Lady Rosina
After the tension of posting something new every day it was nice to take things at a bit more leisurely pace when following last weeks Life Book 2012 lesson with Adriana Almanza. I was a bit apprehensive about it before I started because I’ve never been good at stylised faces like these – but I surprised myself and had a ball. Thank you for a great lesson Adriana, I learnt a lot!
Adriana provided us with a template to use for the face, but I decided it would be much more fun to draw my own. My witch has a much longer face than the one Adriana supplied – but that’s how you learn! I coloured her face using ordinary water colour pencils (the Intense one’s would’ve been a bit bright) then blended the colours using white acrylic paint – something I learnt from Adriana. I used acrylic paint to colour her clothes and neocolour crayons to colour the central background. I created the border using a mixture of collage, acrylic paint and marker pens.
I’ll definitely be having a go at some more of Adriana’s classes.
Sleep With The Journal? ….. No Way!!!
Sleep with the Journal? …. No Way!!! It’s much too lumpy and there are far too many sharp bits sticking out!! Instead I altered the instructions and created new ones!!

Sleep with the journal? ... No Way!!
It now has a series of statements/ instructions:
Sleep is something we all need
Are you happy with Life?
Experiment with the book!
Journal your thoughts …
Descibe how you are feeling …
Play with the art
All experiences are useful
Leave your comments here
I then coloured the pages using a water colour pencil wash, and added an explosion of colour to the left page! I may well add some more comments to the right page as I think of them 🙂
This next page evolved as my doodles are inclined to do!! I had no intention of drawing a face when I started out … it just ended up that way!

Doodle Over the Top of the Page
The left page evolved after I used it to try out some new rubber stamps I got from the SSP Guild on Saturday morning. It just reminded me of these words from an old Dave Clark Five song called Here comes Summer (Showing my age there!!) Only trouble was … the page got really wet after I wrote the words and they bled everywhere!! So I wrote over the top again. I think it looks even better now!! What was that I was saying about accidents improving artistic content? (see bottom of last post)
Following another set of instructions …

Coloured Page Edges
… I coloured the edges of the pages using Perfect Pearls from Ranger. It would have been easier to do at the beginning before the book got so fat!! 🙂
Jigsaw Pieces, Thick and Thin Lines, Gesso and Gel Medium
Jigsaw pieces, thick and thin lines, gesso and gel medium …

Draw Fat Lines and Thin
I had great fun drawing the thick and thin lines with my water colour pencils. I’m still considering giving it a wash to soften and blend it … but I can’t make up my mind … so I’m leaving it for now!
The jigsaw pieces weren’t meant to stick to the page!! I was trying to make a raised jigsaw outline, but I used a bit too much gesso and when I came to remove the pieces… they were stuck solid!! So I turned them into a collage instead and added some thick gel medium to create some great textured ridges in the pieces!
After I scanned the image of these pages into the computer, I created an A4 print of the coloured lines pages and printed it out.

Trace Your Hand
I used this to cut up and make a sort of collage/mosaic fill for my traced hand. I coloured the background using a black water colour pencil.
I’m having so much fun with this journal and learning so many new techniques; but most importantly i am learning to be more experimental in my creativity.
Sew a Zentangle!
The minute I saw the instruction to “Sew this page”, I just knew I had to try to sew a zentangle! Check out the Zentangle website for all the info … but simply put it’s a styalised doodle! I’ve been drawing Zentangles for quite a while now (check out my flickr set if you’d like to see what I’ve done) but this is the first time that I’ve tried to sew one! It took a lot longer than a hand drawn one as I had to prick out the design with a pin before I sewed it, but I like how it turned out!

Sew a Zentangle
But I wasn’t happy with it as a journal page! So I got out my water colour pencils and coloured the facing page, then gave it a water wash and squished the two pages together to transfer some of the colour. It looked much better, but I still wasn’t completely happy so I added some Webbing spray in gold ….. et voila!!

Sew a Zentangle - with added colour!
Most people would leave it there, but once I have an image scanned into my computer … I just can”t resist having a little play!! This is my favourite digital enhancement (I pressed the Invert Button!)

Sew a Zentangle - Coloured and Inverted
All This Book Altering and Journal Wrecking …
All this book altering and Journal wrecking is having a profound and very freeing effect on my artistic endeavours. I’ve started this experimental journal …. and the first thing I did was cut a hole in the cover!!

Journal Cover
The title I made from recycled magazine images and the flower from an old newspaper. The inside of the cover I created from an old book page crumpled and inked with alcohol inks.

My Journal Title Page
The next page, Learning Curves, I cut the title from a magazine article. The facing page has a torn magazine image and some crumpled inked paper together with an aperture cut to accomodate the butterfly image which I stamped on the waste I cut from the cover of the Journal. [this is recessed within 4 pages]

Learning Curves Page
On the next page I have used a complete newspaper page cut down to fit, then I coloured it with water colour pencils. I gave it a wash with water and shut the book to transfer some of the colour to the facing page.

Recycling Page
Although it wasn’t planned, I seem to be documenting my work in this journal … it will be interesting to see how it develops!