2012 Art Journal, Week 5 - Perfect Day

Perfect Day

Efemera from UK Stampers had the following to say about Week 5:

"This week's prompt is PERFECT DAY
1 What is/ would be your perfect day?
2 Include a picture on your page
3 Use some stamping on your page"

I like to tone my photographs down a little if I am using them in collage work, as they can appear a bit too bright and "I'm-a-photograph-look-at-me" for journal work or card making.  It really depends on the look you are trying to achieve, but here, I wanted a more vintage effect.  I used Snapseed on the iPad to make the picture of James and Storm "vintage" and the picture of the boys "dramatic".  After printing these out, I used circular and oval punches on them, triming the sides of James and Stormy to be able to fit the keys in.

I was aiming for vintage and can trace the brown and orange colour scheme back to a card of Beanie's on UK Stampers, whilst the lime green contrast colour was a fashion website influence, Escada maybe...all too expensive for my blood, but beautiful to look at.  Having stamped the keys and clocks, I did the main journalling.  I felt the background still wasn't broken up enough, so I stamped various smaller round and oblong stamps among the keys and the journalling.  Then I begun doodling.  I doodled on every part of the page and loved every moment of it.

Ingredients for 2012 Art Journal, Week 5

Moleskine sketch journal

Key, clock and various round and oval stamps from various sources (I'm sorry, I just don't know where any of them came from, there are no markings on them) 
Distress Ink ink pads in "spiced marmalade" and "tattered rose"

Microsoft Paint on the computer, Snapseed photo-editing software on the iPad

Staedtler triplus fineliner sets of pens (colour and pastel): brown, steel, orange and lime green

2012 Art Journal, Week 4 - Cadbury's Creme Eggs

Cadbury's Creme Eggs 

Efemera says:

"This week your prompt word is SWEETS

1 List 5 sweets you remember from your childhood.  (Did you call them sweets? candies? or something else?)

2 Where did you buy them and what did they cost?

3 Include some kind of sweetie wrappers on your page"

I obviously do not read or remember the prompts as well as I should, as I quite forgot that we were meant to be listing five sweets that we remembered.  All I could think of was Cadbury's creme eggs and I suspect the heartfelt sentiment is self-evident.

Yeah, it is probably me, right?

I had a lot of fun with this page.  Unusually for me, I stamped the sweet rubber stamp in "spiced marmalade" directly onto the journal page, fully expecting it to run.  It didn't.  Yay!  I intended to create a "sweet" wallpaper effect to work against.  Next I used an egg shaped punch to cut out shapes in patterned paper and then put the Cadbury's creme egg foil behind, to look like tiny eggs.  These formed to top and bottom borders of the page.  I did the journalling in fountain pen and Staedtler triplus fineliners.

Small pound (accessorised by slightly moody queen) and a HUGE Cadbury's creme egg, like they used to be

I drew the pound coin and the large creme egg in pencil first, and then drew/outlined the details with Staedtler pigment liners of different sizes.  You can't really see it from the photo, but the pound coin is coloured using gold gel pen and gold metallic pencil.  I used a white correction pen to get the white of the Cadbury's and then Staedtler triplus fineliners (and a random yellow felt tipped pen) to colour the image in, finally outlining the sections in silver gel pen to make them stand out.  Finally, in an attempt to make them "leap" out from the page, I used the red and purple fineliners to create a halo around them.  I used the same fineliners to doodle around the borders, intending to bridge the gap between the patterned paper used for the mini eggs and the central images.

I was ridiculously pleased with how the big egg came out, especially as my partner James hadn't realised I had drawn it and thought it was just another used wrapper.  I think this has been the most fun journal page to create to date and I love the end result.

Ingredients for 2012 Art Journal, Week 4

Moleskine sketch journal

Anita's sweet rubber stamp

Distress Ink "spiced marmalade" ink pad

Patterned paper free with a magazine

Cadbury's creme egg foil wrappers

Lamy Safari fountain pen with medium nib

Steadtler pigment liners: 01, 03 and 05

Staedtler triplus fineliner set of pens: red, purple, yellow 

Zebra Jimnie gel pens: gold and silver

Pentel micro correct in white

2012 Art Journal, Week 3 - Schooldays and Doodling

Schooldays spent doodling 

Efemera introduces week 3:

"Your prompt word this week is SCHOOLDAYS

1 Jot down 10 random things about your schooldays

2 Use lined paper

3 Add some ink blots and doodle in the margin"

To begin with I cut some lined paper to fit my journal and stamped the maple leaf in Distress Ink "Spiced Marmalade".  I wanted to achieve an authentic school page look, so I found one of my old exercise books and a "back to school" titlepage produced when I was eight years old.  I cut out the title "SCHOOL" (well it was "SCHOOLS", but I ditched the 'S') and noted as I did so that my eight year old self had cunningly covered up a felt tip 'K' in SKHOOL with a 'C'.  The long suffering sticky tape had no stick left, so I glued the 'C' back in place.  In addition to the title, I managed to salvage the date and a few of the smaller, potentially recognisable items from the old drawing.  I especially liked the little doodle in black of two flowers appearing at the bottom of both the original page and the new one.  I copied that image when doodling the top and bottom borders.

I chose the colour scheme from the original drawing, adding the orange for a bit of light relief from the deep red, blue, purple and green.  My new favourite crafting things - a set of Staedtler triplus fineliner pens were great for a bit of girly journaling and a LOT of doodling.  I had to colour around the date to make the pencil writing stand out.  After highlighting that, all I wanted to do was to fill up all the free space with doodles, with the only white space being used for the ink blots.  As I only use black ink in my fountain pens, I am more accustomed to having black ink blots, but I seem to remember all school ink blots are blue...were we forced to write in blue ink in school, or was it just fashionable to do so?

I must say I had forgotten the joy of doodling.  There is something immensely satisfying and relaxing about doodling into every corner of a page.  The result is messy, but authentic and on the whole, I am pleased with it.

Ingredients for 2012 Art Journal, Week 3

Moleskine sketch journal

Lined paper

Santa Rosa maple leaf rubber stamp

Distress Ink "spiced marmalade" ink pad

Images from school exercise book I had when I was eight

Staedtler triplus fineliner set of pens: orange, red, blue, green and purple