Joanna Grant Mixed Media Art: journal exchange

Showing posts with label journal exchange. Show all posts

FINALLY - Great Canadian Art Journal Project Is Done !!!

Hello everyone!

Well, it's almost a year after its launch, but we have finally finished our Great Canadian Travelling Art Journal Project and I have to say it has turned out most spectacularly!!

Starting in February, 2013, this little handmade art journal (6" X 6") made the rounds to 14 different Canadian mixed media artists from coast to coast, who each created a page (or more).

The journal was made by me from recycled greeting cards. If you missed the post last year on that, here is the link so you can see how I created it, as well as the "before" shots of the pages of the journal prior to our artists getting their hands on 'em.

Making of the Art Journal

I am so pleased to now be able to share with you the finished pages of the whole journal.

Page 1 By Kimberly Ans

Page 2 By Karen Dearborn

Page 3 By Sandy Sommerfeld

Page 6 By Nancy Allingham

Tag Inserts By Nancy Allingham

Page 7 By Linda Kittmer

Page 8 By Becky Uren

Page 9 By Erin Fish

Page 10 By Kim Beinschroth

Page 11 By Norina Morris

Accordian Book Insert By Norina Morris

Page 12 By Jane Super

Page 13 By Lori Bradford

Page 14 By Nancy Morin

Back Cover By Jenny Sept

I want to personally thank the wonderful artists who took part in this project. They are:

Jenny Sept
Erin Fish
Jane Super
Nancy Morin
Becky Uren
Nancy Allingham
Karen Dearborn
Linda Kittmer
Kim Beinschroth
Lori Bradford
Kimberly Ans
Norina Morris
Sandy Sommerfeld

Now that the journal is done, the group has agreed to auction it off for charity. I will be listing the journal shortly on either Ebay or Etsy and proceeds raised from the sale of it will benefit the SPCA. If this project and charity resonate with you, please bid on the journal to help our cause.

Thank you so much!
Joanna

What's On My Work Desk Right Now

Hello again! I thought you might like to see what I am working on now. None of these images are of completed work but hopefully someday soon they will be.

I have been trying to force myself to work on a larger scale. I have always gravitated to producing smaller scale art because it allows me to see results much sooner. However, I often get asked if I have made or will make larger pieces for customers who want a more significant sized piece of art for their home or office or as a gift for someone else.

These images are from my larger Strathmore journal and each page is 9" X 12". That may not seem large to you but it is to me! I usually will have a number of pages on the go at any given time, all at various stages of development. I like to work this way because more often than not, a page will only get so far in a sitting. When I feel that I am not going to get any further with a given page, then I will move on to work on another. I never try to force myself to finish a page. I have always felt that everything comes to me when it is ready to and always have faith that everything gets done when it's supposed to. Of course, this approach means I have TONS of half-done things on the go at all times, but it also means that often when I get on a real roll, many projects all get finished at the same time too. And that is a phenomenal feeling of accomplishment!

Anyway, at some point these pages may turn into art for sale. Or they may remain just as journal pages. We shall see. I've made a few notes in the caption of each image so you can see what I am using for materials and techniques with each of these pages.

Hope you are all having a wonderful day!

Joanna

Gelli plate prints, stamped images, recycled materials (for the hands)

All kinds of small scraps of papers glued onto page and then various rubber stamps used.

Gelli plate print plus stamped images

Gelli plate print plus flower images from a napkin, dimensional paint, stamped images and face image prints

Gelli print on tissues, flower images from a napkin, Gelli print scraps, rubber stamping

UPDATE Great Canadian Travelling Art Journal Challenge

Greetings fellow art journalers! I thought you would enjoy an interim update on the Great Canadian Travelling Art Journal project that we started back in February. If you missed that post, click HERE. You can see what it looked like in its "before" state.

As a reminder to you of how the project got started, I took a few Christmas cards and recycled them into a little art journal that measures about 6" X 6" and has 16 pages in it. Each artist is doing one page in the journal as it travels across Canada and back.

We've now had half a dozen different artists take a turn at creating a truly unique page in the journal and I must say, we have some phenomenally talented people taking part. Here are some of the artist's work (each artist is noted below their photos).

Rebecca Uren

Kimberly Ans

Close Up - Kimberly Ans

Jane Super
"We are all like the bright moon, we all have our darker side." Kahlil Gibran

Nancy Allingham

This little journal is going to be a really special, one of a kind treasure when it is done. I can't wait to see it all finished. It has one more stop in British Columbia before it heads to New Brunswick and then back across Canada home again. Stay tuned. I'll have more updates as our featured artists finish their pages.

Thanks for watching!

Joanna

Sally Lamont's "Journey Of An Art Journal" Project

Artist Sally Lamont started a fantastic project around the beginning of the year. I was lucky enough to be part of it, courtesy of an invitation from my friend and fellow artist, Sharon Parcel.

You can read about Sally's project here.

I received the journal from Sharon and really enjoyed seeing what Sally and Sharon had done with it so far. It is a handmade journal using standard No. 10 envelopes on which to journal and also to use as holders for extra goodies. I took my cue from Sharon who had enclosed a couple of cool little collages in her envelope.

Here are some of photos of Sharon's pages and then mine, which follow right after hers.

It was a great little project and I have now sent it along to another friend to add her own touch to it before it carries along its way and ultimately back to Sally.

Thanks Sally for a great project! And thanks, Sharon, for inviting me to participate!

Cheers!
Joanna

Sharon Parcel's art on two facing envelopes

Sharon Parcel's little collages added as inserts into the journal

Sharon Parcel's journal page on the left, Joanna Grant's on the right

My journal page on the back of the previous one

Two inserts and two mini art bookmarks I added to my envelope page

The Great Canadian Travelling Art Journal Challenge

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