Journal Journeys Challenge 10

Over on Journal Journeys Dawn gave us the challenge of 'Paris' this month.  Now I could've done a layout about the romance of Paris, but Paris in July only means one thing to me - The Tour de France!!!  I watch it every year and love it but this year was *very* special - we had a British winner in Bradley Wiggins.  So of course my page *had* to be about that.


First a little explanation.  The Tour de France is a bicycle road race around (surprisingly enough) France.  It starts with around a couple of hundred riders and raced over 3,497 km split into 20 stages over 3 weeks.  The final stage every year is ends in Paris with the riders racing down the Champs Elysees and past the Arc de Triomphe.  I find it absolutely exhilarating to watch and I'm constantly in awe of the riders fitness levels!  Bradley Wiggins was the overall winner and received the coveted Yellow Jersey.  Mark Cavendish won the sprint on the Champs Elysees to notch his 4th win there and he's a Brit too!  And so onto the page.

After gessoing the page I scribbled a blue Aquacolour crayon over the page and activated it with gesso to have an almost blue sky look to it.  I took a couple of photos (I know miracle for me!) but the colour didn't show up to well.  I found a free image of the French flag fluttering in the wind on-line and used a glue stick to stick to the page.

I then stamped the bicycle from one of Sir Tim's clear stamp sets around the outside of the page using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and stamped one bicycle in the white portion of the flag in Dandelion Memento ink to signify the Yellow Jersey.





This is when things started to go down hill somewhat and my MS came to play.  I desperately wanted to enter this challenge especially as I was doing a page about the Tour but I sort of struggled from here on in.  So this isn't exactly what was supposed to happen but I think it turned out OK.

I wanted to put the logo for the tour into the page somewhere and found it on-line and sized to what I needed and printed onto tissue paper.  I stuck to the page with Golden Gel Medium (matte).  








Once it was dry I found I stamped the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe from Paris Culture stamp plate by Chocolate Baroque onto the background using Black Archival.  I found some more free images on-line of Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish and the peloton going into Paris.  I printed these out and stuck adhere them with glue stick.  I stamped some bunting and stamped the letters of the riders names into it.  I coloured Brad Wiggins name in Squeezed Lemonade DI as he won the Yellow Jersey and left Cav's white as he is the World Champion at the moment.  I decorated some of the bunting with Union Jacks which I drew free hand with Promarkers and stuck them on with glue stick.  I finished the page off with the 'We'll always have Paris' stamp from the Paris Postcard stamp plate from Chocolate Baroque in Black Archival.

If you like the idea of Journaling, why not come and play with us at Journal Journeys.

Thanks Dawn for organising this again!

Colour Your Life

After going to see The Vagina Monologues at my local theatre, I keep being sent 'what's on' guides for it.  Buried in the last one was an advert for Colour Your Life.  Its an arts programme partly funded by the NHS and its to aid well being through art.

So far I've been 3 times and have *loved* every minute.  There is an artist in residence who will help if you want / need it.  At the moment its Paul who does incredible art work.  If you want him to he will guide you through a project or you can just get stuck in and do your own thing, which is what I've been doing.

They have loads of stash there - canvasses of all sizes, paint (acrylic and watercolour), pastels, brushes, pencils, mod roc, corrugated card and if there is anything you particularly want they will try, within reason, to get it for you.

So far I have completed 2 pieces.  The first is called 'Windows to the Soul'.  I initially covered the canvas (15.5" x 11.5" shallow edge) with mod roc (the stuff plaster casts are made of) and attached the masks with that.  I then took it home and me and the masks had a falling out and they came un-stuck.  So I covered the whole thing with paper taken from an altered book I started at a workshop ages ago.  I painted the background with a weak wash of black Ecoline Ink.

Before I reattached the masks I printed 'art, beauty, passion and love' out from the PC and and traced round the words using Promarkers and stuck the words behind the eyes of the masks.  I then stuck the masks back to the canvas using my new fave glue - Hard as Nails!!!

I painted the masks with a weak wash of ultramarine violet Ecoline and finished the whole thing off with individual letters stamped using a See-Ds tiled alphabet stamp.  I wanted to convey the thought that despite all of the background noise I still have all of these things in my soul.

I'm really chuffed with it :-)

The second piece I've done is called 'My World is full of Colour'.  I started with a 20cm square deep edge canvas and planned to colour the background with a nice smooth layer of DI's but as I clagged them on ready to blend, Lisa and Pauline who I sit with stopped me blending them.  And I'm really pleased they did!  

The colours are Spice Marmalade, Broken China, Mustard Seed and Dusty Concord.

I already had a picture to go on it, cut from a magazine and just need wording.  I used the Artistic Affirmations stamps set from Chocolate Baroque.  I stamped them using Tuxedo Black Memento Ink onto tissue paper.

I used Golden Matte Gel Medium to adhere them all to the canvas and here is the finished article.

I think the picture is advertising a body wash or moisturiser that contains no chemicals but I just *love* the picture!

Jackson Pollock style

On Monday Jo and I had a craft day.  Not really had one for ages due to her working and me not being too well.  So Monday was a complete 'blow out' day where we blew away all of the cobwebs from our muses!

We both worked on 6" x 12" Stampbord blocks, but both did completely different things.  I had decided the night before that I wanted to use some Claybord inks that I had gotten in a random stash box from Graphicus a couple of Christmas's ago.

I coloured the Stambord block with Pumice Stone DI and then dropped the Claybord inks on one at a time and blew them with an air duster (compressed air in a tin which is used for cleaning computers).  I had tried early with a straw, but the effect was sooo much better with the air duster.  I used a heat tool between each colour to stop it going muddy.

I then used one of Sir Tim's saying stamps on an ATC sized piece of Stampbord, already coloured with the DI, and scratched into it before colouring the lettering with Promarkers.  I've always known that I wanted to use this stamp but just didn't know what on.  I think its perfect here!

I then used an Elusive Images (EI) stamp from the Artistic Affirmations theme plate with part of the message being raised up on a domino sized piece of Stampbord, coloured with the same DI again.  Again I scratched into it (I love doing that!!).

The base looked a bit bare in the middle but I didn't really want to detract too much from the background so I used a coaster sized piece of Stampbord, coloured with the DI and blew the inks around again.  I scratched into it (of course!), edged it with black ink and stamped another EI stamp in the middle.

All that was left to do was sort the background as it looked a bit plain.  I used a speckle stamp of Sir Tim, inked with London Fog Memento and stamped it all over the base.  I decorated 3 Stampbord inchies with the inks and scratched a border round them so they'd stand out.  And here is the finshed piece.

And look what I was given yesterday

My Mam and I were both given a rose to mark International Women's Daywhich was yesterday, by a Polish friend called Pawel. He used to be a neighbour of my parents and they always got on well with him.

Apparently yesterday is observed in Poland and he just wanted to mark it with us. You can read about it here.

How sweet.

Hospital and journal pages

I had my treatment last Thursday and saw my nurse.  My treatment wasn’t as smooth as it usually is due to no veins being suitable in my arms and the stupid doc who came down to put the cannula in my foot, wanted me to have a permanent central line put in.  For a once a month treatment.  I ask you!! 


My nurse (Carmel) thinks that the pain in my legs and the tiredness is all down to my new pills, so I’m off tweaking the dosage.  I seem to spend my entire life doing this kind of thing LOL!!! 


My friend Lou, who I met through Graphicus, is a teacher and has asked us on to help her show the kids what a talented bunch we are on the Guild.  She's asked us each to do at least one 8" x 8" journal page with the theme TIME.  Here are my first two:

This 'page' is made from the back of a breakfast cereal packet from Aldi.  The girl was already on the pack, so I sanded the whole surface and gessoed it and used 3 colours of Lumiere paint for the background.  She looked quiet dreamy so I pasted a picture of a pool and an advert for orange juice into the top corner and stamped 'O's' to make it look like she was thinking about the pool.  I sponged through sequin waste and used a baby wipe with white acrylic to bring the page together.

I wanted to make the girl stand out a little more, so I drew round her with a black PITT pen, but made a mess of her mouth, so I stuck a pair of lips from a different picture on to her face and coloured the lips with a Promarker in poppy.  A happy accident but it works!!

The second 'page' is made from corrugated packing cardboard.  I gessoed the surface and while it was damp I tore some of the top off it reveal the ribs.  I used Claudine Hellmuth paint in a Dash of Red and a Dab of Yellow, and a tongue depressor to spread it.  It really accentuated the texture of the cardboard.  I've had the image from a magazine for ages. 

Jo bought me a quote book a couple of Christmas's ago and she found this one which fit the picture perfectly.  I hand wrote it onto a piece of backing paper I got free ages ago, but I can't remember where from so I can't credit them, but thanks anyway. 

I was amazed that my writing was so good yesterday.  Couldn't do it today as I'm absolutely exhausted after mine and Jo's crafting session yesterday.