Jens Arty Life

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 wanted to do a page about rain. I had an idea ... I searched for a good image to draw. And it was looking really good. And then I ruined it. I decided the backgound wasn't 'drippy' enough and sprayed some more watered paint onto the page ... which then ran down through my black lettering in a pen that is water based. SIGH. I dried it and went over the letters again, but it isn't as good as it was. The page behind it was also totally ruined. Thankfully I hadn't worked on it much. But it did have some feathers I'd collected from budgies we were baby sitting, including a quite rare spotted feather. I had taped them to the page ready to draw the birds around it. I've tried to pull the tape off and the feathers came off intact, but the tape is all papery and the feathers aren't as visible as they were. I will have to see if I can affix them to something so they can be saved. So the lesson learned? DON'T OVER SPRAY THE PAGES OF THIS JOURNA...

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

I love to doodle on pages. I had this painted background which I had no idea what to do with. So I started drawing in black pen and it came to life. I will have to doodle more. It's so much fun.

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 one word for this year is 'Allow'. I have spent a lot of my life anxious and worried because I am so afraid of bad outcomes. Now I am going to allow them to happen (because they happen sometimes whether I worry about them or not, and sometimes they don't happen). I spend a lot of time worrying if my work is good enough to be seen ... good enough to catch people's attention, good enough to sell. That will no longer be my focus. Allowing for myself to be imperfect or fail does not mean that I stop trying. It means that I try for different reasons. I try because I enjoy the process, I enjoy developing skills and getting better, I enjoy seeing improvement and when there is no improvement I just enjoy moving paint and colour around. So I created this page; It's the fifth page in my journal. I had already created the background and I just wrote over it this morning. I'd been keeping the page for something meaningful about starting the year. Thank ...