Seems like ages since I last did a Circle Journal entry....

... and it certainly makes a nice change from Index Cards :)

This is my entry in Liz's Rock CJ - her theme was "your ultimate feel-good rock song" or the song that makes you feel like a total bad ass

Now, I'm not convinced I ever get particularly bad ass, but I can do the feel-good bit :)

There is one song on earth that is guaranteed to make me sing along and smile, and that's Tribute by Tenacious D.  Connor has it on his phone ready to play to me if I'm ever in a sad or bad mood, works like a charm every single time :)

And it's the "we are but men, ROCK!!!" bit that really works the magic

So that's what I went with:

Liz's book is a kiddies board book, which was fun to work in, but that did mean that all our entries had to be pretty flat, no embellishments, and in addition she asked for us to draw/paint our own entries as much as possible

So instead of collaging in Mr Grohl as the Devil, I drew him and coloured him in with watercolours.

It was tough!! and I don't think the result looks much like him :)  But I'm still pleased I gave it a go.  I hope Liz likes it.

This almost concludes my participation in this CJ - but I have one entry to re-do, as Clare's colours journal (the one I did this for)  has sadly gone walkies.... I think I'll pick a different colour this time around rather than just reproduce what I did before .  After that, I'm all done and dusted.

Celebrating the Demon of Screamin'

Here's my latest Rock CJ entry - in Karen's journal which is dedicated to Steven Tyler from Aerosmith

I decided to illustrate some of Mr T's quotes, some of which are pretty funny.

I was going to use a photo of him with his mouth open on the speech bubble, but instead found this fantastic caricature on DeviantArt - hopefully the artist won't mind me using it given that this is just a non commercial project between friends

The right hand side part of the speech bubble is a page in its own right, and that turns over to reveal the quotes underneath:

I typed the quotes on my trusty new toy, Erika.  Who I haven't blogged about yet, have I?  I'd better do my very overdue Rockin' My world Friday post tomorrow!

You might want to click on this pic to enlarge it so you can read  the quotes...they are worth it....especially the one about the duck :)

And that's about it for the layout itself.

The last thing we had to do was make a little laminated "tour pass" to match our layout.... here's mine:

And that's another CJ done.... see you again next month .....


PS, I've just had an email asking about the background paper I used for these pages.  Here is how it looked before I stuck everything down:

It is primarily spray paints (with some normal acrylic paint in the mix too) through various stencils onto an A3  sheet of textured watercolour paper.  These backgrounds take no time at all to whip up but they add a lot of texture and depth to your page.

Rockin' all over the world...

….well, at least in Berkshire and Cheshire....

First up, here is my very last entry in the Project Runway themed circle journal that I hosted over on UKScrappers.

My own book is already home and I will share its contents here on the blog soon.

The theme of this last journal was “rock the runway” – and we were to pull together a two page layout based upon music of any kind.

As you know I’m a bit of a rock chick, so that’s what I went with for my pages:

And as I had made up far too much of that spraypainted background patterned paper, I used some of the spare to make a mail art postcard too:

This one’s on a base of thick corrugated cardboard so it’s bulky and light at the same time.

I've just had word that it arrived in one piece, much to the bemusement of the chap who delivers the internal post (it was sent to a corporate office address :) )

Rock on :)

Waxing lyrical....

It's R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rock CJ time again!

This is Sian's journal - and it's all about song lyrics - always a great subject to work with

The brief was simply to choose a rawk song or two whose lyrics are particularly meaningful to me, and, well, art 'em up!

I couldn't just choose the one, as yet again it would be Pearl Jam and I've already bored everyone's socks off in this circle with PJ stuff - and once I expanded the scope to two songs, it was hard to stop - so I ended up with four:

Swing Life Away by Rise Against

I'll show you mine if you show me yours first
Let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worst
Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words

Back when I was fresh out of a pretty awful marriage followed by another less than successful relationship, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.  Like you do.

And I used to listen to this song a lot and dream a little dream about meeting some guy who was just as messed up as me and how we would kind of heal each other....or something :)

Instead I met a wonderful man who is totally sane and not messed up in the slightest - and it turns out that is an even better plan! :D

But I still love the song :)

Present Tense by Pearl Jam


You can spend your time alone, redigesting past regrets
Or you can come to terms and realise, you're the only one who can't forgive yourself
Makes much more sense, to live in the present tense

This one had to be in the mix somewhere - after all if a song's lyrics mean so much to you that you get them tattooed on your leg, then the chances are they are pretty important!

I already mentioned the god awful marriage, didn't I?

Well that lasted 12 years - at least 8 of which, maybe more, I shouldn't have put up with.

For a long time I beat myself up for not getting out sooner, and all the crap that my two sons (now grown up) ended up living through - and all the crap that I lived through too

This song literally changed my life as it made me snap the hell out of it and start living my life for the now instead of obsessing about how rubbish the past was

Thank you PJ!

In Relief by John Frusciante

When your leader's gone, he means to make you strong, he never went away.  Because what you need, you are. 

I'm not overly keen on the handwriting on this one, I wanted to write all the lyrics by hand because it's more personal and all - but this one turned out a bit of a mess.  Ah well.

This is an amazing song, and it helped me through some difficult times - when you feel like you're on your own, don't panic, be strong - you have it in you to get through this.

Grind by Alice In Chains

You'd be well advised, not to plan my funeral before the body dies....

This last little snippet is something I mutter under my breath sometimes .... I'm a bit of a soft touch, and people take advantage of that from time to time - but those who really take the piss tend to find out too late that they under-estimated me.

(*evil cackle*)

Don't write me off as harmless, people, not until the body dies.....

(ok, now you all think I'm a psycho, I'm nice really, honest!)

the Artistic Licence CJ wraps up....

And so all good things must come to an end - and this circle journal really has been a good thing.

I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the work of some very varied artists and producing something of my own taking inspiration from their style

The last CJ belongs to Irene, and her artist is Andy Goldsworthy - who creates the most wonderful assemblages from natural materials

A lot of his work is circular in nature and so our blank canvasses were cardboard circles

I've used skeleton leaves, a nugget of Canadian Labradorite, and copper wire, to make my Goldsworthy tribute

A bit of a different kind of CJ page, that's for sure, but that has been the beauty of this circle - you never knew what challenge you would face with each new journal arriving

I'll be posting this home to Irene tomorrow, I hope she likes it!

As for my CJ - it's home, and it's FAB!  But I won't be blogging it just yet - there are a couple of empty pages in it due to two participants dropping out - and Jay and the kids have said they will fill those for me.  So I will blog when they have done their respective bits.

Life's a beach, and then ya die

Project Runway CJ time again - and this month it's the wedding dress challenge.

The brief for this journal was to use at least three altered or transformed elements (papers, embellies etc) on a double page 8"x8" layout - to reflect how the Project Runway designers altered and transformed old, unfashionable wedding dresses into something wearable.

I wasn't sure where to start with this one at first - as it was free theme - so I started to play with transforming some background papers - eg this one which started life as a floral print, until I got to it with the gesso and my airbrush - and the sea and sand colours I ended up with screamed BEACH!

So to the beach I went :)

My altered elements are the background papers, the chipboard letters for the title which I "sandified" with a mix of embossing powders in white, orange, and beige, the footprints which are paper clips that I spraypainted copper,

and the round, shell embellishments which I appropriated from an old hair band:

(plus I guess the tags count as altered too as I painted and sprayed them?)

All in all this was a fun entry to pull together - just like proper scrapbooking!  The journal even had proper page protectors.  I haven't seen one of those in years.

Photos taken in South Wales (left hand page) and on the Isle of Wight (right hand page).

Hurry up summer!

Starry starry night

It's Artistic Licence Circle Journal time again - and this time our given muse is Van Gogh.

We were each issued a blank canvas board, and asked to pay homage to any Van Gogh painting using a technique of our choice

I chose this painting:

Starry Night Over The Rhone, painted in 1888

and made my own needle felted version  (above).

It seems, that if you start needle felting during your lunch break at work, everyone thinks you are a little bit odd.  I think it's the repeated stabbing motions.

Cue the music from the Psycho shower scene ;)

The face inside is right beneath your skin...

Another day, another dollar - or in my case, another week, another CJ

This is my entry in Virginia's journal - which is all about Linkin Park

The pages are folded, so this (above) is what mine looks like closed

And here it is open :

I've gone with the song "Paper Cut" - and as that's about paranoia I had this idea of making Chester's eyes kind of pop out of his head to suggest eyes darting all over the place looking out for the bad guys, that kind of thing.

Not convinced it worked but never mind :) 

The flash is really bouncing off the metallic sprays and inks on that photo above, this close up gives a truer idea of what the background looks like:

So, yes, that's the main entry in the book.

Virginia also asked us to share our recommendations for new music.

Trouble is, I mainly listen to stuff that was recorded 20 years ago :)  So this bit was a bit tricky!

I ended up sharing bands that aren't necessarily new (Polar Bear Club are, not so much the others), but who have released GOOD material recently. In other words they're not just sitting on their laurels living off past glories.  Like some bands I could mention.

Sorry, the flash has rendered that one pretty much illegible.  I really ought to take my photos in the daytime!  (trouble is, I'm at work in the daytime)

and then last but not least, we were asked to make a sign in page, featuring a logo or symbol that represents us or is important to us.  How could I choose anything other than my orca?

So that's it for this month.  I have Sian's song lyrics themed journal next time around, looking forward to that one.

Would you believe 'The Birds' will be 50 years old next year?

Hitchcock's The Birds, still an amazing film and as scary as ever - and it's also the inspiration for my latest circle journal entry.

This was a fun book to work in - it's in the Project Runway circle, and takes its inspiration from the show's film genre challenge.

Each participant selects a sealed envelope containing a card with a particular film genre printed on it - previous players have already tackled Western, Comedy, Romance, Film Noir, Musical, and the one I really wanted, Horror.  But I got Thriller, which would have been my tie second choice along with sci-fi, so I was happy with that.

And then our task was to incorporate a dress form into our page, showing the costume for our lead character.

My leading lady is immaculately turned out, but showing some signs of vicious pecking! :)

The background for this page uses watercolours for the stormy sky, a Crafters Workshop stencil for the trees, and the birds are all drawn by hand.

The back of our page is our sign in area , and we were to incorporate the card we drew from the envelopes, showing our chosen genre:

The background for this side is spray painted, and the bird was cut out from some handmade paper with flower petal inclusions.

This book is due to go in the post tomorrow (oops, I've just seen the time, make that today!), so I finished it just in time.

PS.  this is possibly the only Barbie doll I could be persuaded to own:

isn't it wonderful?  I especially love the bird pecking away at her forehead :)

Where rock meets the movies.....

I've been a busy bee this week, working on this particular CJ every evening, desperately trying to get it finished by posting day (and as that was yesterday, I failed, ooops, but at least I'm not too late!)

This is Jasmine's journal in the Rock Resurrected circle over at UKScrappers, and her theme is a kind of rock music/cinema crossover.

The construction of the book is really unusual, but a lot of fun to work in, with a folded envelope making a pocket to decorate front and back, also a sign in flap, and there is also room to put an insert in the pocket.

This enabled me to work on three separate entries for this theme (which is why it has taken me all week :) )

 

First up, Jas suggested we re-imagine a Disney classic with rock legends in the cast - how could I resist Alice Cooper and Dee Snyder as Cinderella's ugly sisters?  (Before you lynch me, Carmen and Penny, I mean no offence to Alice - or Dee for that matter - I just think they would play the part with gusto!)

Not a great picture of the carriage (it looks better at full size if you click on it but still not great) - it's got pearlescent paint on it which catches the flash - but you get the idea.....  my favourite bit is Cinders' little rock hand :)  |m|

Next up, on the other side of the envelope pocket - my little tribute to one of the greatest rock movies of all time, the mighty Spinal Tap:

And yes, the volume knob does twiddle round :)

And here's my sign in on the back of the flap.....we all have a journalling spot to fill in, mine was "words that I think sound cool".....the outright winner?  definitely "plinth" :)

And finally, inside the pocket, this insert, telling the story of how I discovered the Seattle sound - grunge music - one of the longest lasting loves of my life - largely via the film Singles back in 1992.  Great film.  Amazing soundtrack.  

So that's all for rock at the movies....next month it's all about Linkin Park, am already thinking about my page....

Back on the circle journal bandwagon

Gosh, it feels like ages since I last worked in a CJ.  Well, it was in 2011, and we're in 2012 now, so that's a year ago.  Kind of :)

This is my entry in Shirley's CJ in the "Artistic Licence" circle.  The artist she has chosen for us all to interpret is Victor Vasarely, a French-Hungarian artist who worked in the op art style.

I chose his painting Catch from 1945 to re-work:

It's a powerful image - like human yin and yang.

I've taken a few liberties with it, rotating the figures by 90 degrees, swapping the light and dark figures round, and injecting a bit of colour.  Sorry VV :)

The end result looks simple, but trust me, cutting out those two figures with my little Xacto blade so that they would fit together perfectly was anything but!  I think these two are attempt number three :)

Worth the effort though for the feeling of satisfaction when all those little sets of fingers finally fitted together like jigsaw pieces - hooray!

I think the next CJ is Van Gogh.....eek......pressure, much??

Scratching out a rainbow bird, or two, or three

This is my latest entry for the Artistic Licence CJ - and the inspirational artist this month is Nikki Monaghan.

Now, I have to admit I had never heard of her before embarking on this circle journal, but I do like her bold, colourful style.

As other entrants in the CJ had already largely covered off her recurrent motifs of patchwork trees and boats:

I decided to choose a slightly less typical "Monaghan" as my inspiration, this one is called "Bird 3":

I love how the bright colours pop against the black background, and I figured even with my distinct lack of drawing skillz, I could probably manage a simple birdie.

I was going to paint the bird or birds first, and then paint all around it in black - but then my creative director (otherwise known as my other half, Jay, who always has the best ideas) said, why not do it like we used to do at school - with coloured wax crayons under black, and then you scratch off the top layer.

Genius!

Trouble was, I really couldn't get the wax on wax thing working for me....so I experimented a bit with various materials I had to hand, and ended up with a method that seemed to work pretty well.

So just in case any of you would like to try something similar, here's a bit of a step by step.

Step 1 - lay down some lovely BRIGHT colours fairly randomly onto white smooth or glossy cardstock.  I used spray paints, but anything that dries flat and permanent would work well - like alcohol inks/markers for example.

Step 2 - not pictured.  Spray a coat of clear acrylic varnish over the colours to help protect them from the scratchy scratchy bit later on

Step 3 - scribble all over with wax crayon.  As you can see, it doesn't make a good enough top coat to use as is, but it's an important step as it will allow us to lift off our black layer later.  I've used a dark blue crayon here rather than black, as I'm going to be covering it over anyway, and I couldn't find my black crayon :)

Step 4 - cover the wax crayon layer with a thin coat of black gesso if you have it, or black acrylic paint if not.

Step 5 - once the gesso is completely dry, sketch out your design - in my case - 2 birds - in pencil

Step 6 - using a sharp tool of some sort - mine is a stainless steel burnisher used in jewellery making, but anything similar would do - eg the pointy end of a small pair of scissors - scrape off the wax and gesso layers to reveal the colourful paint beneath.  Ahhhhhh.  Purty :)

Leave some of the black showing in places, as this adds to the "woodcut" look

Step 7 - add another coat of clear sealant or matt varnish when you're done

And that's pretty much it.

Here are my birds (I added a third on a whim part way through to balance the composition):

And you can see my finished piece using them, along with some embossed copper leaves, at the top of this blog post.

It was fun to do something in a different style and devise a new twist on an old technique.  If any of you lot do give it a go, please comment with a link so I can some and have a peek.