Art Journaling: Bad day, good page

After posting a journal site I didn’t really like yesterday, I wanted to share one I actually was happy with – even though the day I made it obviously everything else went wrong. But usually I feel better while I process these things by journaling.

I used acrylics, gesso, magazine paged, felt tip, coloured pencils and ball pen.

I would love to know what you do with journal pages you aren’t content with. Do you keep them anyway, do you cut them up to use them for other pages or what do you do?
I have seen others cutting pages in stripes and using the stripes to make borders on other journal pages, perhaps I will try this, too….on the other hand I think even if I don’t like a page it’s still a memory of a particular day or feeling and therefore I usually just keep the pages. What do you think?

Art Journaling: The Colour Blue

Today I just needed myself to calm down and relax a little bit. While blue can lead to a quite moody look, for me it’s also the colour most calming, especially the lighter shades.So I did a blue page today and thought it would be fun to share the process. Above you can see some colour swatches (see this little notebook here).

I started by ripping out pieces of blue paper from magazines and glued them onto the page.
Than I added some blue watercolours…. gesso to lighten it up…
and a picture of a women I cut from a magazine, as well as some other scraps and doodles.Than I painted over the woman with gesso, watercolours and black ball pen.Finally I finished with some more doodles and colour and a little bit of lettering.
I don’t really like the result, I think it’s quite boring, but since I’m not talking art but Art Journaling, it’s more about the process, so I share it anyway.

Which impact do certain shades of colour have on you? Which is your calming colour?

The Small things: Brave little green something

I’ve got a very little balcony which is already kind of crowded when two people try to sit next to each other and since the view onto the street corner isn’t really lovely, I mostly just use it to hang a few flower boxes (but I’m still determined to host a vegetarian barbecue out there one day).Three of the flower boxes I replant every spring, but one of them is just allowed to do and grow whatever it likes. The only thing I do is to put in a succulent if a pretty one comes my way. It’s mostly moss that is growing in there, but in spring there often are little pink flowers blooming, last summer a snapdragon I kept in a flowerpot spread its seeds and gave me another snapdragon inside the flower box which bloomed until late autumn and I even had three little trees in there before, but sadly they didn’t make it  through winter.

And now, in the middle of winter, there suddenly was this new green something. I have no clue what it could be, it’s looking like a kind of ivy, bu I’m not sure….does anyone know what it is? Probably it’s just weed. But anyway, I think it’s beautiful and I was very pleased to find something growing during this cold season!

I’m already looking forward to replant the other flower boxes, I’ve also seen the first spring flowers in the shops. My favourites for spring are red daisies, forget-me-nots and pansys. Which are your favourite spring flowers, any suggestions what I should get?

Link Love #7

Image by ichigonotsukikage

This weeks collection includes some talk about books and journals, DIY-ideas and a little bit of psychology.

• More about journals: Mary Gordon on the Joy of Notebooks and Writing by Hand as a Creative Catalyst and  A Peek Inside the Kurt Cobain’s Letters & Journals.
• Here’s a great way to make these old sweatshirts you have lying around wearable again.
• If you have at least two of them you also could turn them into a dress!
• No more boring mail anymore with this Cute, Homemade Padded Envelopes Tutorial.
• There’s some new research concerning the question if people’s personality can change. I’m not sure if I find the results to be frightening or encouraging. What do you think?
• I love Grimmricksen’s series Bookworm Wednesday. Talking about books is great.
• Embroidery never looked as cool as in this Mixed Media Pieces by Laura McKellar.
• I didn’t know that there were not only Teddy Boys but also Teddy Girls!

Have a wonderful weekend!