I'm always full of ideas. Rarely though, do I have enough time to follow them through. However, when I thought of this idea, I really wanted to carve out enough time to see it happen. It just seemed like the thing to do! I wanted to get a few of my fellow Canadian art journalers together to each do a page or two in a handmade travelling art journal. I have been fortunate to meet some incredibly talented artists online, and a number of them are Canadian. Lucky for me, they were as enthusiastic about this project as I was. I will talk about the participants in this challenge in a subsequent post.
So, I started making a little art journal out of four Christmas cards received this year. I wanted to keep the journal small (and the project too, for that matter) so that it was easily manageable. With only four cards, each no larger than about 5" X 5" I started distressing, painting, and texturizing to make the base pages onto which others would journal or do mixed media or collage art or whatever.
I sanded the cards that had a glossy finish. Experience in making art journals from greeting cards has taught me that it is hard to get paint to adhere to glossy cardstock. Then, I slopped on (and I do mean slopped) a bunch of different types of paints including spray dyes, liquid watercolors, acrylics and poster paints. Below are photos of the four greeting cards(front and back) with their base coats of paints. You'll note that one of the cards has cutouts in it. I thought this would make for some interest in the journal.
You can still see the writing coming through the paint and various treatments on some of the cards. You can also see where I used large scale punchinella and a crackle stamp to get create some extra interest on the pages.
I then added some bits and pieces of scrap papers to make each page more interesting. Scans of the fronts and backs of each card are shown here.
At this point, my plan was to position or fold the cards so that the blue/green pages alternated with the pink/orange/yellow pages throughout the journal. The simplest way to put all the pages into one was to use my decorative duct tape, which was super easy, quick and looks like a million bucks! I chose to stick with various types of black and white duct tape for continuity throughout the journal.
Below are photos of all the pages, just waiting for some artsy souls to embellish the heck out of 'em. In an upcoming post, I will fill you in on who the other Canadian artists are who are participating in this project. And by the way, there are still one or two pages available for any fellow Canuck journalers who want to take part.
Thanks!
Joanna
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| FRONT COVER OF JOURNAL |
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PAGES 1 AND 2
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| PAGES 3 AND 4 |
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| PAGES 5 AND 6 |
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| PAGES 7 AND 8 (CENTER OF JOURNAL) |
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| PAGES 9 AND 10 |
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| PAGES 11 AND 12 |
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| PAGES 13 AND 14 |
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| BACK COVER OF JOURNAL |
9 comments:
What a Fabulous Outcome fellow Canadian!!
Love it and it's refreshing to see another Canadian involved in the Journaling Global Groups on Facebook! Cheers to you and your Talent!
What a great idea. Was wondering how you put it all together. Now I can see and may try that with some of my Christmas and birthday cards.
Will enjoy following the progress of this neat project.
Thanks so much, ladies, you are far too kind. It has been fun so far and I am sure we will all find it a great project to have been involved in when it's done. Cheers! Joanna
Awesome Joonna! Can;t wait to get my hands on it! LOL
The backgrounds look fabulous Joanne. Can hardly wait to work on it!
Love the windows!!
I knew I saved those Christmas cards for a reason!
Joanna, love this idea. Following you now. Hope you'll follow on mine as well. That helps me remember to come back here.
Blessings on your 2013,
Coleen, an American in Ukraine
Absolutely, Coleen, would love to follow what you're up to! Joanna
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