Journal Play with the Circle Journal

Last month, I told you about a circle journal project organized by Tracy Woodsford.   I used the September Stencil Club stencils from Stencil Girl to create my journal, and then shipped her off.

The next day, I received Tracy's lovely journal, which she created "concertina" style.  It is beautifully bound, with velum in between each spread. 


To create my pages, I first laid out a bunch of gelli prints left over from other projects. 

There was already a door there.  Happy serendipity, as the theme of Tracy's journal is "Thoughts of Home." 

I collaged lots of left over book pages, and scraped paint over them with a credit card.  I used my new "Judy's Trees" stencil to create some background trees, and then punched out flowers from one of the blue gelli prints.  I hand painted the face, and added one of my favorite quotes:  "Surely goodness and grace will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."  Psalm 23:6.  I like the idea of all of nature being "The Lord's House;" so it doesn't matter where we are - whenever we are outside, we are somewhere sacred. 

 

For my second page, I washed very watery yellow and orange acrylics onto a page.  In hindsight, I should have prepped the paper with gesso first, but in the end it didn't matter.  Then I stenciled an allover design with a deeper orange for a tone on tone look.  

This design is from a new stencil that's not out yet called "Medallions."  It was inspired by my summer trip to Israel, and particularly this photo:  

I cut out house shapes from my gelli prints, and played with the layout and composition.  I adjusted colors with acrylic paint and glazing medium. 

I switched out the gelli prints for the roof and house, until I found color combinations that pleased me.  I embellished the roof with some of the swirls from the frames in my frame stencil. 

I used one of Pam Carriker's Poetic Portrait Stamps with black archival ink on tissue paper, and then "cut" it out (I use a water brush to "paint" around it and then gently tear the tissue paper - so there's actually no cutting!) and adhered it to my page.  Then I painted in the face with acrylic paints. 

The flower is what was left after I punched out the flowers in the first page above.  I just cut it out and painted the inside.  The fronds are from a different punch.  Great ways to use up gelli scraps.

I love this quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes:  Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.

Now this journal is ready to make it's next trip.  Lee Kreklewetz in Alberta, Canada, here it comes!

Linking to Carolyn Dube's Gelli Plate Party and to Art Journal Every Day.

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