AJED#7 Inside Out!

I’m still working my way through Sharon’s wonderful 5 stages to defining my 2011 and I have to say, I am enjoying myself hugely. As I said to her, the more I write, the more occurs to me and I lose myself in the page. I don’t have time at the moment to set aside proper time for art journalling. I sit with a tray on my lap to support my French Kitty book, a glue stick, my printouts, scissors and a couple of clear tubs which hold my most used pens and pencils, my tin of Neocolour Brights II and a waterbrush.

+ve, or positive

That quote is the motivation for this page and subconsciously, or intuitively, I have drawn and doodled the things that make me happy too – the bird is one of my favourite stamps from Ria’s erstwhile Gothic Arch plate: I can’t tell you the number of times I have used it on all sorts of art projects. My own handcarved birdies are much more stylised and the ones I have painted are simple, rounder and fat!!

The “beanstalk” probably has psychological connotations too, but the round flowers hark back to my “be beautiful” roses and the passion that remains for that style! The big, fat flower is the centre is yummy, isn’t it? If it were real, it’d be velvety and lush, and awfully strokable!! The +ve is a reminder to remain positive despite, or in spite of all the obstacles that “life” throws at you (and there have been more than enough already this year, thank you!).

The plain border stamps are my own. I must admit that the penwork was tricky, because the only one of my black pens that would produce a line on top of the oil pastels was a Uniball Eye – thanks Tam!! I used a slightly thicker rollerball for the writing however – still Signo though – fab!!

Don’t forget to check out the other journallers at AJED and there’s also a Strathmore Onliner you can take for free, with some very talented ladies like Pam Carriker showing you how they journal too! You’ll find yourself in great company – lots of fellow-bloggers are there already!! 🙂