Crafty Musings by Hagit

A New Art Journal

Front cover - image transfer on canvas, which I colored with copic and gel pens:

(It's right-to-left, the Hebrew way.)

I love it when all the strings hang like that, so I used different color spools for the bobbin: red, yellow and white.
I love the rough look of this journal, with the transfer, the uneven way the canvas is cut, the strings. I think this image makes this point even better, as you can see the spine as well, and all the textures:

Inside, two signatures from papers in varying sizes, to which I added bits and scraps. This way i don't have to deal with blank pages! 

On the back cover, several image transfers, with gesso and paint. I reecntly noticed that I have a great collection of chair images. I guess that's part of my visual vocabulary. I wonder what it means!

And as I completed the journal itself, I just had to sit down and start working in it!
These are the two pages that I made:

This first one is just too green. I may have to continue working on it.

This next page I'm very happy with. It totally expresses how I felt as I was working on it!

I made this journal as part of a blog hop between Hebrew sewing blogs. If you read Hebrew, you can read all about it here.

The funny thing about inspiration and learning and process-oriented work is that when I sat down to make this journal, I had "sewn-fabric-journal" in my head. I had Teesha Moore's journals in my mind, and I watched all her fantastic videos of making fabric journals. I was 100% sure that i was going to make a Teesha Moore journal, and then this is what happened. Know what I mean?

Remains of the Day

So some time ago, I registered to take Mary Ann Moss' class, Remains of the Day.

The problem with online classes is that I never get around to actually "participate" when the class is on, and many times I never get around to doing anything at all. This time, however, I just knew I had to do it! Free-motion stitching seemed like something I had to try, and I love Mary Ann's gorgeous journals, so even though it took some time, I did it!

The first thing I made was actually not a journal at all, but a pie carrier. I had seen something similar to this in a magazine some time ago, and really liked the idea, and as I joined a kitchen swap, I thought of combining Mary Ann's techniques into the carrier.

So here's the result:

 

A closer look:

And then I finally got around to making the journal itself:

I really enjoyed working with all those bits and pieces, and I loved all the free stitching.

For the inside, I made a different journal than that taught in the workshop. I printed out lined pages with some interesting quotes, and made three signatures:

 

Then sewed them into the journal spine:

And as you can see, I played around with some more free stitching inside, trying to actually draw something.

And...done!

The Minimal page

Sometimes it doesn't take a lot to be happy.

I love saving interesting papers, and my drawers are so crammed, it's unbelievable. Everytime I go through them I find bits and pieces that I can already throw, but that doesn't even make a dent in all the paper I have! Sometimes, if there's a scrap or an especially interesting image, I'll stick it inside my journal, hoping for it to become a page later on.

Last week, as I opened my journal, two pieces of paper fell out. One was this girl, an image I had saved from an ad for a new yogurt place, and the other was this scrap of Basic Grey paper. I picked them up and just stuck them down, the I added the strings, that turned the circles into balloons.

I was happy with the page, and left it as it is, minimal, but pretty!

What do you think? is your art journal always busy?