Hodgepodge Journal list booklets

My son's middle school class is going to do visual journaling all year long--how cool is that? The teacher asked me for assistance way back in the middle of the summer, and what began as a limited decorate-the-journal-cover project blossomed into a full-blown study of journaling that then got distilled into presentations for the kids. Did I ever learn a lot!

I'll talk about the journaling more in a separate post, though. Here I want to show the list booklets I made for the kids. When discussing the project with the teacher, we agreed that the first thing to do to give the kids somewhere to start was with a list-making activity . . . and that got me thinking that it would be great fun for them to be writing their lists down in a booklet that started their brains thinking about their own visual journaling pages. Much more inspirational than writing down on another sheet of lined notebook paper!

So one evening while the kids were watching a movie this summer, I set up on the kitchen island with Canson Biggie sketch 14x17" paper and my acrylic inks, and I went to town. It was such a hoot! I made sure to use different color combinations on each sheet and also did the front and backs different ways. Probably I did about 4 sheets front & back.




I decided that the booklets would be 5x5" and sewn pamphlet-style. They would be a combination of the painted papers and plain white paper, but on the plain pages I would add a couple of things--that ended up being one flap that opened up to write on and one envelope with a small set of papers (made from the trimming scraps) inside it.

The end result was 13 booklets that were unique--the kids loved them and were very careful to store them in their lockers when done instead of leaving them around their desks or on the floor.






Finally I decided that I should also make my own booklet so I had somewhere to practice writing on the painted papers with different inks.
















Not that I had much time to do it in--this was about 11 p.m. the night before presenting. I grabbed one of the free sheets from a Somerset Studio for the cover, and then I took all the remaining scraps of a decent size and put them on the insides (no pamphlet sewing for me--too late at night!).
























I really, really wanted to show the kids how wire could be used, so I whipped up a quick booklet of single sheets and wired it onto the cover. Totally my favorite part! I love the wired-in booklet.

















The last thing I did was to stick a packing tape transfer on the cover. I do like it, but eventually I will trim it more closely to the figure of the woman so it doesn't look quite so much like, well, packing tape.

By the Ocean, a circle accordion book

I have had a lot of fun doing a circle accordion book, although at the very end (it figures!) I am running into some unexpected issues, but I'm sure I'll come up with something, right?

To start with, I applied Daler Rowney FW acrylic inks to a 22x30" sheet of Arches 140-lb. watercolor paper using brushes. Towards the end I switched to a stencil brush and was happier with the results. I went a little darker overall than my original intention but managed to lighten it up & unify everything at the end by putting a layer of Silver Moss over all. For the most part, I used pearlescent inks but did use a bit of two regular ones for some contrast and increased interest. They mostly got covered over with the pearlescents but still served their purpose.

I then cut the strips up to make a cover and four strips of internal pages (finished book measures 6" tall by 5-1/2" wide). Took a little bit to work out some lines about how the ocean makes me feel--nothing to change the world but meaningful to me. Practiced my handwriting in a journal and then made moves to put the words in the book.

Here is where I have gone astray a bit! I did the responsible thing and put light pencil guidelines on the paper so my writing would be straight, and then I wrote with a Pigma Callipen, but it is NOT permanent ink. So when I went in to erase my pencil guidelines, the ink is disappearing too! Right now I'm deciding whether to go in and cover up the pencil lines with charcoal pencil, which actually might look pretty nice to ground the words, or go with the erasing effect and have it look like the tide coming in and erasing marks left on the sand.

Later . . .

I tried using a charcoal pencil on some of the scraps of paper and was not taken with the result, plus the thought of having to mess around with a fixative and even then I'd probably get facing pages rubbing onto each other . . . no, I think not. Plan B went into the effect with the eraser, and I LOVE IT! The ink looks better not being so black, but since I did it bottoms up on the words, it really does look like the sand and the sea breeze have been there working their magic on the scribblings. I know that the whole thing would probably be even better if I did add something to ground the words with, but I'm not confident I can do that without messing it up, and right now I like the overall effect of the words floating in the sea. So there.



All I need is some self-adhesive linen hinging tape to attach the pages together. Once that's done, I'll take pictures and post them up.