Well here I am working late again, and trying to squeeze in some art time.  It’s been an eventful day with various jobs being done inside and outside the house.  Currently we have no heating and a brush with carbon monoxide poisoning, but hey it could have been a lot worse!  So I locked myself in a room (but with windows open because hello – carbon monoxide!) so I could finish working on this page, as I really wanted to enter the current Funkie Junkie challenge which ends tomorrow and is all about Fall Foliage!  I started by collecting a bit of fall foliage from my garden.  I love Japanese Maples, and have a few of them in the garden.  Most of them turn green to yellow but one turns purple to scarlet and it’s just glows is this luminous bright red!  The only other plants I have that change colour are the blueberry bushes!  That was a surprise the first time it happened as I thought something was wrong with them haha.  They are the red oval leaves in the photo below. So I will have these beautiful colours in the garden until the first strong wind will blow them all off the trees.  I really wish they could stay this colour a bit longer, but soon they will be bare.

By the way, autumn for me means lots of pumpkin soup.  Actually any time means lots of pumpkin soup time since it’s my favourite soup, but I do have an excuse for making it even more than usual at this time of year because they are in abundance and cheaper.  I made this pot of pumpkin soup yesterday and it is yummy, and it will not last long, so I can see myself having to pick up more pumpkins on the way home next time I’m out.

 

And also before we get into the actual art journal page, here are two little snuggly kitties who are also appreciating their new throw, now that the temperatures are dropping. It’s actually a really dark red but for some reason, the lights have made it a weird burnt orange colour, and it’s turned Mr G’s eyes blue and they are gold lol. Weirdly the cushion colour is quite accurate lol.

Now on to the art journal page.  Click on the thumbnails for a closer look…


I had my big bowl of leaves and knew I wanted to use them on a page, so I flicked through my journal and found this page that was started but never finished. I think it’s Distress Oxide in the background, Frayed Burlap possibly and some Shabby Shutters?


I thought the background colours might go well with the reds and yellows of the leaves I collected.


This sad little elf lady is something I drew when I was sitting in a waiting room for a few hours last year waiting for my car to be serviced, so I made use of that time, and filled my sketchbook with drawings and this was one of them. I had traced her on to some deli paper and pasted her on to the page and then didn’t go any further with it, but then I rediscovered it just in time today.


I started adding some collage and pulled out some handmade stamps to use.  These are lino carved stamps I made a few months ago when I was being very productive during lockdown.


I did some scribbling with the Woody’s.


And then some scribbling with the neocolour II crayons


Then I used another of the handmade stamps with brown Stazon, adding the bare branches


I have two other stamps that I carved, one says CREATE and the other says MAGIC, so I thought I would try adding them somewhere on the page.


Meanwhile, here are all the leaves I wanted to use on my page.  The rest are being pressed inside a big book.  These leaves however, have been coated in gel medium and left to dry


Here’s a close up of some of the leaves


Once the leaves were dry, i started adhering them to the page with more gel medium.  I also made a dress for the sad elf lady out of skeleton leaves, teabag paper and tag, and some real leaves.  I also made her hair and her eyes green.  And then…


Plot Twist!  You didn’t see that coming did you?  Neither did I LOL.  I had this kitty sitting on my table since last week.  He’s from a cat food package which is either the Finger Lickin Chicken variety or the Fat Cat Slim variety (these names lol) and I wanted to use him in something else but it didn’t work out and so here he was looking all expectant and desperate to be diving into those autumn leaves.  I wasn’t really excited about the sad elf lady, but I got really excited when I put the kitty on the page!  It was mean’t to be!


What was not meant to be was my horrible handwriting of the word AUTUMN on the page lol. I practiced a few times on some paper, decided I liked it, and then I really messed it up and  had to cover it with some diecut letters (coincidentally also from cat food packaging lol)


I started to feel like Goldilocks, trying out the different letters and words. I spent a day cutting letters from cat food boxes so I had lots of options at the time but I’ve been using them up so I was trying to find some letters that matched from what remained.  Not this one…


Not this one either…

I found some of these large diecut letters leftover from another old project, a couple of them had already been painted this autumnal orange (A and F) I could find only one L so I made a second L from a B lol and then painted them to match.
The only problem with these letters is that they are too tall to fit in the space I left for my handwriting to go into, so the solution? Chop them down to size!

And so after sticking the letters down in place, I was pretty much finished my page.  This photo was taken at night under lights so I don’t think it’s the best so I will try again in the morning, but for now, here is the finished spread.

Update (next morning)

OK so I woke up early this morning and had another look at my page, and decided that it needed some shading and some metallic paint splatters. Then because it was still dark, I was forced to sit and drink coffee and wait for some daylight so I could take the photos (I miss summer daylight hours already) so here are some photos of the finished page and some close ups. You can see how the lights last night made the greens really yellow, so now in the daylight it’s back to its true colours.  So happy with how my leaves are looking, let’s hope they stay that way for a long time.  Maybe they will fare better by being protected inside a book that is mostly kept closed.

The MEOW is also from the cat food packaging, the brand is called Meowing Heads lol.  As I replaced Sad Elf Lady with Happy Kitty, I had to hide all her green hair.  After a few attempts at doing this with gesso and paint I decided to cover it with paper.  Funnily enough, this was one of the papers that didn’t make the cut for the collage (you can see it on the page in the sixth photo) which made it available for covering this up!

I drew around the letters with a black fineliner to help them stand out a bit more. The letters were cut from watercolour paper so they have that nice texture.

Happy kitty face 🙂

Some of my blueberry plant leaves and some very tiny maple leaves

Some larger maple leaves

One of the largest of the maple leaves and the smaller yellow ones – oh and this house in the collage, is the same house you can see in this art journal page.

Splattery paint splatters and some black edging to the yellow leaves to help them stand out

Hope you enjoyed the making of this art journal page.  I will have another look at it in the morning and see if I want to add anything else (yes I did!), but for now, let me know in the comments what you think 🙂

Bonus

If you’ve made it all the way to the bottom of this post, thank you so much for reading and sticking with me.  Here’s a little bonus photo of a real cat in real autumn leaves. When I lived in Australia we had a huge liquid amber tree in the garden and a crazy cat in the house.  This is her being well camouflaged in a big pile of leaves from that liquid amber.

CHALLENGES

OK here come the challenges:-
Funkie JunkieFall Foliage Challenge – I used real leaves for my fall foliage 🙂
In addition, I would like to submit my page to this month’s Art Journal Journey challenge – Hold the Line – for all the lines (veins) in the leaves, the leaf stalks pointing in all kinds of directions and of course the lines of the bare branches from my stamp.  One day before the end of the month, I do want to do something more linear for this challenge!
Spotted this one mentioned on another blog, and since my background is a Distress Oxide one, thought I would enter my page to this month’s Mix It Up challenge with optional Distressing
Creative Artiste’s 65th Challenge is as always anything goes so long as multiple mediums are used (see my list below)
Art Daily Cafe’s October Challenge asks for the colour brown and dried or dying plants and nature – My background is brown and my leaves are drying nicely 🙂 Moodboard below

 

PROJECT RECIPE:

My art journal (sketchbook paper)
Collage materials
Acrylic paint, neocolour II, stabilo woody pencils, distress oxides, metallic paints, (PITT pens on my elf lady but she got covered up)
Handmade stamps, stazon ink
Gesso
Matte Gel Medium
From stash: cat food packaging, leaves from garden, teabag paper, skeleton leaves, black pen

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18 Awesome Comments (btw comment moderation is on)
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Maria Lillepruun
October 30, 2020 9:26 pm

What a gorgeous project! I liked it very much! Thank you so much for sharing with us at Art Daily Cafe!

Bleubeard and Elizabeth
October 16, 2020 7:57 pm

OMGoodness. I thought I left you a comment two days ago. I was really impressed with how you used the leaves to your advantage, but that cat’s sudden appearance caught me by surprise, too. I often say the page tells me what to do, not the other way around. You created a very clever and unique journal entry and I was also delighted you shared this with us at Art Journal Journey, too.

Andree
Andree
October 15, 2020 8:48 pm

A wonderful journal spread. Gorgeous autumnal colours and fabulous natural textures. The cat is an inspired choice, although I think the elf lady is lovely.
Thank you for joining in with our October challenge “Anything Mixed Media Goes” at Creative Artiste Mixed Media. Good luck x

Elke
October 15, 2020 3:51 pm

I love your Autumn Pages and how you did it. Great idea and explanations about it! Your cat photos is so cute.
Have a happy week , hug Elke

Neet Hickson
October 15, 2020 2:10 pm

Oh I love the final photograph of the real cat in the leaves. What a lovely inspirational piece of photography.
That is not saying I do not find your own page fabulous because I do. I like how you changed the lady into a cat and how you changed the letter B into an L – such wonderful ideas. The leaves look absolutely wonderful on the final page. A lovely display making up a lovely page.
hugs, Neet xx

Meggymay
Meggymay
October 15, 2020 11:25 am

A fantastic autumn page, a super way to use the leaves and the cat looks so happy.
They were lovely photos of your own cats as well.
Thank you for linking up with Chris’s theme at Art Journal Journey.
Yvonne

Jenny Marples
October 15, 2020 10:23 am

First up, glad to hear you are ok after the carbon monoxide scare – that sounds like a horrible thing to have gone through. I really enjoyed watching your creative process unfold including those plot twists along the way Elle. Swapping out the sad elf lady for the happy cat was an inspired move and really helped to change the feeling of the whole page. Using the real acer leaves is such a beautiful way to hold on to their fleeting glory and then adding the metallic splatters are such clever and effective ways to capture the beauty of the season. Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece with us at The Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog xx

pearshapedchris
October 14, 2020 5:06 pm

Ooh Elle! This is a fabulous page, those beautiful leaves and the cute kitty from the packaging are perfect together – I am so happy to see this linking to Art Journal Journey and my theme – thank you so much! Hugs, Chrisx

Valerie-Jael
Valerie-Jael
October 14, 2020 6:30 am

Wonderful autumn spread and fab photos. Thanks so much for linking to Art Journal Journey, much appreciated. Valerie

Erika N
October 13, 2020 11:26 pm

Carbon monoxide, that is scary. Glad it is fixed and you are OK. You’ve really captured autumn in this post, and I am with you about Japanese maple leaves. I love your page, especially the little surprise twist. That kitty looks great with al the leaves. I remember when I had kitties, one of them loved to get into the leaves. That’s a great photo. Thanks for sharing with us at ARt Journal Journey and Chris’ Hold the Line challenge. Hugs-Erika

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