More Journals . . .

. . . of sorts.


I guess it's okay to call them "journals". They aren't diary journals but rather art journals. 

 Here are five (current count) pictured here. About a month ago I posted about the one pictured lower left. That one is my Letter Love journal for the online class, Letter Love 101, by Joanne Sharpe. With the slow migration to electronic communication over the last 20 years or so I found that my penmanship had deteriorated a bit and I wanted to make myself more comfortable and happy with hand lettering, so I signed up for access to the lessons. It is self-paced so you don't have to start at any particular time and, more importantly, you don't have to "stay with the class" as you work through the lessons. I like that because that means I don't have to stress about not getting a lesson finished on a deadline and falling behind. Here is a close up of that journal:

Link to the original post featuring this journal: http://perpetual-playtime.blogspot.com/2012/05/my-letter-love-101-journal.html

The pink journal in the lower right corner is the second journal for that same class. I have finally decorated/altered a second journal to use as my Letter Loved Journal. This one I decorated differently. To start with I used a Strathmore Multi-Media Visual Journal. I coated the front cover with gesso and added water color paints. That was a constantly changing process for a while because I had a hard time being satisfied with the lines where the colors would meet. Finally I got a layout I liked and then I added some ink. I stamped some hearts using some CTMH stamps and Memento ink and then I took a Balzer designs 'Mini Circle Explosion' mask and used some Gelly Roll Metallic pens to randomly color in circles . Once all the ink had set up I proceeded to layer on some decoupaged elements - some washi tape, some stamps from an envelope that came from Italy (really really sweet lady mailed me some cards and she intentionally posted it with small increment postage to provide me with plenty of Italian stamps and postmarks for my journals) and a label that is actually a business card that came from a company in Japan where I ordered some washi tape (I altered it and used it because I likes the shape of it). A couple of spritzes of Glimmer Mist and viola la! Once everything had dried well I gave it a good coat of fixative and started adding my lettering pages inside.

This next journal is really just my doodle book. I have doodled in it for a while, but it was always just the standard cover. It too is a Strathmore Multi-Media Visual Journal because I wasn't sure when I started it if it would just be ink or if I would add color or what. As it turns out I have added some color to some of the doodles. This cover was an easy alter - I covered it with a nice layer of black gesso and then doodled on it with a white Uni-ball Signo Broad (UM-153) Gel Ink Pen. I let the ink dry for a day then I gave it a good coat of fixative. I love how the cover turned out (not necessarily always happy with my doodling, but it's mine so it's all good.) Here is the cover:

And here are a couple of pictures from the inside (I wasn't going to post any of the inside, but when I went to add images to this post I saw where I already had a couple of shots of pages from this journal so I thought I would throw those in too).

This one is one that I colored some parts with Copic markers. I actually doodled it about six weeks before I decided to add color. It is an ongoing process for me - just a nice way to fill time.

This is one that I haven't colored - just ink. And, to be honest, I'm not sure that I'm even finished doodling this page. We'll see.


So, the last two journals are the two white journals - one large, one small. They will be decorated too but for now they have their base coat of gesso. They are both Strathmore Watercolor Paper Visual Journals. The small one is where I sample my different watercolors to see how they respond and react. The larger one is a 9x12 size and I will paint watercolor images in it. Not that I'm all that great at painting pictures, but I enjoy it.


I expect that I will add more journals to my stack, as time goes on, because, well, because really each book has it's own purpose and I like keeping my different artist piddlings compartmentalized to a degree.