This is where I’ve been sitting all day. On the floor with all my paints out. I’ve been working on my batch of postcards for the DIY Postcard swap I’m hosting (There is still some room, feel free to join! For inspiration Daisy Yellow has some great links to mail art on her blog!) but also a few spreads in my art journal just for fun. This is one of them:

First spread: Braving the elements! My page turned out messy, but it’s an experiment. The most fun was finally using a spray bottle of water on wet paint and then blotting away the water with a tissue. This creates a very cool pattern with the gesso peaking through.

Also experimented a bit with indoor spray paint, since I had the prepared for a mess today. I bought this bottle of Memories Mists from a scrapbook shop in Stockholm. The color is called Strawberry Daiquiri and it was surprisingly bold red that I really like. The bottle bleed a bit but I would recommend this if you want to try Spray Painting in winter time or in a smaller scale.

A second page, with lots of polka dot silk papers and another one of these paper cuts I did from a dictionary:

My paper cuts before using them. I used these shapes as stencils on the art journal page and then glued it in for extra fun. I didn’t feel like painting another deep blue page and didn’t want to cut snowflakes, so I did mine like this. Just fun shapes. iHanna shapes.

January’s crusade is called Braving the elements and it’s about playing with simple materials and using those elements in your art. The assignment is to Make your own tools, use them and to combine several previous techniques from past crusades to make a richly layered two page journal spread. Some techniques used on this spread is dry brushing, layers of gesso, water bottle spraying on acrylic paint (first time I tried this - love it!) and cutting out a quick stencil (snowflake or other free form).

I’m off to work on the summer issue of the Embroidery magazine today, but will have to surf a bit more on other crusaders posts and you should too. They are all in the sidebar of Michelle Ward’s crusade page. Don’t miss the cool crusade video for example over at illustrating stories. ♥ inspiration!

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Today I must say like Jeannine of four rooms blog who wrote; So much to “report” but my inner-reporter is - surprisingly - feeling very quiet at the moment. I think I’m also still a little rusty from my blogging break.

I’ve come home from my holiday and celebrated Christmas with my family. Straight from a sandy beach wearing big sunglasses and straight into a white landscape made of snow. Both beautiful views in their own way. Now there are projects and this year to finish, photos to edit, posts to write, books to review, goals to set for 2010… I’m having a difficult time getting anything done when there is so much to do. Where to start? How to prioritize in this mess I create around me? I sat down and closed my mind for a while - just took some Art journal time, well - a lot of art journal time that is…

This is a “after Christmas and travel” collage in my current (altered book) Art Journal:

Look close - you’ll see some labels, wrapping papers, gift tags, bits of postcards, candy wrappers, a paper bag from the vacation, rub-ons, magazine images and random stickers and some decorative tape. Plus acrylic paint here and there of course!

Here is another one;

This page might get some text later, but for today I’ll leave it like this.

Inspired by…

• 15 ways to recycle wrapping paper a creative list by Holly, not mentioning using it in your Art Journal… ;-)
• Ali Edward’s Christmas posts - photos of workspace, open albums and photos always inspire me, and her grid designs make me swoon…
• Decopaged sketchbook at Design Mom who made lots of fun Christmas gifts with her kids
• Stages of blog friendship - a fun description of how it works
• Ricë’s podcasts are amazing and those are the ones I’ve listened to while creating the pages above! Check out her Interview with Violette (fab!), then Ten ways to jumpstart inspiration and Finding your passion! Mmm!
• Ricë’s geek post on how she uses twitter and facebook is great, and saves me the trouble of explaining how I finally understood these sites after downloading the software Tweetdeck! I love it, and finally I “get” twitter after using it for almost a year. Let me know what you think, I’m @iHanna of course. Check it out.
• Wood block ornaments from Amanda, that looks like little packages - so cute! I’m saving this tutorial for next year…

Tomorrow another post, maybe I’ll have made some more planning by then…

Oh, don’t miss this; some more detail images from my Art Journal; my favorite part (cropping out favorite parts, because I always want to crawl into other people’s collage and live there);

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Deep blue makes me think of my mother! It’s just her color.

This Art Journal spread is about my mom and her colors, patterns and symbols.

Here is a mosaic I just did with mom-photos, just to prove it;

See? She really really loves blue, and always has. The deep blue color is for ever intertwined in my mind with thoughts of my mother. Blue and white china will always make me think of her. As well as the smell of coffee, handmade quilts, child care and yes the cows and teddy bear stuff that she collects.

When you start to think about it, most people we know will have these “signs”, things that remind us of them even when they are not here. It could be a smell, a sound, items we stumble upon, or even events or special colors. I think in colors when I think about people, but not all my friends are as easy to categories as my mother and me…

And you know what color I am, right?

Yes, pink is my color, as you may have noticed in previous post.

I never did a black background in my art journal before the GPP crusade, now I have made several and I keep going (and more to come). I can’t remember ever doing such a blue page either, but now crusade #35 (November and December) is called What’s your sign?. It inspired the spread above - and I’m once more color challenged… I love doing new stuff, trying out new colors on the page!

* Get you into your Art Journals - great advice from Daisy Yellow as always. I’m going to use her advice and carv my own stamp to make “patterns” with. Yes I am!

Oh, I’ve gotten the Kreativ Blogger Award from Amy, thanks girl!

While others are twittering away Christmas tutorials and doing December Crafts, I’m planning a trip to the sun. And with that I’m going to create my very first Travel Journal - can’t really decide what I’m most excited about. The going away or the journaling and documenting the going away…

I’ve dug through my big paper stash and taken out the papers I want to use in my Travel Journal, a kind of Art Journal for writing a lot while away - or at least that’s what I’m thinking now. If you have any ideas or suggestions for how to go about this please let me know, I’ve never had (or made!) a Travel Journal before!

I found these images torn from a science magazine in my stash of papers, they will go great in the travel journal!

I am very inspired by Mary Ann Moss of the blog Dispatch from LA (see links below to her own Travel Journal and classes), so I’m going to sew my pages together in some fashion. That’s my plan so far, and to add in lots of pages for writing. I’m not taking my ordinary Art Journal - or my diary! I’m just taking this and hoping to add lots to it during the week I’m away.

Spreading out all the images, scrapbook papers and painted papers to sew together the pages. But that is another post coming soon.

While planning these are some links that have inspired me to create a Travel Journal…

• Tips and Techniques to Bring Your Travel Journal Alive - an article where Kelly writes about the difference of a travel blog and a notebook to tuck things in and jot down quotes in. Interesting and inspiring read with quite a few fun traveling prompts for journaling.
• Pure Experimentation online class with Mary Ann, where she teaches people how to make a book much like her own travel journals with stitching and paper. I haven’t taken a class with her but I sure want to. Just looking at her photos of papers and journals is inspiration to me!
• Lisabon Travel Journal images by Mary Ann Moss. Lots of fun pages!
• Italy Travel Journal images by Mary Ann Moss, another travel journal shared online. Yay!
• Crazy Quilt paper - at Rambeling Rose blog, it’’s about how to emptying your scrap box and sewing papers together to make lager sheets, also see her Happy n’ scrappy post. Sewing papers is so much fun!
• I was watching Traci Bautista using her decoupage glue and making a very neat little journal on these videos below the other day. Oh my goodness, these videos are So Darn Inspiring to watch! I’m drooling over here, wanting to Create at Once!
• Not journal inspiration, but still worth checking out: My friend Maria has created a cute monster and the most amazing wood carved Christmas candle holders. They are simply beautiful.

And some videos you just have to watch;

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Paint some pages in your Art Journal black and come over to the dark side with me!

Gee, my black paint was starting to dry in the tube, it was about time I got around to using some black. But what to do with the page now, it’s so… dark… You dig through your stash of art materials and papers to see what would show up on such a black background.

These are my favorite finds in my own stash of pens, plus that white lace tape, some glitter glue and shiny stickers stars that “pop” against all thtat black. Journaling on black is difficult without “the right kind” of pens. When I started doing black backgrounds after Michelle Ward’s prompt Come over to the Dark Side in Crusade #34 I didn’t think I would have any pens that would work on black, but after some digging I found out I had quite a few. Gelly roll pens from Sakura for journaling, white and metallic colors are great! I did a page that was kind of a test page for all the pens but also a celebration of Dia de los Muertos:

Art Journal spread with black background: Dia de los Muertos 2009 by iHanna.

View some close ups below and read the details…
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Art Journal spread:

Smilla love - on a page with a clear sense of autumn orange and autumn leaf inspiration. I used both pressed leaves collected on one of my walks, and half transparent stickers with leafs!

To view this spread in more detail and leave a comment click on…

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Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
/Salvador Dali

I did not accomplish my goal to fill my handmade Art Journal this summer, but I’m about half way through it now. I’m using it to learn it to learn how to draw and paint from other artists. There is so much to learn from their style, and once you know something more you can make it your own.

My book with it’s watercolor paper is perfect for sketching with pencil. This is where this summer I’ve been painting SuziBlu inspired Petit Doll Girls quite a lot, both in acrylic and watercolors. I love this journal so much, because each page I make is a surprise to me. I don’t know what will come out on the page. These pages are October themed, even though I’m posting them late, and the skull inspired by artist Theresa Smyth and her Dia de los Muertos art that I ♥ (check out Theresa’s Etsy shop, it’s filled with fab things)!

I don’t have a drawing habit and I don’t draw much from life, but this summer I’ve given myself time to practice. Just listening an hour to the radio and sketching a face, then coloring it in with watercolors. I’ve been enjoying this new to me way of creating more than I can say. The happiness bubbles up from inside when I draw and color. When you create “faces” or little “people” you kind of fall in love with your characters, hence fall in love with life. It’s magic and quite wonderful.

I want to post photos of my own experience of Day of the Dead as soon as I get them edited, and lots of other fun photos and projects too, so stay tuned!

And keep creating!

* Oh, I found another video showing how to make a 31 days journal in a very easy way, using tape as the spine, at Artiste Nouveau. Check it out if you want to try to make your own art journal.

*If you’ve caught The Teesha Bug you should also check out the Zettiology group at flickr.com for more Teesha inspired art. Her style is called zettiology, did you know? You can join this group and add your own art there, and even find some Teesha kind of free collage sheets to download and print. That’s a quick way to become inspired by others too. Nice!