Art Journal

I have friends who do art journals, so I thought maybe I'd give it a try myself. I don't do it every day, but when something catches my interest, or I want to try something new, I now have a place to play where there is no pressure to succeed. 

I didn't have a proper journal when I started, so I just took a strip of good watercolour paper, and folded it accordion style. This was my first entry. The birds were borrowed from a photograph by Chris Cochems.

When I did get a proper journal, I wasn't sure what the pages cold handle, so I started with a watercolour wash, and then switched to the water soluable pencils. 

Watercolour pencils are fun, and you can take them, and a journal anywhere.  I drew this girl in front of the TV.

Hmmmm.....the scans are showing up things that aren't as obvious in real life.  Oh well, like I said, this is just play.

I've never been very good at drawing freehand, but I took a little webinar recently that had me draw from a grid. I did much better at that.

The journal has other things in it too, like when I got some molding paste, I messed around with it to give texture to an entry. Today I tried my first acrylic transfer. I'm not sure if I succeeded or not, and I'm not sure I'm finished with it.  This Christmas I noticed that several of the envelopes were decorated with various images, so I tore them off and arranged them on a page to make a little collage. 

There is no great art here, but I'm learning lots of new techniques and I'm doing something artistic almost every day now, instead of just once a week.  That's bound to help me progress eventually.