COME WITH ME TO THE SEA

Hi Everyone!

The prompt for Journal 52 WEEK 2 is Somewhere: A Simple Place.  This could be a place you love or want to visit or a fantasy place, a place that has meaning to your life.  What came to mind immediately was the place where I have lived near most of my life, the ocean.

Did I mention about trying to use up the supplies I have on hand for this journal project? My aim this year to use up some of the supplies I've accumulated and so, there may be some odds and ends used as embellishments.  I'm good with that, hope you will enjoy it too!

  COME WITH ME TO THE SEA........

Chelle asked us to build a frame around our page, add lines for text and to use magazine images.

This is how I made my page:

A very thin coat of Gesso is applied with a credit card to smooth it over the page. Gesso as a base for each page gives it "tooth" and allows colors to flow and not seep onto the next page.  I also put a piece of wax paper under the page to protect the others underneath from gesso seepage which can "glue" the papers together.

Most often I don't have a plan when I start but this time there was a sparkle of an idea in my brain (although I didn't think it through very well), that would include a starfish stamp, a painted wave, text and a border of some kind.  I thought if I laid down the blue and green in the shape of a wave cresting everything would fall into place from there.  Putting the writing on the page before more color was applied made sense.  I drew wavering lines for the text to fit in the blank space created by the wave shape, then wrote the words on each line.  Come With Me To The Sea was the title line so I printed it boldly, then the rest was written in cursive.  I used a permanent black ink pen (waterproof when dry) to thicken up the letters and lines some, and as you can see when the ink isn't totally dry it will smug! Lesson learned.

I had to hunt down (seriously) the starfish stamp and started stamping them on the page when I realized I'd gotten a bit ahead of myself and needed to create a border.  SO I dig through my box of scrappy stuff to see what can be use for the borders. Another option would have been to draw my own borders in or cut out magazine images.  A piece of a Teavanna bag caught my attention, the design was amazing, and neutral in color. BINGO!  I started cutting the tea bag into pieces fitting them together into a border that seemed to imitate driftwood.  Adding the coral seashells for a pop of color, sand dollars and some pearls to represent treasures from the sea.  If you zoom into the page you'll see the words: treasure, discover, timeless, laugh, smile and enjoy!   The dimensional flourishes represent the cresting waves and give the page a bit of interest.

Hope you enjoyed the process!  Let me know what you think about this page, I appreciate your comments.

Suzy

JOURNAL 52

Hi Everyone!

I'm very excited to reveal a brand-new challenge I've begun for 2014!  It's called Journal 52 and it is a FREE workshop online with Chelle Stein.  It is 52 weeks of creative prompts and techniques to try!  That's right! It is FREE.  Each Monday Chelle announces the prompt on Face Book on the Journal52 page and there is a Flickr group also.   It's not too late to join in the fun!

This week our prompt was Up UP and Away!  Chelle posts her page and tells all about the techniques she uses, so you have a prompt and some techniques to try. If you are a newbie, then this is the place to start!  It is a very supportive group with all ranges of experience in art journaling.  Check it out HERE.

 Each week I will share with you the thought process and some of the techniques I used to create my page and I'll post them here each Saturday.

So, here is my first Journal 52 page
UP UP and Away!

Right here and now I will tell you that I struggled with the Up Up and Away prompt!  All I could hear in my head was that 60's song: Up Up and Away in my beautiful balloon....so my first idea was to make a box from patterned paper with the lid opening up to balloons escaping into the atmosphere.  I made a cardboard template cloud and sprayed blue ink over it, like a stencil, moving the cardboard cloud around to make cloud banks. After it dried, I really didn't care for it, so I gessoed over parts of the page.

 My heart wasn't into it, my head was engaged but the heart, not so much.  You see, I work best without a preconceived idea or theme, more intuitive.  My box of papers, clippings and tidbits of this and that sat at my feet waiting for me to open it and discover where to take this design.  I like digging through the box, it has gum wrappers, silly paper cards, magazine clippings, tissue papers, book text, stamped tags, paper scraps even an old needlepoint canvas that I pick up along the way. Anything unusual or things that speak to my heart, go in the box for collage.

 So I dig through and start pulling out a few papers, a card and Whoo hoo! A tiny bit dress maker's pattern catches my eye and sparks something within!  Using the pattern paper over the clouds to cover them up and adding a bit of dictionary text to cover the background area, now I liked that!! After gluing down the paper in random fashion, I resumed digging in my treasure box to find other things that speak to me.  Like the flapper girls, they were on a card and I cut them out, two together to represent friends and one to represent me. They are kicking up their heels and having a grand time, they speak of fun and friendship to me.

 In my box I found a napkin with a giant purple flower and another napkin with pink flowers, text and the Eiffel Tower.  Ooohlala, that made for a bit of interest over the pattern paper and text!  Travel and flowers are two things I love, the romance of flowers and the dream of traveling to Paris....that lead me back to relationships and thus the head of the man and the thoughts of re-kindling of romance. And more flower stickers!!!

The pear represents the desire for a healthier lifestyle this year and the tag with LIFE LIFE and butterflies represents the changes coming. The words Thank You represent a grateful attitude that comes from the heart for all gifts and blessings the Lord has given to me.  In return, the tag that reads From Our Home to Yours represents sharing with and giving to others from our blessings.  

I hope you have enjoyed coming into my world of journal making and collage.  I would love it if you would leave me a comment and then join me in this adventure for 2014!  You can catch my Journal52 weekly pages here each Saturday.

Happy Journaling!
Suzy