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Sunday 21 August 2011

Journal Journeys Challenge #2

After taking codeine to help with my painful legs I went on-line and entered myself in the Journal Journeys Fairies Challenge.  I only knew about it when Dawn e-mailed me.  Thanks Dawn :)

For the challenge I decided to do a gel transfer of an image from a CD I've not used before called Victorian Angels and Fairies by Joanna Sheen.  Its not in circulation now sadly but has some fab images on it.  Dawn had used the gel transfer technique in her journal and it gave me the incentive to use it too.  I'd not used one in my journal before and managed to tear my first attempt.  For the second one I applied a bit thicker layer of gel and worked just fine.  I'm sure there'll be videos on YouTube showing how to do it so I won't bore you here ;)

Because the gel was thick the image turned out a little murky and grungy but I like that.  I then painted the back of the transfer with gesso to make the colours pop a little more.  I didn't want to do a pretty, pretty fairy page.  That's just not me.

I coloured the pages with charcoal grey and 2 colours of yellow Inktense Pencils and activated them with gesso - my fave technique at the moment!  I chose these colours to tie in with the image.

Next I Googled Fairy Poems and found this sweet little poem.  The image shows a lady steeping into a fairy ring and all of the fairies dancing and presumably (can't hear them lol!!!) singing.  I copied the poem into MS Word, changed the font and made it larger.  I then printed it out, coloured them with the same charcoal grey Inktense pencil as the background and activated it with gesso again.  I then cu the words up and stuck them to the page and went over the font with a black extra fine Sharpie pen.



I stamped various fairies from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque) onto white sticky labels and cut them out and placed them on the page.  I have to thank Lesley W for showing me this technique.  I'm not that good at planning what I am gonna do with pages so this is sooo much easier than masking for me and means I can do things like these fairies and colour them in afterwards.  I used one of yellow Inktense pencils for their wings and used water to move the colour around.

So here you have it.  My Fairies Journal Page for the challenge on Journal Journeys.



Please join in even if you've never journaled before.  Its a great way to relieve stress can be done with just a few pencils / paints and an old exercise book.  I'll be back for the next one Dawn!

7 comments:

Janet said...

Lurverly pages Jill. Your gel transfer is an interesting addition.I have yet to manage one successfully on an important page - practice page result Fine - important page result Rubbish!! It must be the fairies...

Janet xx

Unknown said...

Jill This is FAB! I love your ghostly fairy and the poem is cool. It's lovely to see you join in my Journal Journey's challenge and I am so happy you had fun with fairies this month I look forward to seeing you in Sept too ;0)

Love Dawn xx

judith@poppy cottage said...

Fab page Jill, love the hazy image, and that Inktense technique again. You've got some great stuff going on. The course looks incredible, Judith xx

erasercarver said...

I'm lucky enough to have seen this in real life! I just love the ethereal feel the transfer technique has given to the picture, it's fantastic!

judithw said...

love that Jill, looks great very ghostly and misty. Fantastic.

Heather said...

Love what you did with these pages, have yet to try the gel transfer technique but really must have a go soon - so like that ghostly misty look! Heather x

craftimamma said...

Hi Buddy, Love you gel transfer fairy. She looks very ethereal,just perfect for an is she or isn't she there look.

Things are still rather manic in his neck of the woods and I'm coming up the A1 closer to you (at Jenna's) for a couple of days ........ childminding duties, lol! I'm shattered before I get there, Gawd knows how I'll feel driving back down on Friday evening!

Hugs
Lesley x