lost my mojo...hoping to find it somewhere soon

It seems I haven't been blogging much lately, nor have I been doing much art journaling. At first I felt really bad about this and kept feeling pressure to do something, anything.... but somehow this self imposed pressure only made things worse... And I lost my mojo completely.

Still I tried to finish the art journal round robin journal for Susan. Did bits an pieces here and there, Played with ink and paint, but somehow felt it just wasn't good enough. 

So I put it away and forgot about it...well almost...

This week I finally got up the nerve to try and finish what I started. 

Susan's book is beautiful and the work done in it already, was gorgeous. It's theme was trees and leaves and/or anything related. I'm not good with trees, or leaves for that matter...but I gave it a shot.

The Round Robin continues

It'been a while since I made my previous blogpost and to be honest, I feel slightly out of touch with it. I have missed writing here and I haven't done much art either. Between my day-job and making the Traveler's Notebooks, I don't have a lot of time left. I even had to make a waiting list for the Traveler's Notebooks, I just can't make them as fast as they are being requested.

It's a good thing people are so kind and patient and it's great meeting people from all over the world.

Mostly I tend to sneek a peek at facebook and post some pictures there when I made a Traveler's Notebook or insert that I like, but sitting down and writing a blogpost, just wasn't something I could wrap my head around.

With making the waiting list I feel I have finally got everything back under control and I even started doing some art again. 

So today I finally shipped the next art journal from the Round Robin on it's way to Tracy. It's Lee's journal, a beautiful bound book with a canvas cover and gorgeous painted papers inside. A joy to work in.

Jessica's Journal, lovely Rita

The second and last spread in Jessica's Art Journal was started in january, right after I did the first one. However with my hand getting worse I wasn't able to finish it until this week.

I still have to be rather carefull with my hand so I gathered I would do something completely different from what I'm used to doing and go with aquarel paints. Up till now I have only ever done small doodles and sketches with aquarel paints, but I really like how it turned out.

I do have "some" (as in, a lot) pictures with progress and detail shots.

Jessica's journal, first spread

As promised, the first of the journal pages in Jessica's Round Robin Journal. The second one is in a seperate post.

This first spread I did in Jessica's wonderful journal somewhere in the beginning of january. I'm not sure if I can remember everything properly but I will give it a go.

First I would love to show you the envelope the journal came in, sent by Gayle from Canada.

Another Round Robin Journal on it's way

Finally I was able to work on Jessica's Art Journal for the Round Robin, hosted by Tracy and finish the last spread.

January and the start of february have not been very good for doing any kind of creative and/or crafty stuff. Somewhere in november I started getting pains in my left hand. More specifically my thumb. By mid january I wasn't able to use my hand in a normal way anymore without feeling like someone was driving a knife through my thumb. According to my docter this could only be resolved by surgery and luckily this could be scheduled fairly quickly, at the beginning of february.

I'm glad to say that surgery went well and my thumb is healing nicely and I am able to use it again.
The first thing I did, after I felt I was able to use it again (and the stitches were removed), was to finish some backorders of Traveler's Notebooks and inserts for my shop. I am very grateful for everybody being so very patient with me.

The next thing I did was finish the second spread in Jessica's journal and make photo's of the spread I did before. Honestly, it's much easier making photo's with two hands in stead of one =)... also, I found, typing is a lot easier with my usual "two finger" system. The one finger (one hand) system wasn't really working for me.

Since this post would otherwise be far to long and picture heavy, I will do a seperate post for each of the two spreads.

As you can see both spreads are quite different. The first one is made with my goto medium, acrylic paints. For the second one I chose to do something different and I went with aquarel paints.

I've been having a lot of fun working in Jessica's beautiful journal. I love working in all these different journals and, I think, I am almost over my fear of doing something wrong in someone else's book.
It's like they say, there's no right or wrong in art journalling =)

Thank you for watching and I wish you all a wonderful weekend.

Linking this to:

• Paint Party Friday
• Art journal every day
• Creative Every Day

The Documented Life Project

Sometime in december last year I ran accross the documented Life Project. I was immediately intrigued. A combination of planner and art journal, executed any which way you would like. My favorite things combined. So I started looking into it and joined the facebook group, where lot's af people were already busy making the most fabulous planners and journals. Sharing all that they did generously.

So I decided to join in the fun as soon as the two art journals were safely on their way. Last week I finally got those travelling again and I started thinking about how I wanted to participate in this project.

I had a planner and that was working just fine for me. I did a video about that last monday. This is part one.

And part 2.

I really didn't want to change that, so I gathered I would do it a bit differently and just do the weekly prompts in a seperate booklet. I had some wonderful and colourful painted papers, just waiting to be made into a booklet. They had been living underneath my artsy endeavors for almost half a year now and were definitely ready for other use =)

Tracy's Round Robin Art Journal

I got Tracy's journal in the beginning of December, just a week before I got Lee's journal and all came to a halt. It's a wonderful journal, in a format I never saw before.

I loved working in it, though I did clamp the sides down for easier transport while open =). But then, I have to that anyhow, since I like to muck around with paints, Which means I have to use protective sheets to keep the other pages clean.

Gayle's Round Robin Art Journal

Gayle's journal got lost in the mail on it's way to Tracy. So Tracy lovingly made a new journal for her to send out into the world and that's the journal I received. I made two spreads in this journal and managed to make one spread in the journal upside down...

But first things first, this is the package I received in the mail =)

What happened to the Round Robin...

You might ask... , but first, before I answer, I would like to wish you all a happy new year and all the best for 2014.

About the round robin, well, I'm afraid I fell a little behind. Between taking my class in december, getting my shop up and running, the way I like it and the holidays, I didn't do much else. I had nearly finished one journal page in Gayle's book by the end of november, when Tracy's book arrived. I still felt I was on track though, so I just continued on, slowly. But then, out of the blue another book arrived, this time it was Lee's book and with all the other things going on in december, that brought me to a full stop.

Now with the december day's gone and to-do's finished for that month, I picked up where I left off and have been working on the journal for Gayle and Tracy for the last few days. I've been doing two pages at a time, each in a different book and I confess, that was a lot of fun. When waiting for one to dry I could just move on to the other. How come I never thought of that before? =)

Here are a few photo's of them.

Funny thing is that the pages done together do get sortof the same color and tone. I will do a seperate post on each book, with some progress pics of the pages I did in them, as I feel doing them all in one post would lead to a very lengthy (and overly picture heavy) post.

Till then, I have another video to share, with a flip through of my december journal made in my "FaeDori" Traveler's Notebook for the Christmas chronicles class from Rhomany

Thank you for watching and hope to see you soon =)

Linking this to:

• Creative every day
• Paint Party Friday
• Art Journal Every Day

Art Journal Journey Theme for December

A while back Susi from Art Journal Journey asked me if I would like to think of a theme for December. I immediately said yes, because I love joining in the Art Journal Journey montly prompts. I thought a bit for a while and finally came up with the theme "Dark and Light".

I think (hope) this theme leaves enough room for play and still ties in with the overall December theme. She also asked me to make an example.

So here it is, I even found a quote that ties in with the theme wonderfully.

There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire,
which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity,
but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
- Washington Irving

I made some progress pics and detail shots, but forgot to turn the camera on and make a film.

WOYWW 230

It's time again for another WOYWW. Number 230 already, so yet again time to snoop around those artsy workdesks around the world.

This time I have a different workdesk for you.



My writing desk this time, the way it usualy looks when I'm writing a blogpost.

Second spread in Beate's journal

Today I finally finished the second spread in Beate's Round Robin art journal. I had some difficulty with this one. Her theme for the journal was Fools and or Divinities and in keeping with the theme, I wanted this one to be about fools. The first one, I thought, was about Divinities. I also wanted it to be completely different.

I ended up making this one about Divinities and the first one about fools. Somehow intertwined, as they are in life. Both being two sides of the same thing, forever connected and dependant upon each other.

I did find my quote for the first spread and together with that one I found the quote to go with the second spread. They are both from Ursula K. Le Guin.

WOYWW 229

I think I skipped a few WOYWW's, I just haven't been able to keep up with all that's going on. Things are just not going to plan, as so often in life, but I think I'm getting it back together again. I just need to take it really slow and let go of the pressure.

So today I thought I would show you what my workdesk looks like when I'm like this...

You wouldn't believe the mess I make...I've got too much on my mind and it shows.

First spread in Beate's journal

Last night I finished the first spread in Beate's Round Robin art journal. I did plan to do both, but forgot I had a birthday party to go to. As my father-in-law turned 85 and we celebrated that happy fact last saturday.

At first I was a bit anxious to touch her journal, as she made such a beautiful book. I really didn't want to ruin it, with me goofing around with paints and stuff.

Once I took some precautionary measures, like taping the spine and protective sheets under the pages I intended to work on, I got a bit more secure. While working on it I gained confidence and in the end I was just painting like as if it was my book =).

I did take a few progress shots and some details...

Travelers Notebooks and a sneek peek at Beate's journal

Lately I've sortof been obsessed with making these Midori style Travelers Notebooks (MTN) and things to put in them. Trying to figure out how to put it all together and make those beautiful notebooks, covers and accesories.

What materials to use, the leather, the elastic and those nifty thingies they use to connect the elastic on the spine and yes I did find out what they were. Me being me, I obviously could not stop before I figured it all out...

I also joined two facebook groups (Midori Traveler's Notebook resources and Midori Traveler's Notebook Nederland) and have been having fun with posting a photo a day following prompts by Monia Marzo.

In the midst of all this, completely neglected my blog...well not completely, because I did make an extra page for the blog, where I keep a listing of my downloadable files for making the inserts for the Travelers Notebooks (TN).

I've also started selling these Travelers Notebooks though they are not listed in my store yet.

What I'll be sending out into the world

The last few weeks I've been really busy getting my art journal ready for a Round Robin (or circle journal) I'm participating in. I found myself getting distracted a lot and doing a lot of procrastinating, because actually I'm a bit scared about doing this.

A bit scared, as I've never done anything like this before and very exited, because I think it'll be AWESOME. So I finally finished it and I think it's ready to send on it's journey out into the world.

The round Robin is hosted by Tracy Woodsford (Sojourner) and there are 7 of us making this journey. Tracy asked us to make a journal with room for 15 spreads. Each participant would then do 2 spreads and one would be for the sign in. Obviously I deviated from that, because I'm a rebel.

Haha, no just because I wanted a certain approach to the book  that wasn't going to work with the 15 spreads.

The theme I choose for the book is: "What lies within..." and it has a subtitle, a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen.”

In keeping with that theme, I felt the TARDIS* to be a great metaphor for this. I used the River Song book as an example. I also wanted the signatures to be removable, so it would be easy for each participant to work on.

* Time And Relative Dimensions In Space

I took a few progress shot, but mostly forgot to take them. Still, here they are together with some detail shots and a short show and tell video.

29 Faces Final check-in #23 - 29 or there abouts...

Final check-in for the 29 faces challenge. Though I have been practicing faces every day this month, most of them were just quick scribbles in my journal. 

As today is the 30th of september I thought I would add a quick painting in my art journal and then call it a day.

I think I learned a lot by just doing a face every day and it has been an interesting experience. I will try and keep sketching a face every day, be it in my journal, or whatever medium I have at hand =). So maybe someday I will be able to just sit somewhere and sketch people passing by...I would so love to be able to do that.

I don't have my regular camera at the moment, so here are some shots made with my iPhone.

29 Faces check-in #14,15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and ...oops, 21 and 22

That's a lot of faces all in once, but last week has been a bit hectic for me, so I didn't get any blogposts done. I did finish some of the video's I was working on, about the Midori style travelers notebooks I made recently. I'll post those at the end, just in case you would like to see them.

First though, as this is a 29 faces post, I did do a face a day this week and I am keeping up.

Here are they all in chronological order.

29 Faces check-in #11, 12 and 13

Yay, I made it to face 13 on friday the 13th. Nearly halfway through the 29 faces in 30 days.

Though I must admit, I might have bitten off more than I can chew. So just in case it gets too much, I have some paintings and drawings from way back when standing by. Luckily that hasn't been necessary yet.

For face #11 I wanted to go bold and big and not sketchy at all.

29 Faces check-in #8, 9 and 10

Instead of doing a post every day, I think I will keep grouping them together. This way it feels less like pressure and more like fun making them. As it was intended. So here are my faces #8, 9 and 10 for the 29 Faces in 30 days challenge.

To be honest I have been struggling a bit with this. I felt I was doing the same thing each time and I didn't want that. So I started trying out some different things.

Here are some close ups of the three different faces I made and some explanation with each one.