My journal again...

This is very facinating.

My first picture today shows a righthand side page. This is how it looked when I started to work on it. (painting already done) The colours on my photo are not good at this first image but what I wanted you to see is how the background looks like before I start my work. It is quite interesting to compare the finished result to the starting point. When you see my choices you can go back and consider whether you would have chosen differently.

Ofcourse, I can see things more clearly since I have the pages in person but when I show off a page before working on it I think it's possible for you to see what's in it. Hope you enjoy the possibility.
If I'm not wrong you might as well learn something from it. That would make me happy.

Please, use some seconds to figure out what you actually see in this page before looking at the next photo.





This was a very interesting spread to make.

In the lefthand side page I would keep a picture already in that page. The coalabears are so beautiful animals, and I wondered if I could work it well into the rest.
Well, to be correct the rest was worked into the existing picture. I'll have to try this over again and perhaps do a little planning before I start. As you see I couldn't resist making a little fun. ( quite typical me) It wasn't easy to incorporate existing picture to the rest. Perhaps another image could be easier.
I will definetly try over again some other time.

Now, lets have a look at the page that you've already seen. Did you see the "church"? I'm quite sure you saw the cross. The image was very clear so I had no choice other than make this. And the Pukumani Pole, very strange. In 2005 I spent my summer holiday in Australia and I visited the Australian museum. These Poles facinated me a lot back then and I had a close look at several at the museum. And now it showed up again.
If we compare that Pole to our headstones we see a huge differens. How colourful the native Australians are. (or perhaps have been) I'll give you a link here to have a look at the Poles.
The Pole that I made is just imagination, I had a look in the museum and I have used some of the patterns I saw there. For all I know my Pole tells that this person has been the King all over Australia. Just to avoid any problem I repeat, my Pole is pure imagination.
I tried to give the "church" some windows but it was impossible. Each time I tried something went wrong so I gave in. I'm very pleased with the result though, the whole page seems airy and clean. Couldn't do it any better I think. What do you think?



Best wishes to all of you.

Art Journaling, I'm on my way....

Some more pages from my journal.

Just want to show you my progress in journaling. If you have any comments, tips or good ideas they are very welcome.
If any of you think that I leave too much space in my pages, I have to tell you a little secret. When the photos are done I write in some more text, in norwegian.




The left side page does already have some norwegian text. It's about not beeing satisfied, that I'll have to mix the colours before using the credit card. Things like that.
This page didn't inspire me at all so the only thing I came up with was this doodling.
The other side though, inspired and thought me a lot. The first thing I learnt was that even if a page don't look that inspiring ( or destroyed) much can be done to rescue it. I could have repaint it but my aim is to do the most of what I have and that leads me to be even more creative. I didn't think much of this page at the beginning but it came out quite interesting to me. And at the end I spotted the message to myself.
The text was not written to match, but at the end I could read a message: Hear hear one step at the time. Had a little laugh when I spotted that.




Now we're talking...

I'm very pleased with the left page. The cold colours and the pale winter sun. The structure of the paper even looks like canvas.
I can see that I need to focus some more at the writing, and I would not have done the text like this once more. (easy to say though) Can remove it, you say, yes but I need it as a reminder to how I learnt this and what not to do. That's all.
This journal will be kept as my "learning journal" so it's important to me that all the "mistakes" are in there.

I'll tell you how I do this.

When the gesso has dried I "paint" both pages. Better to get the messy job done at once. When it's all dry I cover (most of the time) the right hand side with some old sheets and consentrate on the left.
The red side here, I didn't like at all because I so much wanted to do curved lines and this one didn't show a single curve. So.. I was not looking forward to do this page at all.
But as you can see it came out " not that bad." I simply love birds and this was a great idea I think. The image of the parrot was in this book in the first place and I really wanted to use it. So all in all this became a very fun page to make.

Have a really nice and creative day everyone.

Journalpages, what do you see?

Isn't this amazing?

Have a good look at these pages. Especially the grey one is exiting. Can you spot any images? I can see a lot of things here.
I see Mother Theresa or one of her sisters, I see trees and gras/soil, a man with a big hat and a walkingstick, a hippopotamus, a roof with a chimney, a lion, a coffeepot and even a few more. On the red side I see a child walking to school with the schoolbag on his/hers back. That's the clearest vision right now. I'll wait untill tomorrow and look once more in daylight.



Do me a favour, write down your own list of images and we'll see at the end what comes out. I was planning to do a collage on the grey page but I can't do that with all these visions. Wow..this is over the top exiting. Try it yourself, paint and one old creditcard. I never know how or what comes out.
Wish you all a nice evening/night.

Some more doodling.

These are some new doodlings

I felt like doing something else a couple days ago.
The first one I made using some colours and it worked well, but I think perhaps the rose has a colour too prominent. I'm thrilled about the V-shape and will try some other things with that later on.
I bought some greys too and they do a big differens. The drawings get a whole new depth. Very interesting to play with I think.
I had to add a little yellow ghost too, I like ghosts. ( friendly ones that is) :-)




The second one was a try drawing a rope. Funny thing this, it seems to always fit with one over and one under as long as start and ending point are joined. Always the same. I've tried a lot of times now and it works every time. Let me hurry to tell that math isn't my force. ( must have something to do with math.)

When the rope was done I felt like filling the loops, and then I stopped. I really like this one, it feels airy and tidy which I like.
What do you think?

My cards are on their way.

Yesterday I finally sent my cards. And I recieved my first card too, a very nice card from Finland. I'll make a post when my ten cards are here and show them off all at once.
To join this swap has given me plenty of hours with joy. I've been doing a lot of different stuff. Seems that creativity grows while beeing creative. Right now I'm experimenting with art journaling and that's a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I found this blog about: Raw art journaling, very interesting blog.
Tomorrow I'll have to buy some more acrylic paint. Just have a few colours now and I need a lot more to my experiments.



My best wishes to all of you.

My second attempt

The creditcard tecnique.

I read about how one can use a creditcard to smear the paint onto the pages and wanted to try that. You will find the information here. The first thing I noticed was how thin the layers became and that the page ended up very smooth. Ofcourse, one can make a textured page too by using the creditcard but the way I did it the result became smooth. With a smooth page it's much easier to draw or write on top of it.
With these thin layers the paint dried up very quick and therefor I learned that I'll have to plan colour mixing before I start.
It's quite "messy" but that doesn't matter at all. I really think I can work this in to something exiting. Never knew it could be so fun.

The spread below is my first try and I'm very pleased. Think I had some beginners luck. The page called Sunset Rock came out very well I think, and I almost can't believe that it was me who did it. Me...ha ME ??

When I had done the "painting" I just began drawing, unconscious, so to speak and as often before (in this mood) it gave me some surprisingly results. It seems to be the best way for me not to plan too much. There are always so much to compare to and that lead to limits rather than free expression for me.

While doing this spread, I came to think of at least three new things to try so this is really exiting.

I would love to hear your comments.




Enjoy your Sunday.

Art journaling, my very first try.....

I have never done this before.

I really feel to be in deep water but it looks so fun to do this so I decided to have a go.
Off I went to buy some old books ( remember my habit in life, 2-3 at once) and I really found some suitable books. They have nice illustrations and pictures so I'll probably use some of them.

The book I fell in love with at once is a book (danish) describing Australia. Lovely drawings and photos inside. Accordingly to iHannas advice all my books are sewn and they do have a suitable size.

I don't quite understand.

I do not really understand what this is all about, so if anyone feel they would tell me a bit about it I would be greatful.
I think perhaps there are few rules, do what you desire are probably the main thing.
Below you can see my bargain. I paid NKR. 45.- for each book (USD 7.-) and that is real cheap for a quality book.




Break the neck of the fear.

I've seen a lot of examples of how others do this but can I? The backgrounds are my fear. Hanna Andersson (iHanna) does make such nice backgrounds and I admire her work so much. I had to reread some of her earlier posts and she had some interesting tecniques to share. I'll try some of them later on.

Strong minded I opened my box of Gesso and smeared it onto 2 pages, and waited for it to dry. My acrylics were ready and I started to paint. Inside my head I heard this woice......what to do, what to do, what to do, WHAT TO DOOOO...
I did something and... wow... it don't look bad at all.

What do you think?





One spread done.

Ok, I can see this is made by me. It's not exactly the work of a pro, but my first. I'll let myself develop for a while and we'll see then. It was fun and when I can manage to make some good backgrounds I will consentrate on the rest.




Have a nice and creative weekend everyone.