This spread is in the Micky Mouse journal I made last year. One year ago, on this date, the kid got her braces! She chose to have hot pink bands around the brackets, but the technician wasn’t paying attention and she ended up with purple!
I found this image of Minnie in my stash with a big smile, so I modified it to include the braces.
I showed it to the kid. Her comment was “You put THAT in your book????”
Welcome to February!
This month I am focusing on a theme of Romance. Valentine’s Day is February 14, so it seems appropriate. I’m going with roses and other flowers, pink, red, white and gold, hearts and other items associated with romance.
Above is the cover I’m using for my micro art journal. I used this one last year and I liked it so much, I’m going to use it again.
These are the final pages in my La Nouvelle Mode art journal.
While they are not complex, I felt that the last page, on the right, celebrates the joy of the journey as it might have been felt by the imaginary traveler.
The page on the left has space to add a sticker or two, or some other decorative item of the user’s choice. It could also be left, just as it is, as a beautiful contrast to the dancer on the right.
This is the back side of page 6 and the front side of page 7.
On the left page is a frame around an empty space. This space could be used for a quick sketch or additional journaling.
On the left side of this layout, there is a decorative strip that holds a book mark. This strip is often referred to as a “belly band”. It can be a piece that is attached at both ends or a strip that wraps around a page.
Today we’re looking at the back side of page 4 and the front side of page 5. These pages are tipped into the right fold of the trifold cover.
On the left side, you can see the front of a journaling card. This card is held into the journal by a tiny binder clip.
Here, you see the back side of the card. There are two different spaces for journaling or notes.
Today, we’re looking at the half-way point in the trifold journal! The image above is the back side of page 3, the center back of the trifold cover and the front side of page 4.
Above is a closer look at the back side of page 3 and the inside, center of the trifold cover.
This is a closer look at the center of the cover and the front of page 4.
If you recall, last week we were looking at my first journal made using the Journal Template Die Set from Art Impressions .
Here, you can see the back side of page 2 and the front side of page 3.
The left side has a small envelope attached to the page, and inside there are two, translucent, washi-style stickers.
The right side has a decorative pocket. I managed to cut it to frame the typewriter, which was on the paper, nicely.
Today we’re looking at the back of the first page on the left side of the tri-fold book. This page has an additional pocket added to it. The pocket, itself, has a slit in it which holds a tag.
In the pocket behind the tag there is decorative card and a decorative tag. The last item to the right is the journaling tag from the pocket slit.
The back side of the shirt tag is plain white, so I didn’t include it in the photo above. However, the decorative card and the tag in the slit pocket have more space for notes or journaling on the reverse side.
Continuing from yesterday’s post, this is the first view when you open the cover of Victorian Dressmaker’s Notebook. Because this book is a tri-fold, you see the part of the outside cover that is folded to the inside of the book when it is closed.
When the cover is opened, you see the first pages, which are attached to the left side of the book.
This book is set up with three double-sided pages tipped into the cover on each side, giving it 12 inner pages. The actual number of pages can be more, depending on the construction you choose. You’ll see an example of this when we get to the page on the right side.
I made this book some time ago, but I thought I would finally share it here. It is constructed from scrapbook papers, found items, card stock, and some odds and ends I’ve had for a long time.
The theme is a Victorian Dressmaker’s Notebook in Paris. It could be a book in which she kept notes, samples of fabrics, and sketches of designs, perhaps.
The book is constructed as a tri-fold. Above you can see just the outside, front cover, with the butterfly-clasp, closing band removed.
Welcome to 2024!
I am beginning my year by going back to my roots. I realize, it may seem strange to go backwards to go forward. This year, however, I want to continue doing things that worked for me, while leaving behind the things that didn’t.
One of these is my tiny art journals. I love them because they give me just enough space to do a bit of journaling, keep track of some things that I need/want to remember and just enough room to create a small art piece. They are fun to do, and don’t take up a lot of time.
Recently, there was a little discussion among myself and some artistic friends about which way animals face when you draw them. Apparently, different people draw them predominantly one direction or another.
Perhaps, handedness plays a part in which way we draw them? It was also mentioned that, psychologically, animals facing left appear as more threatening than those facing right.
In this little page from my sketch book, I have animals of several kinds. Some face right, some forward, some up and one left. I don’t think I generally have a preference.
One of the things I love about creating new papers for my art journaling stash is that’s it’s just playing! There’s no particular goal… Just applying paint to paper in any way that I feel like. There’s something very calming about the process.
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I’m not sure I’m done with this one.
An unexpected color combination appeared early on, so I went for it. I wanted more organic shapes and flow. I think I got a start on that in some areas, but I think it needs more development.
More needs to happen in that hot pink, for sure!
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When I first start a page, I often select “odd” colors, just to see what will happen when I combine them.
The purple/grey/pink combo isn’t really new… or uncommon. Many people like this combination. It’s calm, soothing, with just a bit of “pop”.
The brown/olive/red-orange developed from experimentation. At first, I wasn’t sure about it. That’s one of the reasons why some areas are more “muted”. Then I realized it had a kind of “retro” feel to it. So I went with it, and now I’m happy that I did!
Although today was very busy with non-art things, I did manage to get in some fun painting time! I completed this page of “random acts of art”, using a variety of painting materials, mostly gouache.
I’m finding that I really like using gouache. It’s a bit like using watercolor. But when it dries, it’s a bit more permanent. I can paint over it or next to it without it totally reactivating the dry paint. If I’m careful, I can do all kinds of interesting things that I couldn’t with regular paints.
This week, in the Facebook Micro Art Journaling group, we’re creating “stash builders”.
Today’s assignment is to use whatever art materials we want, or have at hand, to color on any paper. We can try all different types of paper, or junk mail, or whatever we like.
I am using mixed media paper. It was already coated with a thin layer of white gesso. Color was applied using Inktense pencils , Stabilo pencils , Neocolor II , and gouache . I also had a set of Bree Reese, metallic watercolor creams .
Today, I am creating content for my tiny accordion books. For the first one, I used journaling stencils and traced out designs that I thought were interesting and created patterns.
There is no particular message, or order, other than I went though the stack of the stencils, one-by-one and if I saw something I thought would be fun, added it to the page with pencil.
I may add more interesting designs directly with the paint, but I think I’m off to a good start here!
Now that I have my Arteza gouache paints all set up and ready to use, I’ve folded a few accordion books from 140 lb watercolor paper.
I don’t have any particular themes in mind yet, but I’m thinking for one, I want to use some journaling stencils that I have to create various random shapes throughout the book. I think that would be fun to paint, like using a coloring book!
This is my new, Arteza Gouache swatch board, based on the layout of the colors in my boxes. The top three rows are in the blue box, and the bottom 3 are the grey box. There are 60 colors, total.
When I did the original swatches, I used paint right from the tube. For this board, water was added to the dried paint and then painted in each rectangle. This is more of a watercolor style and I like the colors much better this way.