Before I get to my journal page I would like to apologise to my dear blogger friends. I have not updated my ‘links’ page which I really want to do but just haven’t had the time. I will try to make a start tonight. I appreciate up to date links on other blogs so I feel quite remiss that I am not sharing the wonderful blogs I have found.

Onto my journal page. I have worked on this for a couple of weeks. I had watched some of those creative people who do videos on You Tube. I have watched a few mixed media ones. I like the way they put layer upon layer upon layer. I am more of a mixed media that builds in sections and don’t necessarily have hidden layers so I thought I would have a practice.

I cannot throw anything away. If you look back on this blog to October 26th 2011 I started a month of using fragments. I enjoy making random things with random things. Coming back to this journal page is exactly that. Using scraps/fragments trying to merge the layering method of mixed media.

Everything you see is a cut-off, cast-off, torn-off piece from something I have used.

 

This is a small paper bag I made and I keep tiny cut-offs in it.

 

Here are the fragments and small pieces.

 

Unfortunately I did not take photos of the pieces I actually used in my journal page but these two fragments are similar. All the paper bag pieces are cut-offs from my ‘Paper Bag Book’. The top one could be a fence and the bottom of it (if you cut it in half) could be buildings. The buildings on the journal page are similar to this. The bottom fragment here I would use for mountains maybe. I see something in all of them.

 

This piece was one of four. I don’t remember what it was a cut off from but I used two in my journal page as…

 

A bird. So if anyone likes working small, never throw anything away. Turn it around, upside down, visualize it as a creation. Here is the finished?? journal page.

 

The bottom layer which has mostly been covered is a piece of bright yellow tissue paper with white dots. I glued it down then gave it a very rough paint of gesso around the edges. I tore pages from a paper back that has gone that lovely stained old look and pasted them on; a little more gesso then sat and felt I couldn’t go any further; it just wasn’t me. A day later I painted various hues of green acrylic paint surround the pages. Didn’t like the plain page look so I got out my Pantone Letraset pens (which I have had for years and they have never dried out). and went over the pages in various hues of browns and yellows.

Everything was too square. Re cut  butterfly shapes from torn pages (I had used strips for something else and these pieces were left over, glued them in place to offset the squareness and gave them the same treatment with the pens. Now it was all too dull. Left it alone again feeling very inadequate. I had a day in the City and came across a pop-up shop selling Japanese Washi tape…so delicious…so much to choose from. I chose a chequered design as I though it could be more serviceable than a particular design like flowers etc. When I came home I saw butterfly body. That brightened it up a little but prompted me to use my uni-ball Signo white gel pen around the wings and its false eyes. On with the gell pen for light in the windows of the buildings  then my meditation is doing zillions of dots (I just love doing dots – no it doesn’t send me dotty, it is most calming).

Next came my fragments left over from my Paper Bag Book. The building on the top of the page and the bottom of the page are fragment cut-offs as are the girls on both pages. Odd shapes but I think they work well. The birds cut-offs went in to kill of that squareness again. I found some cute little pieces that became the small butterflies on each page and then another halt, another rest.

With a fresh eye I saw more places for  the washi. Under the buildings, making the girls clothes, wings and legs for birdie. I like the red in the washi but it was a bit dull so I gave it a red coat of acrylic in the red squares and added one red butterfly to each page for balance. Back to the white gel pen to dance around the bottom of the washi skirs and gave them some buttons and waists.

A couple of left over strips of japanese paper at the bottom of the pages then I drew in some leaves on the bottom page to kill that squareness for all time. I used watercolour pencils to colour them in (no water). The top leaves I had cut from something else at some stage so I coloured them in the same way and glued them down.

I drew a picture of a plant on the bottom page between the lower leaves but it is awful and I don’t like it but maybe I will do something there at some stage. It can stay for now.

Last was I stamped some leaves (I carved from an eraser) on each page and did some more dots in black this time over the pages.   Am I done? maybe but I will get rid of that drawing yuk. Maybe that is the case of ‘to know when to stop!).

I feel this piece is a success given that I felt I struggled with it too often.

I still use looking at my work through a mirror. I learnt that in the early days of painting. I find my eye sees it in an objective way. I can see imbalance, nuances that I cannot see looking at it normally. When I did look at it in the mirror the title ‘Your Garden My Garden Ancient Garden came to me. Urban Gardens with buildings and people. Our gardens with butterflies and birds and Ancient Gardens, overgrown, rustic, strange. I don’t measure anything so the writing is not straight and perfect but that’s me. I used my Hi-Graphic Pen System 2mm which I have also had for years and still works perfectly.

The things I did wrong. I didn’t glue the tissue down solidly in the join of the journal and I didn’t go over each layer with medium so I am not sure of its survival. I did not put it under something heavy whilst it dried so it is a very curly page but that what makes a journal interesting.

Cheers to everyone Rose