Altered By Me

Art journaling has had an explosion of interest in the past year. Or at least on the groups I belong to I have seen allot of people becoming interested in it. There are a few blogs out there doing daily prompts and challenge. I really don't know how the people who participate get anything done besides their journal page for the day. I can not finish a page a day and that could be because my art journal is a whopping 8 x 11 inches big. My journal is a cheap sketch book I bought at Borders. I glue music sheets, dictionary pages, book pages, scrapbook paper, tissue paper, dress pattern paper or packing paper to the pages and then depending on my mood I paint, ink or gesso the pages. I usually do about 5 sets of pages at a time. This method reinforces the thin sketch paper so it can take the abuse of painting or inking. It also gives me an interesting background that is ready to go when the mood strikes me to work in my journal. The above picture is from a page that I created using K...

You may have read a previous post where I talk about wanting to start an art journal. Well I had the journal with a few pages gessoed and ready to go for over a month. Every time I picked it up to try and do something in it I thought to myself. "why did you buy such a big book?" The pages are HUGE...........8 x 11. I of course had a case of big blank page syndrome when I realized something. I like working on big backgrounds! Alot of my work is done on 5 x 7 canvas board. Art that I make just to make art. You know what I mean...Most of the online challenges and swaps are for atc, 4 x 4, 2 x 2, 1 x 1 and now 3 x 3's but when I reach for a background to work on I almost always grab one of my 5 x 7 canvas boards that I keep already gessoed. Or I cut a piece of watercolor paper to that size. Now that is still smaller then the blank pages I have been facing but that little light bulb that went off. and once it did it freed me up and allowed me to get over the stage fright of s...

Over the years I have made a variety of hand bound books. Every once in awhile I would bind up some of the handmade paper I make into a simple book. I have never written in one of those books mind you. But recently I decided to try my hand at Coptic binding. It could be that I am fascinated by the Art Journal craze and decided that I could make my own. I did recently buy myself a sketchbook that I plan to use as an Art Journal. The size is a little intimidating tho. I've only managed to decorate the front and gesso a few of the pages but hopefully I will begin to work in it soon. So... a couple of days ago I recycled some papers from a scrapbook I bought and used the covers from a vintage book I had on hand. There are four signatures with a total of 64 pages. I guess you could say over 80% of the book is recycled. I only bought new the hemp thread and ribbon I used as decoration on the front. I think it is important to do as much as you can for the environment. I love my new litt...