Shared Art Journals

I wanted to give shared art journaling a try, but I needed a partner.  So several years ago I approached my friend Ellen...I had been fascinated with her altered books and a shared art journal would be place for her to demonstrate some of her techniques. For me it would be a place to try new things and play around with mixed media. We each bought a blank art journal and got to work on several pages.  We traded the books after a month or so and worked on pages in each other's journal, then traded back...and so on. There were no rules.

 

This is one of my favorite pages in in my Pinterest art journal.  It was
inspired by a watercolor collage done by Geninne Ziatkis and found here
on my Pinterest board. 

The second journal had just one rule...our entries had to be inspired by something on our Pinterest boards.  Again, we traded back and forth.

Each journal project lasted a year or so.  It was a great way for us to connect, experiment, and reflect.

Here is a snapshot of Geninne's watercolor collage that inspired this journal page.  Geninne's blog was one of the first blogs I started viewing and I have looked at every single page...sometimes more than once. You can check her out here on her Facebook page.

My squares are collaged with bits of watercolors, greeting cards and old calendars.  The branch image is from a magazine and the background is made from book pages and handmade papers.

The books became kind of chunky...but that's part of the charm.

Over time I will show more pages from our books on different techniques...but for now here is a sampling.

On the left I did a mosaic of cut up scraps of watercolor practice...I'm still in the practice phase.  The next several pages consisted of a series of stacked semi-circles. I glued several of the journal pages together to give them strength then cut the pages into 4 semi circles...each one getting bigger.   I painted doodled and stitched on each one.

Here Ellen had done one side...and I did the other...all using a ribbon theme.

 I love this dramatic metallic page that Ellen created.  I think the peacock feathers are from a napkin...or maybe it was tissue.  It was kind of fun that our styles were so different...
it makes for an interesting finished product.

I will admit it...I love glitter.  I saw some handmade cards in a gift shop where a touch of glitter was used to highlight parts of the photo.  This journal was the perfect place to give it a try...like I said...I don't always know when enough is enough.  The left page features photos I have taken and the snow page is a combination of my photos, greeting cards and stickers.

This is my attempt at being a little less rigid...more freestyle.  The colors were clearly inspired by this beautiful image of the woman I found in a magazine.  I used all kinds of tissue, book pages and fibers including Angelina fibers.

It may be kind of a hot mess...but it's joyful don't you think?

I loved this page spread of Ellen's...on the left is a beautiful collage...and on the right are a series of pages out of velum that overlay creating an interesting effect.

  This was a great journey we took together...thanks Ellen!