New Year's Resolution #1 Painted, Scanned & Printed!

I haven't made many New Year's resolutions, but one thing I did promise myself was that this year I was going to make my own cover for my calendar. The calendar that I use has a clear sleeve for a cover, which means that you can slip any paper into it to make your own cover. Clever! I had the same calendar last year, but even though I had a whole year to do it, I didn't manage to change the image that came with the calender even once. Pretty pathetic. So I promised myself that this year will be different.

(The text says "Make your own cover")

Said and done. I worked through a Dina Wakely workshop today, and when the page was finished I realised that it would be the perfect cover for January! The workshop was all about what you can do when you've worked so many layers on a page that you reach the 'Now what?!?' stage. You know, when you realise that you loved your work four layers ago, but now you feel slightly sick when you look at it. The answer is that you cover up most of it, and by the magic of acrylic paint your page is saved and you have some neat artwork to enjoy.

This is the stage when I loved my page. So I took a photograph of it, as a memento, because I knew that Dina was going to make me push the page to the extreme.

I particularly love this part. Now, say good-bye to it.

At this point I wasn't very happy about the page any longer. But I kept the faith.

And here is the final page, after the big cover-up. Pretty amazing what a bit of paint can do. I scanned the artwork and printed the image with my laser printer, and voilà, my very own cover. And the first New Year's resolution has already been fulfilled!

Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you'll have a wonderful and creative 2015!

Custom-Made Dream Journal

Ooh, time flies. Where does it go, I wonder? It seems I have so much to do at the moment, and by evening I've only done a fraction of it. I've had a very long vacation this summer, and I feel it's about time I got back to work. It's only a few weeks now until the first two classes I'm going to teach will start (the children's classes). Well, tomorrow's Monday again. The best day to start a new life, and to pick up old routines. I do need to get back to my routines. No more staying up all night and sleeping away half of the morning. Discipline!

Right now I'm participating in another one of Melanie Testa's online workshops at the Clever Guild: Dream journal (you can still sign up!). You can find some images of what I've done so far (not much, as usual) in my Flickr photostream. This workshop explores different techniques that you can use in your sketchbook or visual journal. And since I can't find the kind of sketchbook I want in the shop, I have custom-made my own sketchbook. A page in this book is only 15 x 15 cm (6 x 6 inches), which is a nice little format to work with if you're like me and easily get performation anxiety or fear of the Huge White Page. I can choose to work on a small single page, or on the 30 cm spread. I used smooth hot press watercolour paper (300 gsm/140 lb) for the pages, and cardboard for the covers. I covered the cardboard with my own breakdown printed fabric. Fun!

The signatures are sewn together, and the covers are also sewn onto the signatures. I used a technique I haven't tried before and which I learned from Laura Kemshall in an episode of DMTV. Before this book I've tried Japanese stab-binding, small pamphlets and the thirty minute multiple-pamphlet journal taught by Gwen Diehn in her book The Decorated Journal (follow the links for a look at the books/pamphlets in question). This binding method was both fun and easy, and here's the result;

I was a bit hesitant whether this kind of structure would work for a watercolour sketchbook, but figured that I'd just try it out to see what would happen. As you can see below, there is a gap between the signatures that can be problematic with watery paint.

However, I've decided that I'm not going to be bothered about it. If I want to lay a wash over a spread with a gap, I can always tape the gap or glue a piece of paper over it. Things are only a problem if you make them a problem.

Isn't this a beautiful binding method? I love the loops that form over the spine and the exposed signatures.

Now that I have the book, it's time to start filling it. This week's assignment for Melanie's workshop is to make 10 starts, that is to do something - anything - to 10 pages somewhere - anywhere - in the journal. Sounds like fun!

Thanks for reading, and see you again soon! - Annika