my new art journal

I bought this awesome 100% recycled-paper Ecojot journal at Dandelion Mud Pie yesterday.



I love the sturdy coils and thick, cardboard covers.



Last night I started prepping the pages - randomly pasting in scraps of coloured paper and ephemera. Later I wrote notes to myself on some of the pages.



This morning I finished the inside front cover spread. The collaged paper on the right side was actually the first page, describing the journal. I ripped it out and tore it and pasted it back into the journal on one of the sturdier note pages.



This is the second spread that I completed this morning. What I love about this journal is that it can stand on its side, which will allow me to display one page at a time. I'll have to remember that when I'm composing future pages.

more recent sketches

Most of these were created the same weekend as the ones in the previous post. A lot of these sketches are spontaneous images - suggested by colours or forms that I've pasted on the blank pages. I rarely start with an image in mind, but let whatever wants to unfold happen. All images created using collage, Crayola wax crayons, coloured pencil, pencil and china markers.





The above image started as an exercise with Crayola washable markers.

recent sketchbook spreads

I haven't created much art lately, being too busy with my new job. But last weekend I took a much-needed break from working, and spent hours with my sketchbooks, just playing around. All images are collage, with Crayola wax crayons and occasionally pencil, coloured pencil, or china markers.

art cards - florals

I created these original art cards a couple of nights ago to send out to friends. In total I made ten unique cards - easy enough if you do it assembly-line style. I worked on all the cards at once, completing each stage on all of them before moving on to the next stage.

For most of my art cards I first print out the contact and bio information on sheets of white cover stock. Then I fold the page in half widthwise, so that the entire outside spread or "cover" of the card can be worked on as a unit (I like the images to flow onto the back cover of the card as well as the front cover).

For these cards I first drew an incomplete Spirograph "flower" with coloured pencil in varying shades on the front covers. I then chose cancelled postage stamps that matched the colour schemes suggested by the Spirograph flowers, and glued two or three on each card - one or two on the front cover, and one on the back.

With an HB pencil, and using my non-dominant hand, I drew the stems and leaves underneath each stamp, plus a few extra stems to make a row of flowers.

With coloured pencils that matched the colour schemes of each card, I drew in the tulip heads. Then with varying shades of green coloured pencil I re-drew some (but not all!) of the stems and leaves.

With Crayola wax crayons I "scribbled" colour fields over the flowers. I like to stick with pale colours that let the other lines show through, but sometimes (depending on the individual card) I chose darker colours and simply coloured in the tulip heads.

Afterwards I went over each of the cards with china markers in red and green, picking out certain lines in the tulip heads and stems.

tomatoes

I created this journal entry after admiring some tomatoes that were sitting in a bowl on my table. The collaged scrap of paper is a printout of an online map. The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and china markers in various colours.

summer end

I'm getting really frustrated with my scanner. It just isn't reading many of the pinks and yellows that are part of my artwork. Weird.

Anyhow, this is another page from one of my art journals. It includes a collaged scrap of paper that had some Spirograph "flowers" drawn on it with coloured pencil. I coloured over the image with Crayola crayons, and china markers in red and green.

happy flowers #2

This is the other page from the journal spread that includes yesterday's page. The collaged wrapping paper was from a gift that a client gave me. Also collaged are some used Post-it Notes. The image is coloured with Crayola crayons.

happy flowers

You must transform yourself into the person for whom the possibility of great things happening increases.

Deepak Chopra

The only collaged element on this journal page is the inkjet printout of one of my favorite quotes. The other half of the open spread that accompanies this image contains a scrap of floral wrapping paper that was my inspiration for the floral theme.

The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and china markers in various colours.

blue tulips

Sometimes I love how really random scraps of paper ephemera can suggest a colourway, or give a punch to what might otherwise be a pretty uninteresting drawing.

Here I've collaged the label off a skein of knitting yarn and a schedule of choral anthems from my former church choir.

The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and china markers in various colours.

pink angel

I don't normally like to scan partial images of my artwork, but I'm really fond of this collage and scanning just one page or the other didn't do the entire image justice. Unfortunately it didn't scan well anyhow - the original is full of rich yellows and pinks that didn't translate accurately in the scanning process.

When I create images in my art journals, I usually make them without any plan ahead of time, instinctively drawing what feels right in the moment. In this case, the combination of colours really pleased me, and I often keep this particular journal spread open and displayed in my apartment so I can enjoy it.

The collaged papers are old notes to myself and an old greeting card envelope. The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and red china marker.

my green life

This is a page from one of my art journals. I pasted a used greeting card envelope and scraps of other paper to the page, then coloured everything with Crayola crayons. A scrap of graph paper with a floral illustration sits inside the envelope.

yellow stars

This collage is from one of my art journals. The Post-it Notes contain lists of people I had to call. The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

starry sky #2

The curious child's eyes began to droop, and the Grandparent gently carried the curious child to bed.

This illustration changed part-way through its creation. I started with a magazine photograph for the grandparent's face, but didn't like it and pasted an inkjet print of one of my drawings over top (you can just see the remains of the first face in the upper right corner). The star is a scrap of envelope. Everything is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

starry sky

The curious child stared up at the heavens and asked, "Are there more?"

The child's face is a photocopy of a magazine photograph, and the stars are drawn on scraps of paper. Everything is coloured with Crayola crayons, plus black and white china markers.

grandparent

The curious child stared up at the heavens and asked, "What are the names of the other lights we can't see with our bare eyes?"

This collage contains scraps of construction paper, a photocopy, and a magazine page. I was getting tired by the end of the story (I created most of the illustrations in chronological order), and started getting really inventive with my colours (hence the brown sky).

I love the elderly woman's face with her kerchief tied around her head. She has timeless eyes...

grandparent and child

The curious child stared up at the heavens and said, "Grandparent, there are fast lights, bright lights, reddish lights, and large lights... but are there slow lights?"

This image contains a scrap of a photocopy (the face, from a photograph in a book), and an old Post-it Note. The background of the grandparent figure is blue construction paper. The head of the child and the hands are scraps of white paper. Everything is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

It was important to me that the figures of the grandparent and the child not be gender-specific. Sometimes they seem to be female, and other times male. Curiously, most of the children I taught assumed they were male.

jupiter #2

The Grandparent replied, "That is the largest planet, named after the kind of the Roman gods, Jupiter. Jupiter is so big, it is more than twice the size of all the other planets put together. It is the fifth planet in our solar system."

Jupiter's face is an inkjet print of an earlier pen and ink drawing of mine. There are scraps of an old poster (the green background) and some gold mylar (Jupiter's crown). The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

jupiter #1

The curious child stared up at the heavens and asked, "Grandparent, and what is that light over there?"

This illustration contains scraps from magazine pages (Jupiter and the grandparent's face), and is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

sun and mercury

"There is a light that moves quickly across the sky - it is the planet Mercury. It lives closest to the sun, and it moves so quickly because its year - the amount of time it takes to travel once around the sun - is so much shorter than our earth year."

This illustration contains scraps of construction paper (Mercury and the sun) and is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

the earth (everything)

I was visiting my sister in Smithville, Ontario this weekend, and she played me a song which I can't get out of my head - Everything, from Michael Buble's latest CD Call Me Irresponsible. (Listen to a sample here - scroll down to track nine.)*

It's a real feel-good song; I was dancing around my sister's kitchen with my five-year-old niece, swaying with her and spinning her around.

The chorus goes, "And in this crazy life, and these crazy times it's you, it's you. You make me sing. You're every line, you're every word, you're everything."

I remembered the lyrics incorrectly, and thought it said "in this crazy world." Which made me think of the earth... which made me think of this illustration.

It's another one from my solar system series. The earth is made with a scrap of Ontario roadmap, and the moon is a scrap from a magazine ad. It's again coloured with Crayola wax crayons and black china marker.

In a funny (strange) twist, one of the students in the class looked at the illustration and said, "That's where my cottage is." I hadn't picked the Parry Sound area on purpose - I just wanted a piece of map that included land as well as water. In an even stranger twist, when I showed the illustrations to my friend Mary Hamilton, she also commented that her cottage was in that area.

*And in an even stranger twist, when I Googled Michael Buble to find a link for the song sample, I found his homepage - where Everything was the track of the day.