Art Journal Play Date

Got together today with my friend, Ann, to make a big arty mess at my house. It's good to commit to a date to devote to making art or we'd just find other chores that urgently "need" to be done. She brought everything she owned and I brought out everything I owned and we spread it all over the dining room and kitchen. After two hours of showing each other our cool stuff, we did manage to actually get some work done in our journals!

I had wanted to start a new journal (three are not enough, you know) using a basic black & white composition book. We'd seen the idea on the lil blue boo blog. Today, I managed to get my cover started by applying some great Japanese paper I found hiding out in the back of my closet recently... and cut holes for silk sari ribbon ties.

I'd been saving this hand & key image for just the right spot. Think I found it!

Ann gave me an image from an old calendar that I used for inside the cover. This journal has started taking on somewhat of an Asian theme, it appears!

I managed to prep the front and back of one page. Got some background glued down... and did a color wash in teal. We had played around some with image transfers early in the day, so I stuck down the one I did on packing tape... sort of a creepy medical illustration, but I love it.

The tiny doll image in the lower right corner is a photo of a Chinese figure that's over 1300 years old!

The photo image of this statue's cracked face is something I grabbed from Pinterest yesterday, because it SO told the story of last week's six-day migraine marathon. Yes, this is exactly how I felt! There is plenty of room yet on this page for me to add some hand-written journaling, and I am taking a lesson from Juliana Coles (literally, from one of her workshop handouts) and am going to sign and date this page, and others from now on, as I finish them. It did finally occur to me that I may someday want to know exactly when in time a page was done.

The time goes by so fast, and we reached our limit too quickly... it seemed as though we had barely begun when it was time to pack up. Ann left some yummy things for me to use and peruse... and I sent her home with some scraps and bits, too. Promises for more days like this in our near future!