Saturday 2 January 2010

NEW YEAR - NEW PROJECT!


Linda and I both have a copy of an absolutely gorgeous book called "Collaborative Art Journals" by L. K. Ludwig. It's so inspirational and I can wholeheartedly recommend it - I got mine from Amazon and reading it just makes me drool .... ooops, sorry about that!

Anyway, it was this book that got me started thinking about a journal that wasn't a book and didn't involve (much) writing. I wanted to do an art journal where I represented visually what was going on in my head and life (assuming something is). One idea in the book was to use a box and make loose pages to fit inside it, so this is my take on that. It's not that big - about 7" by 4.5", so the pages to go inside will be roughly twice the size of a playing card or ATC. Enough space to offer scope but not so much as to seem daunting! My plan is to make a page for each month - or it could be more if something special happens which seems to need it. Either way I should end up with a year in a box which says something about my feelings and experiences throughout it. Crumbs this may end needing censorship!!


Linda is going to do one with me, and I hope to persuade more of you to work alongside on this project? The nice part about it is that you can join in at any stage, or make pages more often, it can be any size you like, and it encourages you to keep and treasure your own art!

I used some papers I got for Christmas - from the Basic Grey "Ambrosia" range - to cover a box I had which seemed the "right" size. I've protected the papers by painting over them with Winsor & Newton matt varnish (intended for acrylic paintings). You can't tell it's there at all, but it does provide a coating. I stamped all kinds of labels and whathaveyou and had fun sticking them around and grunging up the box a bit. The curly arrow on the top is a piece of chipboard I had to hand, and I painted it with black metal effect acrylic and rubbed it with copper to age it a bit.

I haven't photographed it but the inside is also covered with other papers in the range, and painted with the same acrylic varnish. Now I've shown you mine ... so lets see yours!!

5 comments:

Jackie said...

Thats a lovely project. An interesting idea to have a book in a box.
I look forward to seeing what you put in it.
(I have your blog in my google reader but its called 'Welcome to..' so I always forget its you and sometimes miss posts.)

pammyjo said...

O My ... I'm so interested in this. Sounds so wonderful. I think I'll make a box too. How fun. :) I like your box design.

Linda Vincent said...

Its a wonderful idea Rosie....thanks for the inspiration.
I shall start on mine next week.
Love
Linda x

Carmen said...

That's one gorgeous box. Very inspiring as I want to start journalling but it's the big empty pages that seem so daunting to me at the mo.

Twiglet said...

What a lovely idea. You clever card makers have such a wonderful stash of gorgeous cards, papers etc.