January Art Journal & Pass The Book

I’ve had this book far too long, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and have a page of typed notes and sketches of ideas I found within its pages. You can see some of my post-its here. So it’s time to pass it along.

 You can read about Pass the Book here. If you’re interested in taking a look at this one, leave me a comment, and on Monday night I’ll pick a recipient. I’ve been interested in art journaling for a long time, but haven’t done anything with it in years. Sarah and I took an art journaling class together years ago, but I’m not even sure where mine is at this point. This book, however, and a couple of books I purchased this summer have renewed my interest. Since I’m not doing a monthly layout of my Capture Your 365 photos this year, I decided I’d start an art journal and recap my months there. I’ll probably add other pages as well. 

I started by using my water color crayons to create a background, and then stamped on top of them with a texture stamp. I typed up the recap of the month and inserted it into a vellum envelope. The date stickers are from the Simple Stories Snap! line, and the wood veneer arrow from Studio Calico. I printed three photos from our trip to Florida on Epson Project paper and tore around the edges.

The photo in the middle of the page was altered with an action in the new Photoshop Elements 11. I’d read mixed reviews about this upgrade, but received a copy of it for Christmas, and like it very much! I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing around with it, and think it is the most user friendly yet. This page shows more stamping, some hand-drawn dots, a bit of Washi tape, and another wood veneer piece.

Since we drove to Florida in January and flew home, I added the car on the first page, and the airplane on the second. Here’s a look at the two pages together.

Here’s the monthy recap:

It was an unusual January for us. The month got off to a great start with the 50th Anniversary Party for the Presbytery at the Planetarium. All of us involved in the planning were greatly relieved by its huge success. 

As soon as it was over, Tracy & I hit the road for Florida. We drove Ellie’s packed van to her and then flew home. Our road trip to Florida couldn’t have been better. We visited with Susan & Eric in Delaware, Carole and Gordon in North Carolina, and Betty in Stuart, FL. We made quick stops in Atlantic Beach, St. Augustine, and Ponce’s Inlet on our way to Stuart. 

After two nights with Betty, we drove across to Ft. Myers Beach where Ellie is staying for 3 months with her friends, Dick & Caroline. They are avid birders, and I spent a lot of time photographing birds which they kindly identified for me. All of us spent a wonderful morning at the wildlife refuge on Sanibel Island. Another highlight was a trip to Naples to the Naple’s Art Gallery–a beautiful place with two fascinating exhibits: one on women painters and one by blind photographers.

Once we got home, we had the usual busy schedule with meetings, volunteer commitments, and social events. 

I finished two books: “The Plan”, and “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”; saw one movie, “The Life of Pi”; & enjoyed GeVa’s “Next to Normal” (powerful!). We had dinner with Tina & Bill, Cathy & Bob, Jill & Tom, Betsy & Skylar, & entertained  our book group.

Despite being away, I finished 16 cards & 1 layout, & started three online classes (The History Project, A Flash of Brilliance, & Inspired), as well as an 8 week course at the Community Darkroom on Photoshop.

For a first attempt I’m pretty happy with these pages. I actually had another two-page spread done in a different journal, but decided the pages were not heavy enough to handle the different medias I want to explore, so yesterday I took it apart and started over in this journal that has 140# watercolor paper.  Should be a bit more sturdy.

Don’t forget to leave a comment if you’d like a chance to read the book!