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.

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.

green stars #2

I think this drawing (from one of my art journals) was actually created before green stars #1. The image is made with Crayola wax crayons and black china marker.

I love working in an art journal, because as I write and draw on future pages, the colours from earlier, adjacent pages become imprinted upon each other, adding to the visual complexity and rhythm to the images.

increase

This is another drawing based on an I Ching reading. The image was created the same way as that in yesterday's post.

unity

This is one of the earliest drawings I made in my first art journal. I was very interested in the I Ching at the time, and decided to "draw" my reading - the hexagram called "Unity." I started by scribbling blobs of colour on the page, and then drawing an outline of the image that was suggested by the shapes - in this case, a bird diving downwards.

The drawing is created with Crayola wax crayons and black china marker.

peace

I am so disappointed with my scanner. It just doesn't seem to be picking up pale yellows, greens or pinks. I almost didn't post this image, but I think you still get the idea, even without the proper saturation of colours.

The collage includes a scrap of paper which is a list of my kitchen dishes before my last move. I then coloured the image with Crayola wax crayons. I was inspired by a website I discovered this morning:

http://www.attractworldpeace.com/

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.

apple #1

I started this blog fully intending to post daily or near-daily, and now it's been six days since my last post. Life has intervened, I guess. That, plus I felt too tired to post whenever I thought of it recently.

I just completed an ongoing art journal and started a new one. This collage is from my new journal. The apple image is a colour inkjet print of an old drawing that I often use on my handmade note cards. My printer's yellow ink was running out, so the image ended up magenta. I hate to waste anything, and added the misprint to this collage.

I'm toying with the idea of creating a bunch of fabric patchwork pieces right now, and I find that every time I draw, I start creating large blocks of colour - hence the patchwork-y nature of the colours in this collage. The pencil text is part of a journal entry.

The journal was originally an art project for a first-year studio course I took at university, and I've ripped out some of the pages to make room for the collages (if you don't rip out pages, the finished book gets too thick). I've left some of the pages behind, and the phrase "a Book of Shadows" comes from the original art project. I created a book of children's rhymes and "spells" for a performance piece, and read from the book during the performance.

hands #1

Over the years there have been a few motifs that have appeared again and again in my artwork. Hands are one of them. I love tracing my hands and sketching my hands... and I love the shapes that hands make in their various positions. I once wrote a very personal fairy tale that included a maiden who gives away her hands to a wicked sorcerer. Maybe when I figure that one out, I won't need to draw hands anymore...

This has a scrap of brown paper and a bit of a journal entry, and is coloured over with my usual crayons.

starflowers

This is one of my favorite art journal pages, and I've used the floral motif in a lot of my handmade art cards. The background was a sheet of graph paper on which I had made a list of phone messages. I later scribbled on the paper to try out different colours of crayons. Finally, I coloured the entire page with crayons and added the flowers.

green grasses

I have been feeling much better in the last couple of days - probably due to the sunshine. What is it about springtime? You can't help but feel happy with green things growing...

The blue paper in this collage came from a concert program that had featured my singing teacher in London, Ontario. After pasting it on the page I wrote a journal entry in pencil, and then added the crayon. The blobs of colour were chosen instinctively. This is one of my favorite ways to work - not knowing ahead of time what I will create. I let the process unfold the way it wants to. Sometimes something really striking results.

green stars

I got addicted to Sudoku puzzles a couple of months ago, and used to do two or three of them per day. The finished puzzles got added to my stack of paper ephemera to use in collages, of course!

fishies

The background of this collage began as a piece of construction paper that my niece "wrote" the alphabet and numerals on, using a plastic template. She was only three at the time.

I was obsessed with drawing fish during the period when I made the collage (summer 2005), so some fish ended up in this piece. When I scanned the image, some pink crayon marks that had been on the large fish didn't come through. I've realized that my scanner doesn't like pink crayon for some reason. (shrug)