September's Art Journal Friday

Welcome to Art Journal Friday!  It's the end of another month and with the weekend ahead I hope that you'll have some time to play around with your art journals!

Firstly, apologies for missing last month's edition; as you may already know I left the country at the end of last month to go and get married, and returned well into the second half of this month as if I had been on another planet!  Again, apologies, and normal service resumes as of... today! :)

This month's theme is to be 'reflection' - I know certainly in my own life recently it has been a time of great reflection, of thinking backwards and forwards at the same time and taking stock of where I'm at.  I've come to the conclusion that wherever that is, it is a happy place to be :) and so this month's page should be your reflection too!

We're having a few reshuffles with our Scrappy Tree places, so for now if you'd like to share a picture of your creations I'm going to suggest that you post a link in the comments section of this post so that we can come and visit you :) looking forward to it!

Happy journalling :)

Gayle

July's Art Journal Friday

Welcome back to Art Journal Friday! This month, oh boy, where is the time going?? Are we nearly in August?? Seriously?!?

Once again I invite one and all to join us in an art journal exploration, whether it's the first page in your first book or a middle-ish one in your umpteenth :)

This month, our theme is the earth! To be honest, the UK summer seems to have happened back in April but I am determined mentally to be enjoying the onset of the best that nature has to offer in the summer season. Close your eyes, imagine lush greenery and the warm breeze brushing past you (or if you live somewhere with a summer head outside!) and take pen/paint/paper to page! I am relying on you here people, I need to live your summer vicariously through you ;)

If you're feeling generous and you'd like to share, please post your photos at our Ning group here - looking forward to seeing them!

Happy journaling! :)

Gayle

June's Art Journal Friday

Welcome welcome! When did the summer arrive? Here we are at the end of June and it's time for another Art Journal Friday :)

Same rules apply as usual - all welcome! Create a page or pages around the theme for this month, and if you can come and share your creations with us at our Ning site - lots of love to be had!

This month's theme... I thought after going with a quite emotional theme last month, this month we could look at something a little less emotive - technique! An integral part of any journal page is the background, and for me it's often the part I have the most fun doing :) for this month's page I decided to gesso the page as usual and then drip different coloured alcohol inks onto it in blues, greens and golds. I LOVED this effect :) and because of the gesso it didn't bleed through the rest of the pages (as it will do if you don't protect your page, look out!)

I'd love to see what your favourite techniques are for creating backgrounds on your pages - are you a gesso girl? Do you love using acrylics, or do you prefer watercolours, or collage? Or a mixture of them all? Let me know!

If you'd like to share your background with us we have an Art Journal Friday group over at our Ning community where you can upload your page, leave some love and receive some back :) come visit and say hi!

Happy Friday :)

Gayle xx

May's Art Journal Friday

Oh boy, this month I did a page that made me cry! This month's theme is... the sad truth.

As you may or may not know, I have been working over the last couple of weeks on a ward for older adults with dementia, and hearing some heart-breaking stories about the people that the patients were before their illnesses. It got me thinking about my own experiences about people in my life that had had their health taken from them and their existences after this happened, and it made me think about how people's stories get passed down after they are no longer able to tell you about who they were. Obviously family are a priority source of information in telling you about who someone is, and I journalled all over this page about my own feelings about how your identity comes out in this way. But it was really striking to me about how for example my bookshelf tells you so much about who I am, and about what's on my iPod would tell you so much about me, even if I wasn't able to explain to you why.

Your page doesn't have to make you sad ;) but for your journaling this month, really think about something that tugs at your heartstrings and try to journal about it. It doesn't have to be about people, or animals, but just something that really made you think and cherish your knowledge that little bit more just because you know that knowledge is very precious.

If you can share your page, or if you have any thoughts to share, I'd love to see them at our Ning community if you'd like to call in :) the link to the Art Journal Friday page can be found here.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead and looking forward to seeing your pages and hearing your stories! :)

Gayle xx

April's Art Journal Friday

Welcome to this month's Art Journal Friday! With May nearly here and the weather being SOOO much better (aren't you just loving it!) I am feeling colours this month - the light is better and lasts longer, and the world looks completely different just for having a little sunshine fall upon it :)

So keeping it simple, for this month's art journal prompt, create a page using any combination of oranges, purples and/or gold, in honour of the wonderful sunshine that is making a reappearance! All are welcome, and if you'd like to share your page and some love, you can come chat with us at our Ning Community and upload your work there.

Look forward to seeing you!

Happy Art Journaling :)

Gayle xx

p.s. simply can't post today without wishing congratulations to Prince William and Kate Middleton on their wedding day - best wishes for many happy years ahead, from The Scrappy Tree girls!

March's Art Journal Friday

Welcome to another Art Journal Friday! If you haven't played along before, please feel free to come and join us - all welcome! On the last Friday of every month I post a journal prompt to encourage you to get your pens, paints, paper, glue, plus anything and everything you can lay hands on(!) and to have a play. We have an Art Journal Friday group set up at our Ning Community if you'd like to share your pages with us - you're sure to receive a lot of love :) click here to visit our Ning site.

I haven't had a lot of time lately to do the things that I enjoy, like reading for example (well, reading for pleasure rather than study!) and I am very much looking forward to getting some quality fiction time in in the near future! It got me thinking about how much the different books I've read have created pictures in my head - I can still conjure up very clearly the mental images from books that I read many years ago, the people that I read about and the places that they went.

This month's journal prompt is to pick a book, a character or a place that really struck you and journal about it. You could pick a favourite book and journal maybe about the things you enjoy about it and the feelings it gives you, or perhaps a book you only read once but which created particularly vivid thoughts or images for you that you still remember. Maybe you have a favourite character who embodies something for you and you feel engaged with in some way (I am still mourning the death of Dumbledore by the way, maybe I need to work through that! lol). Perhaps a location in a book was created so well by the author that you feel as if you have been there yourself.

This challenge is just for fun; whether or not you create a page, or decide to share a page, is entirely up to you :) photos can be uploaded to the Art Journal Friday group; please leave some love if you stop by and see a page that you like :)

Happy weekend and happy journaling! :)

Gayle xx

February's Art Journal Friday

Welcome to Art Journal Friday, come one, come all and bring some paper and crafting stuff! I've been thinking since the last time I posted this that I have been a bit lazy of late in making sure that it's completely clear that art journaling is open to EVERYBODY, and can be as serious or as fun as you want to make it :) if you need to get something off your chest, use art journaling; if you need to have some fun and play about with your supplies, make a mess and try out some new stuff... put it in your art journal! It's all good, all valid, and if you love or hate it, no one needs to know but you :)

The aim of our monthly prompt here is to maybe give you an idea to start you off on a page; you're free to take whatever you want from the prompt, and if some or all of it doesn't work for you, then that's ok too :) for me, I'm just happy to spread the art journal love!

This month I wanted to journal about something a little more personal to me; I am in the process of moving jobs, and had been working for my old employers for about 10 years! It's really made me evaluate my relationships with the people that I've worked with, and made me think about the advice, the knowledge, the inspiration they've passed on. I'm more thankful for their support towards me than they will ever know, and this month needed to work through how emotional I was feeling about that! There have been tears on this one people, I warn you! :-D

This month's prompt is inspire - journal about someone (maybe more than one person) who inspires you, and you want to say thank you to them. It might be that you're journaling thoughts that you don't feel comfortable to share with that person, or thoughts that actually you've already shared but you feel strongly about it and it will make for a great journaling experience for you :) if you want to cover it up under some paint/paper once you've written it then you can, it's your art journal (and personally I do that all the time!). Sometimes the process of getting it out of your brain and onto paper is the important thing, not that you record those thoughts for posterity!

If you do want to share your finished page with us, there is an Art Journal Friday group at our Ning community where I promise you will receive lots of love for your work! We are a supportive bunch and we love to see what you create :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Gayle