mid-century images, and some The Reset Girl glasses

This is the next page over. Again, as a hold over from working in my list journals, I tried to mimic the color story to give the page spread a more cohesive look.

Scrapbook paper, punch-outs, washi tape, ready-made and random ephemera, and of course journaling! Oh, and that yellow heart is punched from some adhesive washi paper that I found at Michael’s in the “Fun Finds” bins.

If you are new to my blog, you will get used to the fact that I share my journaling on line. I don’t write anything too personal or embarrassing, I have other journals for that! I figure there is a chance I’ll consider submitting them for publication, and they’ll publish my journaling anyway, so…

On that note, I have an article coming out in the Summer issue of Art Journaling magazine next month, so I’ll be sharing that soon!

Until next time,

Thanks for stopping by,

Have a fab day,

~Patty