The Art Journal

This time last year, I had no idea at all of the art journal process.

When I was at school, I somehow got the impression that I was rubbish at art and so for many years I accepted that and stayed as far away from it as possible.  I've heard many people say the same sort of thing about maths, for instance.  Maybe it's down to uninspired teaching - I don't know.

So it was purely by chance that I discovered The Crafts House and the lovely Sandra, some years ago.  I was so blown away by the wonderful stuff on display that, with Sandra's patient encouragement,  I determined that I was going to face my fears and get stuck in.  I really do wish I had more time to concentrate on art.

This is a journal I began last year.  I particularly like this kind of technique because I'm an 'itsy-bitsy' kind of crafter: I really enjoy working small-scale.

I started with an A4 spiral bound artist's book, then lay down a background treatment on the paper, with two pages for each month.  For June, I used blues and silvers, and 'shadow stamped' squares over it.  Each of the days is represented by a square piece of card, numbered for the date wherever possible, and is decorated and embellished individually.

Of course, my life isn't so exciting that I could think of dramatic happenings for each of the days, so some of them are 'empty' of content.

Since then, other things have overtaken my life, so that I haven't had anything like the time I'd love to devote to developing my art.  Oh, for 72 hours (at least) in the day!  So, I'm making myself a promise to devote several hours each week to the art journal, and practise and experiment with how I can transfer this kind of technique to other projects.