Jens Arty Life

To my dear followers. I'm so excited you have chosen to follow my journey. Thank you very much for your views and especially the comments which are always appreciated. But even when I didn't have any followers I enjoyed art journalling. And this page is to celebrate that; I changed the quote slightly. I said 'I want to MAKE beautiful things, even if no-one cares.' When I saw the quote on Pinterest it felt so true I knew I had to add it to my art journal. It's just pencils and a black felt tip pen. I didn't feel much like getting the paints out because 1. I'm working on a quilt for Sydney Quilt show and the deadline for entries is coming up, and 2. we have a new addition to out family. Her name is Olivia Jigger (a Jigger Rabbit is a slang way of saying cat in Liverpool). We call her OJ or Ollie for short. Olivia came to us from the RSPCA in Katoomba. My husband and my daughter drove up to get her on Saturday and she is quite the gorgeous di...

Could there be anything I want to do more than use pink??? So this page is for the Think Pink challenge this month at Mixed Media , and I'm also submitting it to Brenda's Blog Party at Bumblebees and Butterflies. I went for a cartoony style for my fairy to match the cutesy ness of the rest of the page. Once again I got so involved in the process i forgot to take photos of stages ... sorry. I used paint, journalling pens (including a really cool white paint pen which I will be using heaps I think), pencils and stencils. I was inspired by Krishna's keepsakes page to do some tangle dangles. I hope you enjoy! Jennidee

How ironic that Brenda at Bumblebees and Butterflies has used greens and butterflies in her page. Without seeing her page, I've done the same. Just like a butterfly this page went through a metamorphasis. I thought I had finished the page ... I wasn't happy with it but I thought it was done. Then, when I was working on the next page over, water spread from one page to the other and ruined it. So i painted over it with gesso (keeping the butterfly textures and the colours peeking through) and started again. Now I really like this page. So I suppose the disaster of the water from the rain page paid off in the end. Thanks again to Brenda for her blog party. i am really enjoying seeing your journals. Jennidee

I have wanted to draw Elsa since I first saw Frozen and this page gave me the chance. I originally wanted to draw her in white but it didn't show up on the background. I wanted a kind of ghostly feel to it rather than a true copy of her form and I think i did that well. I ended up with blue ink all over my hands as I had gessoed the page before inking it. I will have to seal it with hair spray. But first I will be writing some things I need to let go underneath like jealousy of other artists (I didn't want to bore you with my angst so I've uploaded it in this state. Thanks to Brenda at Bumblebees and Butterflies for her blog party and Hi to you if you have drifted over from there. Jennidee

Over at art to the 5th http://www.art5academy.com/the-studio/the-documented-life-project-free and the Documented Life challenge, the challenge this week was Gesso. I've never used it before but I was keen to try. So I popped out and bought some. Here is my page. The journalling is actually the exact wording of the prompt. I used the Gesso in coffee cup rings and smaller circles that add texture to the page. I also experimented with crackle medium but it doesn't really show. I'll have to give that another go. Do you like the masking tape at eh top? I did actually rip the page and I thought ... Oh well, I'll make it a feature. :) Jennidee

I was feeling a bit down so I needed a pick me up. I typed 'funny' into Pinterest and spent an hour laughing. Later I created this double page. The painting on the right side is inspired by Noel Mignon. http://noelmignonlayouts.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/mixed-media-flower-canvas-mini-tutorial.html I wrote about not sharing the left hand side as I didn't feel it was worthy of it. it is just a scrapbook paper with a bit of lettering. Then I went to town on the other side and really enjoyed myself, so I thought I'd share the pages together ... one so simple, and the other side much more what I like. I've been trawling the internet lately for other bloggers who art journal as I've been a bit of a lonely artist these past few days. It's so nice to see what other people are up to. I joined a blog party that Brenda of Bumblebees and Butterflies ... so hello to those people who have wandered over from there. http://www.bumblebeesandbutterflies.com Jennid...

My daughter asked me to watch the movie 'Lucy' with her the other night. I'm really glad I did because I really enjoyed it. Not only was it entertaining, but it was thought provoking too. It inspired this page; The face is much more realistic than my previous attempt. I have been watching painting videos to improve. I am really happy with this, though I know the girl doesn't bare much resemblance to Scarlet Johansen. The pages are curly so much I had to put a paper weight on the edge to take the photo :) Jennidee

The Royksopp and Robyn song "monument" inspired this page. I really enjoy creating an art journal ... I do it mostly because it's fun, but I do also hope it will survive me and perhaps tell others what I was like when I'm no longer here. I like the grungy look of this page even though it happened by accident. I was trying out a technique I'd seen on you tube where you put a stencil down on a painted page, spray it with water and then wipe off where the water has soaked through the stencil. But I couldn't get it to work and I tried to rub back all the black paint. When I got to this point, no more paint would come off and I decide I liked it anyway. I managed to get the effect I wanted by using an embossing powder over a painted surface, then painting black over the hard embossed areas. Then you wipe back the black paint from the embossed areas. In my version the embossing powder was an extra thick one and it bubbled strangely, causing the pits. so when I wi...

I was very inspired by a pin on Pinterest, http://www.pinterest.com/pin/497647827549771247/  and created this in response. On the stars I have listed the achievements in 2014 that I am most proud of. Materials; ink as sprays, acrylic paint, white journal pen, black journal pen, star stencil.

I had a very uncomfortable dream last night. I was supposed to be doing playground duty, but I wasn't sure which area to go to. Everywhere I went, someone was already there and telling me I was wrong. I feel quite confident that this is a reflection on my feeling towards art journalling. Everywhere I look on the internet someone is doing it better than me and I just want to find my own place. So in reaction to that dream I created this page. I also noticed I use a lot of pinks and blues. That's partly because those are the colour inks I have, and partly because they are my favourite colours. I will make an effort to branch out and try other combinations of colours. Thanks for reading Jennidee

Today's offering is another watercolour background, but this time I have done no other embellishment of the background and added only my drawings with black markers. The actual motifs are my adaptations of Turkish designs. I used a stencil for the lettering. My daughter Anna told me of another version of this little quote 'Happiness is not a destination, it is a way of life' and I like that quote better, but I'd already finished the page ... dammit. Have you ever had that happen? This page is A4 again and I will most likely expand it on white card when I stick it in my 12 by 12 scrapbook. I already have a stencil in mind, that I saw in the art shop the other day (the shop was closed yesterday, or I would have run out and bought it). Thanks for reading. Jennidee

Hello there dear blog reader. My name is Jennidee Mills and I am obsessively creative. I quilt and design quilting patterns for my income, but I have so many other creative pursuits that it's hard to keep track of them all. I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil and my mother called me the paper monster because the paper in our house disappeared so fast she was sure I was eating it. Fast forward to today. Textiles and paper compete for my favourite medium to work with. This blog will be about paper. I have a blog about my textiles here, if you wish to have a peek at that part of my life. I have been journalling since I was 11. I started out diary writing, added scrapbooking when I was 15 and have recently discovered art journalling. My diaries and scrapbooks are full of my sketches anyway, so they could be considered art journals too. But this blog will be about the purest form of art journalling. This is probably my first art journal page. I cr...