R-r-r-r-r-rock and r-r-r-r-r-ollllll!!!!

So here we go again - it's new Circle Journal time.

This journal - well, really it's more of a box-with-stuff-in-it - is for a new CJ starting next month, with a rock music theme.

My own subtheme is about album cover art.  What I want the other participants to do is to choose a rock album that they LOVE, but where they DON'T love the existing cover artwork.  I then want them to design a new cover for the album, that they think does it more justice....

I haven't completed my own entry for this one yet - I haven't even decided which album I'm going to re-cover.  Any suggestions??

But everything else is finished.... I made the box lid from scratch from cardboard, spray paint and hockey tape (there's not an awful lot you can't do with those essential ingredients!) - and then decorated it with painted textured cardstock, a metal embellishment cut from a No Fear energy drink can and then stylus-embossed, the other half of that piece of record-shaped junk mail that I used for the Poly Styrene layout last week, some purple gem brads and some letter stickers.

Inside, each participant has a little album cover to decorate, made from plain white card, and inside each cover is a little "record", which will be their sign in tag.

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with for this one :)

|m|  

100% Germ Free

Here is my latest entry for the Project Runway CJ.

Ever since fellow CJer Jaine first claimed the "recycled materials" challenge as the inspiration for her journal, I've been waiting for her book to come around, as I knew exactly what I was going to do for this one.

X Ray Spex were one of my favourite bands growing up - my sister bought me the Germ Free Adolescents album when I was 11 years old, and that was the start of my lifelong love affair with punk rock.

So I was saddened earlier this year to hear that the band's lead singer, the wonderfully eccentric Poly Styrene, had lost her battle with cancer :(

This page, then, is my tribute.  For the recycling journal - a portrait of Poly Styrene, made from polystyrene, what else?

I used this wonderful photo as inspiration, from back in the band's 1970s heyday, I hope I captured the jist of it:

Everything on the page is recycled.

The background is made from tissue paper from a pair of Duffs trainers

The image of a vinyl record is from some junk mail from Orange Mobile

The metal in the goggles is aluminium from a drinks can, inside out

And everything else is polystyrene from various bits of food packaging

This turned out pretty much exactly how I have pictured it for the last few months, while waiting for my turn in this book.

I like it when that happens :)

A commission

It's a long time since I've made any chain maille jewellery, but the other week, I was in a meeting at work and one of my colleagues noticed the bracelets I was wearing.

He asked where I'd got them from and I explained I had made them myself.

Within 5 minutes I'd got myself an order for one Jens Pind Linkage bracelet and one Byzantine bracelet, both in copper, and he had paid me in full up front.

If only money was always so easy to earn!  (Not that I earned much in the end as I had seriously underestimated the cost of the raw materials - who knew copper had gone up so much in price in the last couple of years??!! - but never mind he is a lovely chap, and I enjoyed making them anyway :) )

I will have to make some more, as I do really enjoy making maille, it's almost meditative

An unusual CJ

I'm currently taking part in a circle journal called "Artistic Licence" - the overall theme is art, and each participant has chosen either a work of art, a particular artist, or a general artistic style for the rest of us to take our inspiration from

(you may remember that I chose the genre of wildstyle graffiti for my own book)

Above is my entry for the next CJ in this circle, which is based on a 1919 painting called Cosmic Composition, by Swiss artist Paul Klee

Here's the original painting:

I can't believe this is almost 100 years old, it looks so modern and fresh!

Usually, I'm used to CJs where a theme is given, but you have the creative freedom to do whatever you like for your own page, but this one is very different.

The CJ owner has divided the painting into 9 sections, and has allocated us each a section to reproduce, in any technique we like, as faithfully as possible.  I got given the bottom central section.

At first that felt like all my creative freedom had been removed, as I hate to copy.  But in the end I enjoyed working on my little embroidered quilt, I love to sew by hand, it's relaxing....

I hope I got it close enough to the original:

I first hand painted the cotton material (the colours look very different here under the flash, but in daylight it's a much better match) to mimic the colour blocked background of my allotted piece, and then embroidered in all the detail with a variegated thread through a thin layer of batting, before mounting the quilt to the piece of mountboard provided.

Here's the full painting with my bit in place (again, honestly, my colours do match better than that IRL :) )

Only the three sections in the middle have been "arted up" so far - my fellow participants will be recreating the remaining 6 sections.

I can't wait to see what other techniques everyone chooses - and how the complete piece turns out

Fun and frolics in and around Blackpool

We're not long back from a week's holiday in Blackpool, where much fun was had by all, and much art journalling was done by me :)

Without further ado, here are the pages I pulled together while we were away (plus a couple I finished up back at home)

Arrival day - the highlight for Reece and I was the TERRIFYING but brilliant live action ghost train down by the Pleasure Beach:

The following day we headed to Camelot theme park, around an hour's drive away from the 'pool:

This was the day that a young lad there at the park fell 80 feet out of a ride and injured himself badly, you might have seen it on the news.  We were just heading over to that exact ride when it happened!  Hope the poor young lad is recovering well.  Almost feel guilty to admit that we had a brilliant day there!

After a non journalled day (it rained a lot and the kids went swimming, not much else to say about that one), we headed to the world famous Pleasure Beach.  I truly believe that some of the rides here, especially the Big One, my favourite ride in all the world, are unrivalled anywhere on the planet.  Plus we were blessed with, for the majority of the day, great weather and short queues.  Thank you Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Next up, a brilliant day trip to Yorkshire.  We went down into the White Scar show caves (spectacular!), and then after that we went up onto the Dales, and into another, much smaller, cave to find a geocache.  

The day after that was another Blackpool day - first we went to the circus in the Tower, and then we took a tram (squeee! my  first time!) back down to the Pleasure Beach end, where we all played adventure golf, and then went to check out the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum, which the boys loved.

And finally, on the last day of our (too short!) holiday, we headed down into Merseyside.  To Southport first to go on the rides at Pleasureland, and do a bit of caching.  And then on to Crosby Beach to see the Antony Gormley installation 'Another Place':

Th-th-that's all folks!

AJED : 97/365

Please excuse the truly awful photo....

...here is my latest offering towards the Project Runway CJ.

This cool paper bag journal presents us with the regular PR challenge, to use items purchased in a grocery store.

It was harder than you'd think!  But I got there in the end.

The big "R" and all the silver trim come from a couple of cans of Relentless energy drink, the gravestones are made from lasagne, and the ghosts were cut from a scarf I got in Poundland (I hope that still counts as 'store bought', as I think anything not specifically intended for craft was fair game)

It proved impossible to photograph with flash or a lamp, due to the shimmer in the background paint and the shine of the aluminium metal making up the borders, hence this rather shaky picture which doesn't show the true colours at all.

Never mind, please use your imagination....

An eye for an eye?

I've been neglecting my art journal recently, so much for Art Journal Every Day, I'm barely managing Art Journal Every Month!

I can always rely on the girls over at A Year In The Life... to fire my mojo back up though.

The current three part prompt is:

THE PROMPT: Promises
THE SONG: Run Devil Run by Kesha
Written Lyrics HERE
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: The poison symbol 

(Kesha, again??? sigh :) )

The song lyrics deal with revenge:

You better run, run, run, run, run
Cause there's gonna be some hell to play
You better run, run, run, run, run
And that's the only thing I'm gonna say, hey
I wish I know the right from the start
That I was dancing with the dark
You better run
Devil, Run, Run, Devil, Run Run
Run Devil Devil Run Run
Which got me to thinking that revenge really isn't my thing.

I strongly believe in karma, I don't need to cause harm to anyone who has wronged me, their own deeds will poison them in time, and I'm very patient.

Probably the most personal page I've ever pulled together.  I wasn't sure whether to blog it or not, but hey, warts n all.

AJED : 87 / 365

as Angus Young almost said, Black is Back!

Almost a year ago today, I finished work on a new circle journal - blogged here - and this week it came home to me - so good to see it again, full to bursting :)

Without further ado, here are the fantastic pages that everyone else from the Altered Colour CJ added to my book:

In the temple of lovelovelovelovelovelove .....those lyrics take me back to my uni days - lots of dry ice and arms waving :)  Gorgeous page!

I love that dancing skellie stamp - he has such personality :)

I'm sure I have that text background paper somewhere, will have to dig it out, this page has reminded me how much I like it

There's so much I love about this one, where to start?  I am not usually a fan of flowers but this one with its black lace and leather is just stunning.  And I really like the metal mesh over the Sabs logo and the witchy woman photo.  Fab!

I like the way that book page has been cut into a kind of cityscape - I can see myself nicking that idea!

This page is just gorgeous, the photo doesn't do the details in the background justice, sadly

The black on black embossing on this page is so effective!  Difficult to photograph though.  And I love the quote too.

And finally:

The parcel opens to reveal the lyrics to Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance - another great song.

Thanks to everyone who took part - I love my not-so-little black book :)

Take a close look around....

... and you might find something inspirational right under your nose!

For my latest Project Runway CJ entry, and also for one of the prompts over at Marit's Summer Camp, my task was to head outside with my camera, and find patterns, textures, structures that I could work with and take inspiration from, but which would otherwise have gone un-noticed.

This gorgeous old planter couldn't have fit the bill better.  It lives right outside the back door to my place of work.  I walk directly past it at least twice every day.  But I have never looked twice at it before.

I can't understand how I've never noticed it - look at that beautiful patina and that wonderful tesselated leaf pattern!

you can click on this for a closer view

For my page, I used that leaf pattern both literally on the leaves being blown from the shrub in the planter, and also in the background.

I really loved how the background turned out actually, I was almost loath to put anything over the top of it!

Here's how it was made:

I sketched the pattern on some heavy paper and cut the leaf shapes out to make a stencil.  Through this I sprayed Krylon Spray Gesso over a background of watercolour paper, torn dictionary pages, and randomly applied Golden Absorbent Ground.

Then it took lots of washes of watered down acrylic paint and pearlescent acrylic ink, to get to the finished look

The un-gessoed strips between the leaves absorb the paint much better than the gessoed areas, giving this lovely, soft pattern.

I am definitely going to play with that spray gesso some more!

To finish the page off -

• I used Photoshop to make the magnifying glass with the close up of the pattern on the planter
• The leaves and branches of the shrub were cut freehand from textured card and inked around the edges
• The journalling was added with a dip pen and India ink (I think I was channelling Dina Wakley at that moment, although I wish my handwriting was as lovely as hers!)
• Shadows under the planter and magnifying glass were added with Copic pens
• And a couple of ink blobs pulled it all together nicely

It feels like this page isn't very ME - too pastel coloured maybe?  But I love it all the same.

taking a walk on the Wild(style) side....

Front cover of accordion book, belted shut

Ever the glutton for punishment, I've signed up for yet another new circle journal!  (only joking, I love them!  and I have another one starting in a couple of months too....)

This one is called Artistic Licence, and it has a great theme.  Each participant chooses either a famous artist or an artistic style, and then we all have to create a piece in their book in the manner of that artist / style. 

It's going to be a whole heap of fun!

For my theme I was going to go with street art / graffiti as a whole, but one of the other players had already chosen Banksy - so I went more specific and grabbed wildstyle.

Wildstyle graffiti

Wildstyle is the classic old school graffiti, with wonderful complex and elaborate letterforms, sometimes so elaborate they are hard to read!  I find this kind of street art - now becoming rarer as stencils and pictorial graffiti are on the rise - absolutely fascinating.

For my book, I've made an accordion book held together with a thick black twill tape, with pages approx 9" x 7", each with a photographic print of a bare wall - just waiting to be adorned :)

Here's a better look at the cover with its belt open:

I hand cut the stencil of the graffiti artist, and used Copics to airbrush him, and his colourful spraypaint, onto the wall.

Here's a side view of the book, you can see all the twill tape that holds the pages together:

The front and back covers were cut from fairly thick corrugated cardboard from a cardboard box, and edged with black ice hockey stick tape (just like 7 Gypsies gaffer tape but a good deal cheaper!!)

The 12 pages (an intro page, 9 participants, and a double wall for sign ins at the back) all laid out took up most of my living room carpet!

These are the backs of the pages

In case you are wondering why they are on scrap paper, well, a graffiti CJ wouldn't be complete without spray paint!

Here's what the page fronts look like (well, some of them at least):

(backgrounds from Sherwood Forlee's "Walls Notebook")

<===== And here is the intro page (inside front cover)

I drew out that "welcome" freehand, that's probably my favourite bit of the whole book!

As for my actual entry, I used the acetate graffiti artist that I was left with after cutting my stencil for the cover, and painted him black on the reverse side to make a little man embellie. 

And the wildstyle letters spelling ART are cut out freehand from Basic Grey papers, and then I drew the shadows in directly onto the wall.

I was pleased with this page until I had a sudden urge (one of those things that seems like a good idea at 2am!) to blob Diamond Glaze rather randomly and messily over the ART letters.  I'm not sure that bit works.  But otherwise, it'll do :)

And here's my blurb on the back of my wall:

And last but not least, it's traditional with CJs, isn't it, to have a couple of pages at the back of the book where everyone can sign in with tags....

No, not that kind of tag!

THIS kind of tag!

Some people hate this kind of graffiti especially - a wall full of tags (usually a stylised signature or set of initials written quickly with a fat chisel nibbed marker pen) certainly isn't as pretty or striking as most street art.

But I find interest even in these messy walls.

And I'm interested to see what everyone else in the CJ group comes up with for their personal tag.

I think that's everything - sorry for the image overload!!

This book goes out into the world in August.  I'm really excited to see what everyone does on their walls :)

RIP #2

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the Sonisphere rock festival down at Knebworth.

It was utterly brilliant and I wish it was still going and I was still there! 

Eventually I'll pull a page together in my day trip & holiday journal to document the whole weekend.....but before that, I had a real need, no other word for it, to get down on paper the emotions stirred up in me by the tributes at the festival to Paul Gray, Slipknot's recently departed bassist.

There was a 2 minute silence held during the day:



This was so unbelievably moving - seeing his mask and suit up there on the stage, empty :(  And the silence was utterly perfect across the entire site, which was some feat given the huge quantity of people in attendance!

I couldn't help but cry.

And then there were further tributes at the end of Slipknot's set that evening, which set the floods going again.

Even now thinking about it, or watching that video above, I can feel my eyes welling up.

Things like this really get to me.  I hope he is sleeping peacefully.



AJED : 86 / 365

Running up that hill

The last time we saw little stick-person-mini-me, she was stood on the edge of a cliff, battling her on-again-off-again fear of heights.

Today she's facing another fear, and climbing an ever steepening hill of money problems :| 

But the battle, uphill as it may be, is one she believes she will eventually win.  Once the kids have all left home, perhaps, and the mortgage and loans are finally paid. 

This page is my contribution to the current prompt over at A Year In The Life Of An Art Journal:

The Prompt: What's the deal?
The Song: Running Up That Hill by Placebo (or Kate Bush)
Written Lyrics HERE
Product/Technique: Playing Cards

I love the song, both versions, Kate Bush from my younger days and Placebo a little more recently

I used the playing cards to build a hill for mini-me to climb.  The numbers on the cards and the background represent money problems, which I'm suffering from majorly right now :(

One of the places I have identified that I need to spend a lot less is my local supermarket, Tesco, so it's ironic that that's where I got the kiddies sponge numbers that I used to stamp copper paint onto the background.  They were only £2.50 though and, to be fair, they are the first "art supplies" I have bought in yonks!

The title was made with some ancient letraset rubons that have been sitting unopened in one of my craft drawers for many many years, they still laid down good as new though.  Actually, I'd forgotten how much I like rubons, I will have to make a concerted effort to use them more often, as I have a pile of them....

AJED : 85 / 365

Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink. Good Luck.

A while ago I made an art journal page with one of my many graveyard angel photos (taken on Christmas Day in Fortune Green cemetery, London)

It is still one of my favourite pages in my journal, so I thought I'd go bigger and make a canvas along the same lines.

Of course it has turned out looking entirely different.  But where would the fun be in doing the exact same thing twice?

I've kept the "Don't Blink" title, though, as like millions of other Doctor Who fans, that's all I can think about now when I see one of these angels!

Here's the full thing - the angel is a gel medium toner transfer over an acrylic and spray painted background.  And the "don't blink" is black Copic pen airbrushed through a hand cut stencil.

Here's hoping that the Doctor was wrong about that whole "That which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel" thing!

Hello! Hello! Hola!

 

Art Journal pages are like buses, none for weeks, and then two come along at once!

This page (which looks a lot better when it isn't bathed in camera flash flare, sorry about that) is in response to the current prompt over at A Year In The Life Of An Art Journal:

THE PROMPT: Vertigo
THE SONG: Right Round Ft. Kesha
Written Lyrics HERE
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: Circles

I had to draw the line at Kesha, sorry.  I took my musical inspiration from the U2 song Vertigo instead.

I'm by no means the world's biggest U2 fan, but I do love this song.  Whenever it comes on the radio I'm hollerin' "HOLA!" with the best of them :)

The page deals with my love/hate relationship with heights....I get a real thrill from looking down from a great height but only if I am standing on something that feels solid and doesn't wobble! :)

AJED : 82/365