Sunday 15 May 2011

Art Journal Inspirations

I have been doing quite a bit of art journalling these last few weeks. When I started, I figured this would be an exciting, creative journey. Quite unexpectedly, it has turned into something of an emotional and spiritual journey as well. The spreads I am creating are really quite personal and private, hence me not showing many of them on here. However, I am also really getting into the painting, collaging, stamping aspects and would like to explore the journalling further and so I ordered this book:

Art Journal Workshop

It's an excellent guide for those getting started on creating art journals. There are tips and how-to's on the practical things like choosing a book, adding colour to the page, integrating collage items. This practical advice is supplemented with a series of prompts to give you ideas for spreads and these are accompanied by process photos of the author making her spreads on these themes. There is also a DVD with the book, but I haven't got round to watching this (I have always preferred learning from books).

One of the ideas the author gives is to repurpose an old book to use as a journal. I am just about overcoming my childhood reluctance to write in books (even in pencil) so to paint in a book! And stick things in it! And rip pages out! Wow, that would be out of my comfort zone...but then I found this old Eagle book in a charity shop:

Eagle Annual cover

As you can see, it's in a pretty tatty state so I am guessing not worth any more than the £2.50 I paid for it...and it's not really to modern boys' reading tastes...so

I AM GOING TO CUT IT UP/GLUE IT/STAMP IT/PAINT IT. WHEEEEEEEEEE!

And who could resist the collage potential of pages like these:

eagle annual toadstools
eagle annual bicycles
eagle annual river of life
eagle annual knots

Marvellous.
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5 comments:

  1. Janet15 May 2011 at 10:23

    I'm drooling over those collage pages! They will be great to work with.

    I was the same way about books when I first started journaling. Now I happily rip, paint, and otherwise "destroy" the original pages. There are a ton of "worthless" books that are just begging to become an art journal.

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  2. Andria15 May 2011 at 14:13

    Great book to use for journaling--fun vintage graphics and interesting content! I recently got Traci's book, too, and am finding it quite inspirational. I'm glad that art journaling is becoming such a meaningful experience for you...as much as I am enjoying the artistic aspects of the process, it hasn't quite become an emotional/spiritual experience yet. I think that will add significantly to the quality of my pages!!

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  3. Allie15 May 2011 at 19:06

    This looks very cool - not sure I could ever do that to a book though, lol. Maybe a very dry chemistry textbook!

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  4. KathyE16 May 2011 at 04:18

    Oh, I can't wait to see what you do with this book. I've given journaling some thought, but I'm not there quite yet. Good luck with your endeavor, I know you will like it...alot.

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  5. jackie18 May 2011 at 03:04

    You are having fun with all these new projects.I hope you will look out for Sue Bleiweiss' book next Spring.
    Thanks so much for reading my blog.

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