Monday, March 21, 2016

A to Z Blogging Challenge Theme Reveal: An Art Journal Page a Day




Hello, Everyone! Today I'm revealing my A to Z theme: An Art Journal Page a Day. For anyone unfamiliar with the challenge, the idea is to blog every day during the month of April except for Sundays, and to base each post on a letter of the alphabet. 

This year I'll be creating a small art journal for the month along with tips so you can try something similar yourself. I can't promise it will be a fantastically beautiful journal (see Help, I Hate My Art Journal!), but it will be fun, and it will be a good discipline to collage and journal on a near-daily basis.

To get us all in the art journaling mood, I thought I'd share some pages from past journals. 

I used an actual piece of papyrus on this page. I'm not sure why I associated
Paris with Egypt, but it might have had something to do with the Louvre.
Whatever, to me art journaling is about emotion, not precision.

I found these Betsy McCall paper dolls on line.  I loved
Betsy as a child, but she was a difficult role model
to live up to. My mother had an even more difficult time
trying to understand why I couldn't be as band-box perfect
as dear Betsy, even when I explained to her Betsy was a doll, while I 
was a real little girl. The story of our entire relationship.

This particular collage was in memory of my grandmother. The
picture of the little girl isn't of  her, but reminds me of her all the same.

I put these maps together for a short story I was writing at the time.
My favorite technique was coloring in the black-and-white photocopy of rocks
and sea with colored pencil.

I created this spread after reading a novel set in Africa.

I made this page after I finished writing my novel, Overtaken
The bracelet had been one of my  initial writing prompts 
that fueled much of the story.

After Overtaken was published, I wanted to do something with the
old manuscript pages. So I did this.

Using old, failed, watercolors in a new way.

These two pages were created months apart. I was first intrigued enough by
"The Lady in White" to consider using her as the model for a
possible novel set in Egypt. Then when I came across her again in an orange
sweater, I knew there really was a story to write. Currently it's still very much
a WIP, but I'd like to return to it one day. These pages
are a good inspiration and starting point.

So start collecting your junk mail, magazines, ribbons and bows and get ready to journal. See you on April 1, and don't forget your glue sticks!

16 comments:

Deborah Weber said...

Love seeing peeks into your journals, and what a wonderful theme to use in the month-long challenge. I look forward to your posts.

Valerie Storey said...

Thank you for visiting, Deborah! Glad you like the theme. I'm hoping to encourage my readers to try some art journaling of their own. It's such a great way to enhance and supplement our written journals. Best wishes.

Li said...

Very cool. I like the paper doll page. I loved paper dolls as a kid! I've toyed with the idea of creating a set for my granddaughter...still mulling it over.

Stephanie Faris said...

How cool! I love this. Every time I see someone who does something like that, I feel envious of the talent behind it. I don't have that kind of artistic talent!

Susan Brody said...

You may hate your art journal, but I love it! Very cool and creative, and I look forward to seeing more of your pages in April!

Valerie Storey said...

Great to see all these comments! Thank you Li, Stephanie, and Susan. Yes, Art Journaling is a lot like playing with paper dolls, probably one of the reasons I love it so. But as far as talent goes--I bet every single one of my readers is loaded with talent, maybe some of it just hasn't been fully explored yet. One of the reasons I chose art journaling as my A-Z theme was simply to encourage everyone to give it a try so they can enjoy the process as much as I do. It's going to be a fun month and I look forward to sharing with you. Thanks again for stopping by!

Nilanjana Bose said...

Beautiful collages, nothing not to like about them! Incidentally Paris is very much linked to Egypt, as Napoleon invaded Egypt in the 18th/19th century. Egypt's first exposure to European culture was through the French, and as is the case when any two cultures collide, both the countries were impacted.

Good luck with your preparations and have a great A-Z.
Best wishes,
Nilanjana.
Madly-in-Verse

Random Musings said...

My art and craft skills are best labelled as "How not to do art and craft" lol so I won't be attempting any of the pages but it sounds interesting to see what you create each day! Good luck :)
Debbie

carol said...

Love this topic. I'm not much of an artist, but I still think I would enjoy journalling this way.

Valerie Storey said...

Another batch of great comments! Thank you, everyone for taking the time to visit. I'm still determined to get all those "I don't think I can do this" readers to join in, LOL! All you need is some old magazines, scissors, and a glue stick and away we go! See you next month.

Notes Along the Way with Mary Montague Sikes said...

Valerie, I love your idea! You will have so much fun doing this and a wonderful journal at the end. Good luck!

Gail said...

What a cool theme! It may inspire me to actually START an art journal. Can't wait to get some ideas from you! Gail at Making Life An Art

Valerie Storey said...

That's great, Gail! Excited to have you on board. So nice to hear from you!

The Solitary Writer said...

I like creative people. Keep up the good work and I will be back in the month of April to visit your blog to read your awesome posts.


The Solitary Writer - A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal

Loca4crafts said...

I love this theme and will definitely be back to see your posts in April.

Lisa
http://loca-for-crafts.blogspot.com

Narayana Rao K.V.S.S. said...

Art journal - Interesting.
Good to visit your site as a part of my A to Z visits. My theme Blog Promotion
Getting Traffic to Blog - Essential Activity of Bloggers Along with Writing.
Welcome to A to Z April Blogging Challenge 2016 - Co-Participant - Nrao - NRao Blogs
@knoltweet
NRao Blogs - 2016 A to Z Challenge Blog Posts
Management Theory Review