Positivity

I made a promise to myself,  this year I will start journalling in earnest.

And so my first novation of the year is in progress.

I was inspired by Karen who manages to juggle a busy home and work life with an incredibly productive creative life too.

This is the inside cover with a reminder of a few of my long term goals for the year, they are actually only my creative ones as personal ones will be within the pages for each month and not all will be blogged or shared publicly.

There are some inspiring quotes with my word for the year on the left and my creative goals on the right.

I will go into more depth with regards each of my projects for this year with each blog entry this week.

My first page for the month is a calendar page, this is where I will note down birthdays etc.

I have left the bottom half blank as I am not sure of all I want to include just yet, so just in case I decide to add another project or such I do have some room.

My book is set out a little like Karen's, in the way that I have included a page of lists, these are my 'to do' lists, and is my attempt at being more focused and organised both at home and at work. I will write these up each sunday for the week ahead and cross them off as I complete them, they can be added to also.

I aim to complete a morning journal each day, before my head is filled with day to day hum drum, my first is really all about my projects for the year.

Please excuse the state of my handwriting, I aim to write these pages with  a view to achieving thoughts on paper, neatness is secondary.

From the double page above, this is the page illustrating my 'one little word', more on that tomorrow and the illustration is my sketch for today - yes I am back to sketching every day ! Again, I will blog more about that later in the week ( this post is already turning into a marathon, so I am just going to touch on the basics for now and delve a little deeper in future posts)

I sketched out the word in pencil, created a black outline and shading in pen and then coloured my rainbow with my polychromos pencils, I held off blending as I didn't want an overly 'neat' finish.

The quote along the bottom of the page reads :

There can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm.

The quote leads me into my next project

Kate Cranes Art Calendar

The first page of which reflects the miserable weather we have experienced of late.

I have completed the pages now but lost daylight so didn't get chance to photograph them before I blogged, but I did want to share some progress pictures of the background.

If you have seen the challenge, you will know that a fair portion of the background becomes masked by the journalling calendar squares so I thought it would be helpful for you to see each stage before all the frippery has been added.

1. Black white and shades of grey swiped vertically with a broad paintbrush for the initial layer of colour.

2. I then added swipes of lilac with a credit card, followed by streaks of white using the very edge of the card too apply the paint.

3. Stamped spotty circles in archival ink followed, after which I used a discarded glue stick lid, dipped in acrylic, to create some bold black rings.

Here's a close up of the layers of colour so far.

Tomorrow when the light is better ( today was pretty dismal in Lincolnshire to be honest) I will share the completed pages with you.