Art Journal Pages

I am continuing to journal in my Gift from the Sea book, and have recommitted to Julie's Art Journal Every Day for December.

Thus far, my journaling "style" appears to be no coherent style at all.  Every page, every spread, looks a little different from the rest.

I always enjoy the look of switching from black to white pen, depending on the background of the page.

I am continuing to have fun with my paper tapes and doodles.

I have been making a concerted effort to use the bits of paper that I have been collecting from recent swaps, as well as continuing to use images that I have clipped from magazines and catalogs.

I think that this hand with the gorgeous henna came from the cover of a National Geographic catalog (if I am remembering correctly).  It made a striking page pretty much all on its own!

For the first time, I tried including some dried leaves to commemorate the season of fall.  We'll see if I end up with a little pile of crushed leaves under my journal sometime down the road!

This amazing thread nest came from a swap with fiber artist Anne-Marie Desaulniers.  (She blogged about the loot I sent to her in the swap here.)  At first it made me think of the tangled webs we weave in life at times, but when I came around to making my journal page, it was the eve of the memorial service for my friend Ann.  She died last Wednesday, after a nearly decade-long fight with a brain tumor, leukemia, and then another brain tumor.  Age 43 is much too young to leave this world, and at age 10, her little boy is much too young to be left motherless.  But those are the birds of sorrow that have flown over our church community, and as the quotation on my page suggests, "I cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from passing over my head, but I can keep them building a nest in my hair."  Ann was a faithful and positive light in this world, and our best tribute to her is to continue to shine that light!

I have only a couple more spreads in my Gift from the Sea journal, and then I will begin a new book.  It's always an exciting decision to determine which journal will be next!