journal page catch-up

just a few random pages in my journal that I don't think I've shown before (sorry in advance for the somewhat blurry pictures; for some reason, I can't seem to get crisp photos of my journal pages):

vintage bird image from the Graphics Fairy website (I think), random paper
and a couple bits of deco tape, along with some coloring (of course).

The page above had background paper on from when I made the book... a pretty floral Japanese paper and a piece of a vintage cookbook leaflet. For some reason, I could not figure out what to do with it from there, though! So, instead of collaging over the entire thing with more paper (I was thinking about it), I decided to do a *whitewash* of sorts and added a thin layer of white acrylic paint to blend the disparate background elements together. ...much better!

Happiness is a Warm Puppy

This page is another that was mostly done back when I made the book; the only things I added to this one were the magazine words and letters, a few pieces of deco tape, and the pen details. I loved this picture of the boy and his dog, and it immediately reminded me of Prescott (and Tom)!

Kachina 

This image was in a magazine article Mom sent me; I liked him, and wanted to save him. This page is a mix of handmade and scrapbook paper, along with patterns made with black marker and Sakura souffle pens.  (I'm using them an awful lot; seems like I just bought them, but I may need to replace a couple of them soon already!)

journal page "Into the Crazy"

Turns out this is a bit of a 'before and after' post, considering that this page looks very different now from when I first collaged it back when I made the book in 2010-- lol!

Finished page

This page is one of those 'more is more' pages that I like to do. I started out with the collaged image and background (see below), but when I looked at it, I really didn't like her dress. I started out pretty simply by adding silver dots all over her skirt with a paint pen- I still didn't like it! I thought briefly about covering the entire image with something else, but figured I'd try and salvage it first... I decided it was the huge flower that was bothering me, so I started adding hand-cut paper circles to cover it up. I liked that better, but decided it needed 'more' of something- so, first more circles, and then doodling on top of it all. After all that, I decided the borders looked too plain, so they got doodled, too.

a 'before' shot of the base page:collaged background
with a focal image from a fashion magazine.

The words were also cut out of a fashion magazine, and colored in with souffle and glaze pens. I can't remember what the article title was, but I thought the words I chose fit the image.

close-up of the skirt

Once I got going with the coloring (done mostly with souffle and glaze pens), I almost couldn't stop- whenever I stopped, I noticed a spot that I thought didn't have enough detail! Even some of the colored places have more than one layer of color on, if you look close- lol! This is definitely not one of those 'fall into place in 20 minutes' type of journal pages (it took a good number of hours to do all the coloring), but I do love how it turned out. And, since collaging, coloring, and doodling is my way of 'meditating,' it was quite successful, in my opinion!