2012 Art Journal, Week 6 - Friends

Friends

 Efemera from UK Stampers says:

"This week your prompt word is FRIENDS

1 Who, when where?

2 What is your most memorable 'friend' story?

3 Use some kind of stencil decoration on your page"

The stencilled panel at the top left started this page.  It reminded me of sunshine on grass and an occasion when a friend invited me over to stay in Holland and work on a horse therapy farm for a week.  When I look back, I still see it as a bright gem attached to some very dark cloth.  It enabled me to give some perspective to the events that I was going through at the time.

I wanted the page to be reminiscent of hard work outdoors in bright sunshine, with slightly scorched grass, dry sand schools and slightly skittish horses with snorting noses and warm, dusty flanks.

Ingredients for Friends

Sunflower stencil (origin unknown)

Anita's horse stamp

Blade Rubber Stamps horse stamp

Sunflower stamp (origin unknown)

Distress ink in 'spiced marmalade' and 'vintage photo'

Letraset Tria markers: greens G136 and G356, brown O346, orange O567

Letraset Metallic markers in silver and gold

Zebra Jimnie gel pens in silver and gold

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