Journal and sketchbooks

Here is a quick look at some of my latest journal pages I have been working on slowly. Hope you like them. They always make me feel happy looking at them.

Here I used a photocopy of two of my dogs from my 60 collage dog days project.

I have also been looking at a few different artists sketchbook pages of late, as I am interested in creating one for myself in my new fabric Teesha Moore inspired journal.
Here are a few that caught my eye, for different reasons:

www.hairyteeth.blogspot.com.au

I just adore the mustache characters, so adorable! I also like the layout.

www.waldemaer.deviantart.com/art/sketchbook-project-page-8-9-193571248

Beautiful fashion type sketches with closeup.

www.teeshascircus.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/playing-in-my-moleskin.html

Another great side to Teesha's art. What great whimsical characters!

www.book-by-its-cover.com/sketchbook-series-jen-corace

How cute is this. I love love love it!

www.angelusnoir.deviantart.com/art/sketchbook-Pages-One-53046853

Stunning watercolor.

www.blog.iankim.net/2009/11/sketchbooik-pages.html

I love how the characters fill the two entire pages.

So what is the difference between a art journal and a sketchbook?

I guess in an art journal most of the pages follow on with the same style or perhaps it journals your life. The journal itself becomes a complete piece of work.

I think a sketchbook is more of an ideas book, with no thought in going into relating pages together. You use them for drawing practice and to sketch whatever fancies you on the day.

I think there is a very thin line between the two and each artist at the end of the day can call their book what ever they want.

Well, I am off now to a carnival show with the kids for fairy floss and hotdogs. I hope you have a great day too!

Cheers for now,

Sonya

My Teesha Moore inspired fabric journal

Hello to you all,

I have been working on a Fabric journal for the past 3 days and finally finished it this morning. I found a
you tube video by Teesha Moore showing how to make these wonderful fabric journals and was hooked straight away.
Basically you have to make all these little stuffed pillows and then you quilt them individually, embellish them and then sew them together to make the cover of your journal.
Here are my pillows to start with and my fabric print of one of my collage dogs.

I had so much fun with this project and would definitely do it again, but next time I would allow myself more time...maybe. I am already thinking of making one ready for the mermaid circus which I have joined which is starting next week!

I had a bit of trouble trying to hide my binding threads from the outside, but I just gave up in the end. Next time I'll cover the spine with the rug hooking bits of thread and fancy wool like Teesha did to cover up the mess.

Here are some close up's of my decorated patches.

It ended up being very thick with about 300 pages.

If you would like to see a video of my journal and hear me talk about making it, see it here on YouTube below.

Cheers Sonya

Artists Buttons Tutorial

Hello,
What a great day it is here in South Australia. The sun is finally shining after so much rain. The weather really does affect our mood, as I have been feeling a little dismal lately, but today I stepped outside and felt so much better in the sunshine.
I have a new tutorial for you all, as on the weekend I decided to try and make some buttons from my own artwork. They turned out pretty cool and Ill definitely be making some more real soon.

If you would like to make some here is how I made them.

Step 1: find desired number of buttons, flatter topped ones with no ridges are best to use.

step 2: Trace around your button with pencil onto watercolor paper if you are using watercolor paints.

step 3: Place some watercolor paint inside your circle, use 2 different shades for interest. Let dry.

step 4: When dry draw your desired image with black sharpie pen, or any pen that is waterproof. Cut around your circle. Get your plastic button and mark lightly where the holes for the button will be( I use a needle to poke them through. Draw your image keeping that in mind.)

Step 5: Using the needle, line up your paper artwork with the button holes and glue down on top of your plastic button with any good quality craft glue, remembering to keep those holes open.

step 6: When almost dry, I then use very soft sandpaper to sand the edges of the paper, sanding downwards, a little bit of glue will comes out to the side helping the edges to stick down fast.

step 7: When dry, use a couple coats of gloss medium or 3d laquer to give them shine and protect them.

Let dry.!

If you decided to make these please link back to my site and drop me a line I would love to see them!

Cheers Sonya

60 Dog Days! My new project.PLUS A GIVEAWAY

Hi all,

I am so happy this morning to announce my new project of  '60 Dog Days'!
For the next 60 days, I will be illustrating a new dog. I am a great animal lover and my favorite of course is man's best friend.
Using collage and ink pen I will uploading one new whimsical dog character to my blog each day.
If your interested in seeing my 60 dogs in 60 days, I will be adding a page especially for them, in which the tab page will be above.
I hope you can join me on my doggy journey. Maybe you would like to design your own 60 doggies on your blog? Or do you prefer cats, birds, rats, who know's?

So to celebrate my creative hounds, I will be hosting a GIVEAWAY at the end of the 60 days.
Whats the prize you ask? Here it is.... A black framed (5 x 7") original collage illustrated dog named Toby by me!

So what's the catch?

1. To go in the running for Toby, all you need to do is mention my '60 dog Days' project on your blog with a link to my blog. 

2. Follow my blog

3. Leave a comment Below to let me know you have mentioned me on your blog.

AND that's it!

You will then go in the running to win Toby! On the 61st day (23 October 2013) I will then place all the names to whom have entered in a hat and randomly draw out the winner, to which I will notify and ask postal address for shipping. No shipping cost for you either!

So who's in?

Cheers and happy dog days!

Sonya

A look through my August 2013 whimsical art Journal

I found my groove

Welcome,
As promised in my previous post, I have made 2 new journal pages incorporating my blobimals into my pages to come up with a style that I feel is my own. I am REALLY loving these two pages, which just happen to be the last two pages of my style journal.

Ive incorporated my blob animal cow head to my page.

I found it really quite helpful to have a journal trying out different artists styles and then eventually coming up with something that i feel is really me. I guess its a little of everything I have learned. I have taken away things I like about Teesha Moore, added my blobimals from Carla Sonheim's class and just taken inspiration from other online journalers. I found what colors I like best, what doodles I love drawing, what sort of collage to do and what type of paint I like to use on my pages.

        

Here is my last page of my Journal also including a blobimal I created.

Blue is my favorite color, so I just concentrated on that and let it take me where it wanted to go.

   
Have you ever made a style journal? Who are your favorite journallers, or who do you get inspiration from?

Cheers
Sonya

Scary Night

Good Afternoon,

I just have to tell you about last night. My husband and one of my girls went off camping last night, so it was just me and my 14 year old at home. I am pretty use to him not being at home at night because he works night shift in the wine season and is also in the local fire brigade, but last night was horrible!
At 3.30am I woke to a very loud bang. It woke me right up from a deep sleep, and at first I thought a car had crashed on the street. Then my mind started wandering.... what was that? no sign of any cars. Five minutes later another huge bang and another. OMG at this stage I am wide awake and thinking of a shooter on the rampage, coming my way. What do I do, mmm nothing- Im safe in my bed surely.
Another bang, fireworks? at 3 in the morning on a windy winters night?? No. At this stage I'm thinking of calling the police or at least my next door neighbour.
Another bang, this time 3 times in a row. That's it I'm out of bed.
It then took me 40 minutes to realise my husband didn't close my side gate properly (which is right next to my bedroom window) and it was banging open and close in the wind. Wow did I feel stupid. Thank god I didn't call the police.
Isn't it amazing how something so simple seems so much bigger and scarier in the dark.
And I thought I didn't have much of an imagination!

Well after all that, today has been another blobimal day. I find them very relaxing, which I really needed after last nights episode,  and I have finally found a way that I am happy to use them in my journal pages. (Stay tuned to see my journal pages incorporating my blob animals) I have been very busy creating them with my watercolor paints and prisma pencils and then found it fantastic to edit them in my photo editing program. Here is a few animals I have come up with so far.
Please read my previous posts about blobimals if you would like to know more and you can also check out the site to learn these at the link above by clicking on the highlighted word 'blobimal'.
The most exciting thing is I have realised I want these in my journal pages, and as far as I know its totally my own style. So if you would like to see my journalling with these little fellows in them, stay tuned and in the next few days i hope to have some pages done.
Cheers for now,
Sonya

 horse

                     cow

                     Giraffe

                      chihuahua

More Journal pages

A letter to my 60 year old self in the future.
Don't fuss over the little things,
Eat what you want when you want,
and Travel your Ass off!

As you know I journal everyday. I have been working on a journal of style, I guess you would call it.
In this journal I am trying out different styles of art journalling, inspired by other wonderful artists.
I am forever on a quest to find my own individual style and I thought that i would try a bit of everything to try and get to my own unique place.
Lately it has been Teesha Moore and I have always loved Gritty Jane.
So  here are a couple more art journal entries I have made over the past few days. I even incorporated Carla Sonheims, Blobimals into some of my pages.

Teesha's style plus my page from August prompt of "Square" from http://art-journal-journey.blogspot.co.at/

                                                                     Paint aND CollAGE

I wanted to play with pastel colors and loved this girls face. You can see my two blobimal characters as well. Still needs some journalling to finish it off.

Which page grabs you the most? Do you have a favorite style of journalling. I would love to hear from you.

My Blobimal creations

How much fun can one have with art? Carla Sonheim's mini art course, Blobimals was such a great experience.
I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to create cute animals with so much ease. The course opens up your mind and takes the stress out of trying to be the perfect drawer.
Quite simply, you really do feel like you are just having a nice play like you did as a child, however you end up with a wonderful looking creature, animal or blobimal as Carla calls it.
In the online course we got to make 3 different books all with our magical blobimals.
I am still working on my first book as it takes quite a bit of time, but here are my two others and I just love them.

2nd book

The cover still needs some more work

Blobimal!

Hi all!
Im very excited today, as I have just signed up for Carla Sonheim's, Blobimal art class.
I only just discovered Carla this week but I am so happy that I finally did find her.
Blobimal is a cute and fun way to paint and draw your own imaginary creatures. I believe you also make a book with them in it at the same time, which is so adorable!
I don't have small children but I just love this free way of making art with blobs! If you do have smaller children and you take this course and create these creature OMG your kids will love you!
I also love the idea of Blobimals being created with watercolor, as I haven't played with mine for a while now.
Any how I am still waiting for my class access so in the meantime I managed to make my own blobimals in my art journal last night using acrylic paint. With the acrylic I had to just smooth it around randomly with my fingers to create a shape. Here is how my page turned out!

Seize the Day

Today I took a journal cue from http://artistsinblogland.blogspot.com.au/search/label/challenge  where a journal challenge is set monthly. The prompt for August is to Seize the day.
It is open to anyone's interpretation, so here is mine. I used some old artwork of mine for the face and a vintage picture for the clothing. Sometimes don't you feel like you need roller skates and octopus arms to get you through the day? Someday's just don't seem to have enough hours in them.
Just like this very minute when I am trying to get this post on line and am watching the clock with one eye because I have to to pick my daughter up from school within the minute, then its homework, dinner time, together time and bed!