Be authentic - Inspired by a Vera Lane Studio image

Hi everyone. I'm back today with another art journal page, this time featuring one of the fabulous images from the Matilda's New Year set by Vera Lane Studio. Always a fan of these images, I couldn't wait to play with this new style. Don't you just love her face and hair...OK and her outfit :) So basically, all of her. But really, do'ncha?

I coloured Matilda with a mix of Polychromos and Prismacolor pencils adding a few white paint pen dots for highlights. She was then fussy cut leaving my usual narrow white border, matted on black cardstock, and fussy cut a second time leaving a narrow black border. This not only gives strength to the skinny parts but also helps her contrast with the background. She was then popped up on foam tape to create dimension and a natural shadow. She makes me smile :)

The 6 x 8 mixed media paper background was spritzed with Lindy's Stamp Gang Delphinium Turquoise and Witch's Potion Purple Starburst sprays. Once that was dry, Deep Purple Archival Ink was used to load up a VLS stamp and scatter it across the page. Ranger Texture Paste was scraped through the stars on Joggles Punchinella Quintet stencil to add a little more texture. Once they were dry, they were tinted slightly with the background Lindy's. Because I wanted them to be whiter, I drybrushed white acrylic paint across them and then used Sharpie markers to outline one side of most of the stars. Matilda needed a place to stand and I wanted to pick up the green from her hair, so I added two washi tape flags to overlap at ground level. Two matte enamel circles were added to accent the flag ends. I always like some black touches on my pages so black gesso was watered down slightly and some marks were made using a gift card.

I see Matilda sending out invitations to people in her tribe so a grouping of three envelopes cut from mop-up scraps were printed upon, edged with black and decorated with white paint dots and a heart stamp. These were each matted with black and popped up on foam tape. The colours chosen for the envelopes came from the image colouring.

The sentiment was printed on white cardstock. The first part was cut as one segment and the second cut into individual words, all of which were matted with black, and adhered to the background with foam tape. To finish the page, a doodled border was added along with a black mat to frame the page and keep the eye from drifting off.

Thanks for joining Matilda and me today. We so appreciate your visit. If you get a chance, be sure to check out the Vera Lane Studio Etsy shop. There are so many fabulous images I want to play with there. I'm sure you will find lots of "must-haves", too.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Joggles Art Journal Adventure - Week 5 (Song Lyrics or Title)

Hi everyone. Is it me or did January fly right by? We are already into Week 5 of the 2018 Joggles Art Journal Adventure and a brand new month starts next week. The prompt which I have chosen for Week 5 is to Include Lyrics from or the Title of a Song. Easy Peasy, right? You would think so but I had a hard time narrowing my choices down to just one...I was all over the place with ideas. I finally settled on an old James Taylor song called Shower the People.

I worked on one of the 6 x 6 watercolour pages from my Joggles disc-bound journal. Next time, the size will be different. I must say, I am loving the smaller size I have chosen this year and the disc bound journals with the removable pages are awesome. In keeping with the music theme, I adhered vintage music paper to the watercolour substrate using Matte Medium,,,and then promptly began covering it all up...LOL. I drybrushed white acrylic paint over the top of the music notes and then used Neocolor II watercolour crayons in 2 shades of blue and 2 shades of green to add colour. A wet brush was used to activate the ink. When that was dry, I decided that the sky colour was more intense than I wanted so I used watered down white gesso to knock back the blues. Manganese Blue Archival Ink was used to stamp apply Carabelle Studio Quadrillages Texture stamp here and there on the sky. Ranger Texture Paste was scraped through Kaisercraft Dots and Dashes Mini stencil on both the sky and the grass and, once dry, those lines and dots were accented on one side and underneath using Inktense pencils and a water brush.

I wanted a big puffy cloud at the top of the page to rain hearts over my focal images so I hand cut one from white bristol paper. The edges were inked first with Cool Gray  and then black Big Brush pens. A very pale pink acrylic paint was used to shade the bottom edge of the cloud and then to stencil the bottom half through the dots on the Joggles Punchinella Quintet stencil to add a little more whimsy to my happy cloud. The folds from the puffy lumps were smudged with a graphite pencil and a blending stump before the lines were inked in with a Pitt Pen. The cloud was popped up using foam tape.

The two friends are Stampingbella images by Danielle Donaldson. The one on the left is called almost ella and the one on the right is mostly naomi. They were stamped onto white cardstock using Jet Black Archival ink and then coloured with a mix of Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils with a little white paint pen added for some highlights. I love colouring! They were fussy cut leaving a narrow white border and then fussy cut a second time once they were matted with black cardstock. They were adhered to the background with foam tape to create a natural shadow behind them.

Two sizes of hearts were punched from a previously gel printed paper and each heart was edged with Middle Purple Pink Big Brush Pen. They were then glued in place around Naomi and Ella so that they looked like they were falling from the cloud. Black Pitt Pen dashed lines were used to show the movement of them  showering the friends with love. A solid wonky black border was doodled around the page and white paint pen dots added on top. Dots always say whimsy and playfulness to me. The lyrics from the James Taylor song were printed onto white cardstock and then cut apart into segments. These were matted with black cardstock and popped up on foam tape. The edge of the page was inked with black Big Brush Pen and the strip of real estate between the edge of the page and the doodled border was darkened with Inktense pencils activated with a water brush.

And that's it for my response to the AJA prompt, Include Song Lyrics or a Song Title on your page. Thanks so much for joining us today. I hope you will join us this time for Week 5's prompt on the Joggles AJA Facebook group. There is the most wonderful, talented and friendly collection of people who play along each week...inspiration and friendship galore.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Joggles Art Journal Adventure - Week 4

Hi everyone! With Barb busy at Creativation, it's my turn again to choose the prompt and create a response for Week 4 at the 2018 Art Journal Adventure Facebook group. The prompt I have chosen for this week is the Letter O. You might choose to feature an object/image which begins with O, a word representing a feeling, verb, or other option (do you see what I did there...LOL) or include the actual letter O as part of your design. As usual, I chose a few of these...I mean why limit myself to just one.

Next up in my disc bound art journal was another 6 x 6 inch watercolour page. I grabbed three letter Os from different sized stamp sets, loaded them up with Versamark ink and heat embossed them with clear powder. This creates a resist for the next step. I wasn't worried about spacing, having them go the same way, or extra embossing powder blobs...all of that was just going to add to the texture and interest. Next Broken China and Salty Ocean Distress Oxide Inks were layered over the background with extra Salty Ocean around the edges. Any inks that remained on the letters were quickly removed with a baby wipe. TCW Mini Beaded Curtain stencil was placed over the background and water was spritzed through the openings. After leaving it for a few moments, a paper towel was used to remove the ink where the water droplets reactivated the ink. Manganese Blue Archival Ink was used to apply a solid circle stamp as well as the pattern from Carabelle Studio Weft Fabric & Numbers stencil in several places.Jet Black Archival Ink was used to stamp a scribbly circle as well as some mini dots.

In keeping with the O theme, I decided to use Jet Black Archival Ink to stamp Stampotique Originals Olive the Ostrich on white cardstock. She was then coloured with a mix of Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils, some gel pens, and a white Sharpie Paint pen. Glossy Accents was added to her baby blues and the heart on her lovely outfit. She was fussy cut leaving a narrow white border, matted on black cardstock, and fussy cut again leaving a narrow black border. Usually this is enough contrast to let the image stand out against the background. However, Olive with her slim dancer's body was lost against the busy background so before adhering her with foam tape, I adhered two layers of cheesecloth behind her. It wouldn't do to have the star blend into the background.

To give Olive a place to stand (on tippy toe), two lengths of green washi tape were mounted on white cardstock, and cut into flag shapes. These ground Olive and also bring more of that green from her dance costume into the rest of the page. Two dimensional letter O stickers were placed on the two bottom pieces and a shorter flag was added to the upper left corner to create a diagonal flow.

The wording was printed onto white cardstock, fussy cut, and matted with black. The filled in sections of this font were coloured in with a green Sharpie marker and then glittered up with Lime Green Stickles. Love the sparkle and glam that adds. Her name, Olive, was printed with a Dymo labeller and adhered opposite to the glittery letters. To finish up the page, black Big Brush pen was used to ink the outside edges and the washi was outlined with a black pen to make it pop a bit more.

This page makes me smile. I haven't done embossing and a resist in ages and you've gotta love Olive in all her splendour. I had no idea where I was going with this prompt but I'm happy where I ended up :) I can't wait to see what the talented and creative members of our Joggles AJA Facebook group do with this theme, the letter O. if you haven't already joined our community, now's a perfect time.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

My rememberer - Inspired by a Vera Lane image

Hi everyone! I made some time to colour one of the fabulous Vera Lane Studio images (had to buy a few last week) and then I had a play with a mixed media background to complete a journal page. The image is from the set called  New Day and I think she's as cute as a button!

I coloured Charlee with a mix of Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils using colours to coordinate with the start of a background I had made in a gel printing session using Liquitex Basics Brilliant Yellow Green, Cerulean Blue Hue, and Bright Aqua Green Acrylic Paint. I fussy cut Charlee leaving a narrow white border, matted her with black cardstock, and fussy cut her again leaving a narrow black border. I generally do that because I love the way it makes her pop against the background. Foam tape was applied to the back of her and a tiny bow made from red embroidery floss was adhered to her raised finger to remind her of something. Too bad she can't remember what...LOL.

The 6 x 8 inch mixed media paper already had a white border left from the printing process. To add more texture and detail, I randomly stamped a VLV number stamp and a Crafty Individuals text stamp using Manganese Blue Archival Ink. Then I used Jet Black Archival Ink to stamp an Ellen Hutson Bokeh stamp (the dots) and a Finnabair lines stamp to add some lovely contrast. Then, for a little dimension, Texture Paste was scraped through stars from the Joggles Punchinella Quintet stencil.

The sentiment was printed onto white cardstock, cut into individual words, and matted with black. Foam tape was used to adhere them to the background. Two narrow pieces of washi tape were placed below Charlee to give her a place to stand and ground her. A red threaded button chosen to repeat the red from her mouth and her finger string was adhered to the washi end. Strips of  drywall mesh were added in three clusters once Charlee was adhered in place and to finish off the page, a border was doodled with black pen. Like many of my art journal pages, a black mat was adhered to the page both to add strength, and to serve as a frame.

Thanks for joining Charlee and me today. We're so happy you did! be sure to stop by the Vera Lane Studio Etsy shop to see the rest of Charlee's set and all of the other fabulous images waiting to inspire you. I have a few more in the works...so fun!

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Joggles 2018 AJA - Week 3 and an optional twist

Hi everyone! It's week 3 of the Joggles Art Journal Adventure and this week, the prompt is the number 7...and there is an optional twist to which you may or may not wish to respond. The optional twist is to Create a Border around your page. This one took me a while to come up with what I wanted to do...I had lots of ideas around the # 7 but I only wanted to use one 6 x 6 inch page instead of a two page spread and many were just to complicated for such a small piece of real estate. I'm not complaining...I'm loving the challenge of this size of journal and also of keeping it simple.

I decided to punch 7 flowers from my mop-up scraps and place them on a Distress inks background. The centers are these little black discs with white numbers and I like how they contrast with the flowers and tie in with the doodled stems. To create the sky portion of the background, I applied Broken China and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks with a mini ink blending tool. The grass portion was created using Mowed Lawn and Twisted Citron. I used a hand cut mask to divide the two sections and then blended the colours a little where they met so I didn't have such a distinct line. More of the Mermaid Lagoon DI was inked through Carabelle Studio Weft Fabric and Numbers stencil as well as onto a Crafty Individuals text stamp on both the green and blue to tie them together.

The optional border was created by drawing a wonky border on another 6 x 6 inch watercolour page from the disc bound refills so that the holes lined up. I then lined off squares and used my black Faber Castell Pitt pens to fill in every other square and edge the inside and outside of the border once it was cut from the page.It was then glued onto the Distress Inked background page using Aleene's Super Thick Tacky Glue. I love that it is raised slightly from the background. Because I wanted to emphasize the number 7 and the counting aspect, I chose three Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs featuring the numbers 1-7. I love the size of these and they form a visual triangle that moves the eye around the page.

The flowers were staggered across the sky, varying the heights and closeness to others for more interest. Pitt pens were used to doodle in the stems and wonky leaves but I wanted to stamp some Jet Black Archival grass tufts lightly at the base of each stem to ground them. I looked through many stamps but they all were too large or too distinct until I came across Joggles Loretta stamp.

Her top knot was perfect for what I wanted and it was a great reminder to look at my stamps with a fresh eye for new uses :)

The final steps were the wording printed on white cardstock and matted with black as well as a little extra doodling on the flower petals to bring in a little more detail. I also punched a wee butterfly which I edged with Mermaid Lagoon and used Black Diamond Stickles for the body. This page was pure play and I loved how it turned out. Whimsy makes me happy :)

Thanks for joining me today. If you haven't already checked out our Joggles Art Journal Adventure Facebook group where we post the weekly prompts and our fabulous members share their responses, I urge you to join. Not only is there an absolute ton of inspiration each week but the company and encouragement are delightful. This is our third year...hard to believe. I love our little AJA community!

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Joggles 2018 AJA Week 2 - A is for...

Hi everyone! The Joggles 2018 Art Journal Adventure began on the Facebook group last week. This week, it's my turn to choose the prompt and I am picking the Letter A.  That means that to play along, you can feature a colour or colours which start with A (Acid Green, Air Force Blue, Alizarin Crimson), or maybe a feeling/emotion (affection, acceptance, afraid), a medium which begins with A like acrylic paint or a technique like abstract art or alphabet stencilling...anything you want as long as it begins with A. You could even create a fancy letter A as the focal...it's wide open. I chose to feature the word affirmation, plus I used Aqua coloured pencils and acrylic paint so I've got it covered...LOL.

The background is a 6 x 6 inch watercolour page from one of the Joggles disc bound journals. I spread the Aqua Acrylic paint onto my 5 x 7 inch gel plate and then removed some of the paint with Carabelle Studio Art Printing Rubber Texture - In Uppercase ('cause alphabet begins with A). I then printed onto the page in a few places. Next I added some Cerulean Blue Hue Liquitex paint to the gel plate and pulled it off in a few places. Finally, I brayered black onto the gel plate in order to load Joggles One Ringy Dingy Creative Art Texture so I could stamp it onto the page. Texture Paste was added through TCW Tiny Circles stencil and allowed to dry completely.

Because of the affirmation I knew I was going to write, I chose one of the Santoro Gorjuss girls stamps called Sweetheart as the focal image. She was coloured with a mix of Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils and then fussy cut leaving a narrow white border. She was then matted with black cardstock and fussy cut again leaving a narrow black border to help her stand out against the busy background. Foam tape was placed on the back of the image to pop her up and create a natural shadow. To ground her and give her a place to stand, three different lengths of washi tape were adhered to white cardstock and trimmed out. I like doing this because it takes away the translucency and allows the pattern to really show. Cheesecloth was placed behind her to help diffuse the background so she didn't have to compete with it.

The affirmation and sentiment were printed onto white cardstock, cut into sentences, and matted with black. Foam tape was used to pop them up and adhere them to the page. To balance the design, another cluster of the same washi was placed in the top right corner. Enamel dots were used to embellish both sets of washi. I also added some touches of watered down black gesso using the edge of a plastic gift card for some mark making. You know me...I like my touches of black. Black Big Brush Pen was used to darken the edges of the page which helps frame it.

Last week I showed how I was constructing this AJA journal using the different sized disc bound watercolour papers. I also mentioned that the black cardstock covers have a pocket on the inside. This week, just for fun, I decorated that pocket with a few collage pieces like I do in my junk journals and then stuffed it with a postcard featuring a Bo Bunny Postale flag, a map piece, and a bingo card. I figure I can write any notes I want about the AJA on the back of these pieces of ephemera or use them to jot down the challenge themes.

Thanks for visiting today. The little Sweetheart and I appreciate that. I hope you will join our 2018 Art Journal Adventure and play along with our weekly challenges. It's great fun and the people who have joined our Facebook group are amazingly supportive, creative, and fun to hang out with :)

Life is good; so is art.

Bonnie

The Joggles 2018 Art Journal Adventure Begins!

Hi everyone! I'm so excited that the 2018 Joggles Art Journal Adventure has started as of Monday, January 1. I had to bail on the last two months last year due to health reasons so I've been chomping at the bit to start anew :) 

This year I've decided to go with a smaller format, changing up the orientation and size by combining pages from the 6x6, 4x6, and 8x5 disc bound watercolour art journals Joggles produces. I have put in 2 of the 6x6, then 2 of the 4x6 which I will treat as one page, then a 6x6 kraft background, and then one of the 8x5 which I have folded at 6 inches so that it has a flap. Then repeated that sequence. For the cover, I cut a piece of black slightly larger, folded in a flap and glued the two edges so I have a pocket on the inside covers, front and back. I'm excited at the possibilities these different size pages will present.

Our first prompt from Barb was to create a page incorporating a canine to celebrate this being The Year of the Dog. I cut a 6 x 6 inch rectangle from heavy kraft cardstock to fit on my black cover leaving a black border all around. To create the background, I adhered two torn pieces of coffee dyed French book text which I had edged with Coffee Archival Ink. I then stencilled dots with the same ink pounced through Joggles Punchinella Quintet Minis stencil and then added Jet Black Archival Ink using Carabelle Stars stamp. Slighly watered down white paint was used with an old gift card to create the lines.

The larger sales tag began as plain white but I stamped a second generation image of text using Coffee Archival. The same ink was used to edge the tag and then was topped with Black Big Brush Pen. A Tim Holtz rub-on was used to transfer the star row. The smaller tag was die cut, inked with Coffee Archival, and then number stickers were added for the year. This was attached to the page using a black brad. A scrap of dotty burlap was sitting on my desk and became the frayed background for the Tim Holtz Ransom letters spelling AJA. I made sure that the fringe of the burlap overlapped the tag slightly to create cohesion between the elements.

After adding my own shading, Glossy Accents on the glasses, and details to the images, the three amigos (dogs) were fussy cut from Joggles Haute Couture Dogs & Cats 1 Collage sheet leaving a narrow white border. They were then matted with black and trimmed out again to help them pop against the background. Before applying them with foam tape to add dimension, a scrap striped piece of packaging was added to ground them...no floating puppies here :) A little outlining and a doodled border were added to finish the page before it was adhered to my black cover. 

I love this cover...it makes me smile which is exactly what I had hoped for. My art journal sits out all the time and I wanted something on the front that would make me want to play with it each week. We hope you will join us for the 2018 Art Journal Adventure. This year we will only be posting on the Joggles AJA Facebook group so you have to join to see what we are doing. There are wonderful, friendly and creative people in our group who are happy to share their talents with us there. Come join the fun!

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie