Hooked Into Machine

We have more than a foot of snow and it is still slowly falling so it's perfect weather for art journaling.

This page is inspired by Regina Spektor's song "Machine"
I feel a little hooked into machines...


Several layers of blues (several different shades) and black acrylic paints.
Once the background was an acceptable shade I took oil pastels to it to draw the gears and do the lettering and then I smudged.
Finished with some lyrics in black sharpie.
Oh, lastly, I took a baby wipe with water and shimmery black acrylic paint and splat it on the page and pressed it until it ran.
I really wished I had ordered the color wash sprays when I had the chance...

Raise Your Glass and the process

Today's A Year in the Life of an Art Journal prompt was Pink's "Raise Your Glass" which is hilarious to me because I had just been sitting here listening to music on Pandora this morning before I looked to see what the prompt was that was posted and this song came on. It's always been one of my favorites, I identify a lot with some of Pink's best music.
So, I was moved to go find the video on YouTube.
I decided then I would make a journal page to go with it!

THE PROMPT: Lighten Up
THE SONG: Raise Your Glass by Pink
Written Lyrics HERE
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: Confetti

Step one, pick the song. MOST of the songs I pick have some meaning to me. Though I have been known to use a song just because I like the beat, lyrics, group(singer), or video.
Step two, of pretty much any one of my lyric pages is writing the lyrics on notebook paper and picking out what is important/useable/needed.


Next I figured out where I was going to put the lyrics on the page. Usually I use a lot less of the song than this one. I used the whole song, almost.


Then I painted! I knew I wanted bright colors for fun and I even used some of my shimmer acrylics.


Then I wrote all the lyrics on the page again in Sharpies.
And lastly I covered the page in a layer of silver glitter acrylic paint because I don't have confetti and my hole puncher died when I tried to punch a bunch of confetti for this page.


And there you have it!
I had a TON of fun with this page!

Raise your glass with me!

Jar of Hearts

Backdating a challenge for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal
because I found the blog and art journaling late in the year.
And because I find their challenges to be SO inpsiring and right on my wavelength.

The PROMPT: Scars
THE SONG: Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri
Written Lyrics HERE
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: rips and tearing

You can expect to see a few more pages from their past challenges.

I just adore this song.

Sharpie Ghost Comes Alive

So, days later, I am playing in my journal and I realize...

The sharpie has lifted up much more than it was.
The Red has come up to pink!
Love it!!!

And this picture doesn't even do it justice.
:D

I am happy!
I am also working on a Zentangle original for me and have another floating around in my head for tomorrow.
Pictures soon to follow!

New Journal, Sharpie Ghosting, and Stricles!!!

I got a new art journal!

*dances*

I still have my big one, my first one, of course. It is a large 8.5"X11" sketchbook and I do love it but as a new art journaler I find it difficult to always fill the pages. I am often left with a lot of "empty" space. So, amidst short exchanges of comments on YouTube with Less Herger from Comfortable Shoes Studio she made a comment pertaining to smaller journals being a puddle as compared to an ocean to fill. Well, now I have a lake. :)

A midsized hardbound sketchbook. I would have gotten a moleskine but I take what I can get locally for the time being, plus there will be more. And, I will still use my large journal, mainly for playing around and seeing how things react and for my attempts at drawings.
The new one will be more of my day to day art journaling.
I love it to pieces already.

And so, for the first project in it, I re-did a page I have done before.
But, I attempted some sharpie ghosting!
You can find Less' How-To video on this technique HERE.

It's the lyrics to Pink's "F****ing Perfect" written in four different colors in four different directions. This was the most fun! I love writing song lyrics on paper. And honestly I think I might have liked to leave them this way, but I didn't.
Next, a layer of gesso.

You can see some of the marker color coming through, I wasn't super happy with the turn out on this but I think it comes down to sharpie colors. I want some more vibrant colors. I used red, orange, blue, and green. And after a watercolor wash of blue the blue started lifting up more.
But yes, more vibrant colors to test...

And finally, the eh pretty much, finished page.
I may doodle on it more, I don't know. I am not liking blank spaces... much.
I had hoped the sharpies would have lifted through the gesso more.

I had drawn in my larger journal with the blue sharpie once and failed so I covered it with gesso and made a page on top of it and for my life I couldn't cover it.
I don't know what happened here, exactly. But will try it again soon.

Then I started a page of Stricles last night and finished it this morning.
I <3 Stricles.


And lastly, when my little guy sees me working in my art journal he wants to paint too.
This is his work of art. I think I will keep it and put it in his art journal, it makes a nice background.


:)

Roll Away Your Stone...

Worked on my challenge for A Year In The Life Of An Art Journal today.

THE PROMPT: Open up
THE SONG: Roll away your stone - Mumford & Sons
Written Lyrics HERE
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: texture photo/image
I have to admit, it's not my favorite Mumford and Sons song, but I did come to like it better than I had previously.
:)

I did find a verse that fit right on in with life.

So, this is a background I had already completed here.
And I wanted to use my oil pastels again, so I made some bubbles.

I really need to get some new supplies.
My black sharpies are in such a bad state, even though I have been careful to write on dry paint.

Perfect to me.

I am back online, somewhat.
We are still suffering pretty serious disconnections which makes playing World of Warcraft or any game on Xbox live problematic. I knew a new modem wouldn't fix that as it only started after Century Link took over Qwest.
: /

Now to get a technician who understands that it isn't the modem.

So, I am not going to go back over everything I did in my journal while I didn't have an internet connection. I thought I might save it to show off if I ever do a journal flip video.

But the page below is the one exception. It is the page I was working on right before I got cut off and I wanted to show what came of it.

The challenge can be found here.

I would not say I am ecstatic about how the page came out, it really doesn't do what I had in my head justice. But this is what came out, and I just hadn't come up with anything to "fix" it.
Then I realized maybe it doesn't need to be "fixed". I will be doing a page similar to this page as the first pages in my kids art journal scrapbook thingy and I will just take the lessons learned here and apply them there. That way, I remember what I learned instead of covering it up.

Those are my kids (pictured), whom are always PERFECT to me and I always want them to remember that.
I LOVE this song by PINK and I adored this challenge.

There is also a picture on the lower right.
It is a recent clipping from the newspaper, a little over a year ago now, we lost a local teen to suicide. To mark the year anniversary of this loss her best friend asked friends to write "LOVE" on their arms to show remembrance.
Well, it spread across the whole school, almost everyone had written "Love" on their arms to show support, also to remind other people that no matter how low you feel someone, somewhere does love you and to remember that.
From this has come a Non-Profit Organization called She Wrote Love On Her Arms.
It's a really great story.
I used that story, torn up as the newspaper accents on the page, and then the picture but unfortunately I didn't water down the paint I washed it with enough and it covered the picture more than I had anticipated.
:(

Well, even though there are issues with the page I like it and will always remember what it means to me.

30 Day Art Journal/Blog Challenge - Day 1

Today's challenge...

Pick a lyric from one of your favorite songs and illustrate it.

So, we've covered the fact that I cannot draw... well... yet.
But am working on it.
The earth is a free clip art I found on the internet, glued down, covered with gesso, traced, and painted with craft acrylics, pretty much.
Funny thing is, I covered it with so much gesso that I could hardly see the lines so it really forced me to become creative with line placement.
But the exercise got me really comfortable with my sharpie, not like the coffee cup a few posts ago. I stressed over that cup and not getting the gesso too thick, that I couldn't see lines, and just getting things right.
This one was much more loose and my attitude was much more "eh, whatever."
I even tried lettering and I fought the urge to cover it up with something printed!
Go me!

The page is based on the song "Blue Lips" by Regina Spektor. It's one of my favorite songs and the baby does the cutest dance when she hears this song!

Other things I did last night...
Three backgrounds







That last one is my favorite. I think it's going to turn into a page on which I journal about those things I cherish. Yeah, seems like that would fit.


Things I am currently considering...
[Zentangle.]
[A trip to Albuquerque in search of new supplies.]
[Heat embossing in my art journal with the Joseph's Coat Technique.]
OH And!!! - A new monthly art journal group on Motley Soul!
I am particularly excited about this because I just love Mika and her art!


I am quite happy on my art-filled journey.
It makes me smile, I hope you are smiling too!
If not, go work in your art journal, or start one if you don't have one!