Balancing work and my creative time has been a juggling act these past 12 months but I finally found, or rather, made time the other day to catch up on a couple of journals that were waiting for me to finish them - then they could continue on their adventure around Australia.
Above ... My journal page for Jan's "Faces" theme with one of my favourite quotes by Robin Williams.
I started out planning to paint and embellish with texture pastes stencils but ended up using beautiful scrapbook papers and doodling with my Derwent Graphik line makers. I love using the .3 for writing and the .5 for doodling swirls.
In hindsight, the quote "All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul, and they will never notice how broken you really are!" by Robin Williams, should have been done in a thicker pen or stamps, or even text transferred from my bubblejet. Or I could have written on a tracing paper or vellum overlay! Ah well, at least it still looks ok and you can still read it, sort of :)
Above ... such a peaceful woman with gorgeous blue hair and such a wise tattoo!
This quote "If only we all saw what others saw, when looking in a mirror" is something we all should take notice of as well. A friend posted a meme the other day about this too - it was funny, but we really should like ourselves (inside and out) alot more than we all do. Our family and friends love us just as we are, so we should too!
This journal swap is hosted by the wonderful and talented Louise 'River Art Girl' Kirby who manages the Aussie Art Swap Facebook group. She's gathered together a fantastic bunch of amazing artists who, like me, are passionate about art and how much it helps us in our every day lives. I'm a bit of a record at times, often saying how much art helps us heal and soothe our mind, heart and soul - but I really believe it to be true :) Its so cool to be in such an inspirational and encouraging group! We all learn from each other - its awesome!
As well as the journal circles, we have Artist Trading Card swaps, digital art postcard swap (must get mine finished asap too!) and what they call a DJP or deconstructed journal page... plus other types of swaps and prompts to keep us creative, thinking outside the hexagon (box, square... whatever!).
Louise has even organised us a blog to tell the story of our journal pages. Check it out - The Australian Art Journal Swap - its amazing! And here are my posts - Art by Jenny aka Jenny James at AAJS
Are you in Facebook too? If you'd love to be part of this fabulous arty group, visit the Facebook group and ask to join. We'd all love to see what you create :)
Happy Creative Day!
:)
Jenny
