Journal swap

Time for another page in Miriam's journal, as you know we are swapping our journals back and forth, taking turns to work in each one. 

This time Miriam asked me to do a page of things that i love.. Well there are so many lol but i narrowed the choices down to 7 things. 

Giraffes

The colour red

Cakes

Books

Music

French (well any languages or text really, just love alphabets and words)

Paint/art

So a weird combination, now how to get them all on a page. 

I began with two old colours, I have several discontinued paints that I am tyiing to use up, just to free up space, so i use them when I can. 

Jade and Ice Blue, sponged on. 

Seth Apter French text stamped in Garden Patina Archival ink. This is becoming my fave background stamp. 

I then sketched out a pile of books and a cupcake. I began to fill them in using paper piecing. All papers used are old bits of painted and embosssed papers. Don't you just love using up old scraps. 

For the edges of the books where you would see the paper, I used actual old book paper, it has a lovely creamy colour. The lines were added using a Stabilo fineliner. 

Here are all the books in place, they still need some shading. 

The cupcake is done in the same way. 

For my love of text and languages I have added some Jofy alpha stamps. The reason I chose French is that I am currently doing a refresher course in French.

On the other half of the page I sketched out my giraffe. 

For the paint/art element I added this paintbrush stamp from EA03

I then added the music element using tiny musical notes down the centre of the page. 

Now to add some paint, Nougat, Caramel, Toffee, Chocolate Pudding, French roast. 

More paint, more blending. 

 Here it is once all the paint had  been added, note I brought in the red element by adding red paint drops off the brush. 

I then refined and blended the giraffe using Prisma pencils. 

Here is the finished page. 

Darcy x

A weekend

My gorgeous sister in law and children (and brother) live in chicago, recently they were over here for a holiday and we were able to catch up with them. It was also my sister in law's father's birthday, so an excuse for a party. 

For the birthday boy I made a memory jar. 

just a coffee jar decorated, so easy..

He keeps bees and makes honey, so I added a tiny bee on top. 

Filled with journal prompts and teamed with a lovely journal {from WHSmiths} and also a scroll of instructions. 

It was a gorgeous sunny day, the girls were playing with giant Jenga. 

lots of water bombs were thrown too, many,many soggy children and adults. 

The bouncy castle and slide were a huge hit. 

I just had to get inside the bouncy castle for a wee jump about. 

Fabulous family weekend. Oh and my favourite butchers is nearby so I came home with lots of yummy sausages too. 

Darcy x

At last a page..

I recently had surgery and while the operation itself was straightforward (keyhole) the anaesthetic really knocked me for six. I must have had some sort of reaction as I was really ill for about a week and feeling pretty grim for another 2 weeks. During that time I did nothing, no art at all. it felt very strange to be doing nothing. I had packed a bag of art stuff to have next to the bed, but none of it got touched. 

I have been up and about and pretty much back to normal now for a week, but I have struggled to find my mojo/inspiration/motivation.. I have been taking supplies around the house to wherever I was sat, but then I have done nothing. 

I really needed to get on with a journal page in Miriam's journal, so I had a serious word with myself and made a start.. 

The bottom layers are all PaperArtsy Fresco paint in browns and neutrals. 

Next I added PaperArtsy Infusions, sprinkled onto areas of Satin glaze. 

I then added stamping still keeping with the browns and turquoise scheme. The stamps are all PaperArtsy Urban Snapshots. I also sketched a hand and arm, then whited this out. Once i had my blank shape I could start to add pinks and browns to shade the skin. 

All this was done over about 3 weeks, so apologies for lack of details regarding colours. I didn't make notes on them. 

Using just a regular pencil I sketched in the details of the hand. 

Now to add the butterflies, these were sketched onto smooth white card and cut out. 

Now to add colour. I started with Prima watercolours. 

Then I refined and blended with Prisma colour pencils. 

and finally added some texture and highlights. The texture is Crayola Slick Stix and Distress Crayons through small stencils. 

The butterflies were glued in place .. 

shadows added under the butterflies and legs added. 

and finally the quote was printed out and glued in. 

I especially like the green butterfly, that one turned out the best. 

Now I just need to crack on and catch up with all the other pages and projects that I should have been doing. 

Darcy x

New Journal..

My friend Miriam found some cheap journals recently and very kindly sent one to me, we have decided to do paired journals. We each do a page in our own journal and then swap  and work in each other's journals and then swap again and so on.. 

So to start with i decorated my covers, using Grunge Paste through stencils, painting this black and then using 2 coats of Glossy medium to seal and protect. 

The pages in this journal are very thin, so I have gone right though the whole book glueing pages together in pairs. Although this cuts the page numbers down by half it does mean you have thicker pages to work on, very helpful when using wet media. 

So here is the first page done by me.. I began by scraping layers of Fresco paint. 

Then adding black, more white and then brighter translucent colours. 

More black, and some portfolio crayons, also some white dots in the black areas. 

I love all these layers

I then sketched out my focal design and whited it out. 

Added in some underpainting. 

I also added some texture , using Grunge Paste on the mushroom tops and on the stalks. 

I added shading with paints and once dry I added more shading with coloured pencils.

The last shading was around everything with Stabilo pencils. 

I added the text.. 

I think this might be my favourite area, love the layers and bits of texture,

This now needs sending off to Miriam so she can do the next page, can't wait to see what she does. 

Darcy x