Soft Leather Journal Cover

Ever since I started Radiant 2 and made my own Effidori, I’ve been wanting to get a leather version for my handbag journal and have had my eye on a soft leather journal cover from YarnTreeStudioUK on Etsy.

And yeah – I finally have this one – it’s so beautiful! I chose the Quarto size which is 5.5″ x 5.5″ and am loving the square shape of the pages and the long landscape shape of the double spread.

The beauty of having a journal like this is that I can choose what kind of paper to use in it and can vary the size and shape of the pages. I stared by creating three signatures from cold press watercolour paper, and am loving the results!

I used the first three spreads to do the warm-up exercises in Iris Fritschi-Cussens lesson in Radiant 2.

Creating all these drips was great fun…

…and I love how this page turned out. Although it has been pointed out that my spelling is a little off!

Writing across the face on this spread was so liberating – I usually struggle to match the eyes on my faces.

For the main image in Iris’s lesson, I went back to using my Effidori journal.

I have resisted using oil pastels for so long, but really enjoyed using the technique that Iris taught us in this class. I will definitely be using oil pastels for faces in the future!

I loved Sarah Trumpp‘s lesson and decided to go back to my small journal and use my new watercolour paints to create some quirky people.

I called the first one Tagging Along…

…and created the second one to illustrate the fall I had a couple of weeks ago. I have really enjoyed creating these cartoon like caricatures and can’t wait to do some more.

There’s a good chance that this will be my last post before Christmas – so have a good one, and I’ll catch up with you when things calm down again.