Quote and Journal Page- Three Muses

Hello! Here's my newest journal page- I love quotes and its been far too long since I participated in a challenge. As you can see, I have a checkerboard thing going on again!. Don't know why but I'm loving it. Check out everyone's work over at The Three Muses.

Pushing an Image- or Collaging a Painting

Hi there. I am posting today something I finished last week. I have been going back and forth about posting because it is, for me, one of my favorite pieces I have ever made. Not that I have a huge body of work, but it is a special piece to me.  sooooooo...... the insecurity started to set in, 'what if nobody likes it?' It's hard to put yourself out there. (I got some perspective when I realized that I don't exactly have thousands of people looking at my blog, and those that do are unwaveringly supportive in their comments)
Anyway- here's my piece. I photocopied my portrait painting that I posted earlier (that was in response to a challenge issued by Art Journal Cafe), and I also photocopied a portion of my November calendar page. I remembered watching Teesha Moore's video, which is what really got me interested in art journaling, and started with cutting up the photocopy to make the border, just as she does in her video with magazine papers. The rest just developed from there.

Here are the original pieces...

Re-using Journal Pages

Here's something that I've been playing with lately. I got the idea from Traci Bautista, when I took her class (wow, over 2 1/2 years ago now!). She said to make photocopies of original pieces, and then cut them up to make new collages. I remember when I pulled out an original, detailed drawing to use (the class called for bringing various collage papers, images, etc....so I thought to myself  'oh, goody- I have a drawing I can use'.) The look on her face when I pulled it out was priceless. She looked at me like I was bonkers (they do say artists tend to be intuitive) and told me to make a copy before using it. Anyway, here's my original page.

 

And here's the page I made from the copied and cut up original. I made a double page spread, held vertically.

I even got all fancy and stitched on the pages. I think I will add some black around the white lettering, but if I wait to do all that, I may never post.

January Calendar Page

Hello there- I am absolutely determined to complete this years Calendar Journal challenge over at the Kathryn Wheel. So here's my page for January.

I went a little nutso on this page- the background has layers of  decorative papers, Neocolor 11's, acrylic paint, gesso, stamps, tissue paper (for extra texture)  and finally some spray ink. I knew I wouldn't be able to write on all that texture with a small pen, so for the journaling spots, I broke out some background papers I had made a couple of months ago and then promptly forgot all about. Here's how I made the squares.

First, using a dropper and a willing helper (frog pajamas are a plus), I dripped random drips of ink right out of the bottle onto the paper. (I used Higgins drawing ink onto Bristol paper)

Then, using the same kind of ink, only watered down in a bottle, we sprayed over the first color. We did this a couple of times, spreading it with a foam brush when the mood struck. I think at this point we ran out of time and I put them away, forgotten, until I needed them the other day.

At this point, I cut out the most interesting portions, cut them up into little squares, and edged them with ink. I added random stamping to some of them- here's a close up....

Tada!
 If you have read this far- thank you! I'm looking forward to visiting and seeing what everybody else has been up to. If you have a chance, stop by Kate's blog- her year in review post is wonderful!