Hello friends,
Happy Friday at last. I’m not one for wishing the days away but I am glad that it is Friday and I can relax a bit tomorrow. Mr G is still not well, and this has been over a week now, and now his sister has come out in sympathy. But on a happier note, I did some arting this afternoon which made things a little easier to bear.
A couple of months ago, I mentioned that I had bought a big A3 sketchbook that I wanted to use for some gel printed image transfers I did ages ago but because they were all on A4 paper, they didn’t fit in my usual journals and I didn’t want to cut them up. My solution was to buy a bigger book that would take the A4 papers and leave me some room around the sides for embellishing. I put them all in there and then didn’t get a chance to get back to them, but I have been thinking about them, especially this one, so I decided to use it today.
The image came from a travel magazine and that was a page about what to see in Japan. It was a good quality magazine and the transfer worked really well.
I wanted to use these maple leaves from the garden that I had been drying/pressing between a couple of heavy books.
I painted around the image with gold acrylic to hide all that white paper.
Then I cut up some of this paper bag into strips so I could write my quote on them. I started cutting this bag up last night for another project that you will see soon! It’s coming in very handy so far!
I made a frame from my black paper strips and then added some black acrylic ink splatter.
Then I glued down my leaves using gel medium and wrote out my quote, which is from one of my favourite books – Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden.
The heart dies a slow death,
shedding each hope like leaves,
until one day there are none.
No hopes.
Nothing remains.
This quote might sound super depressing, sorry about that, but the book does have a happy ending eventually.
She spends quote a lot of the book being unhappy and resigned to being that way or having no choice, but things do get better for her eventually.
I really liked the quote and have it in my quote notebook, but it was the fact that it also mentioned leaves that made me use it so it would tie in with my pressed maple leaves. Sharing this one with AJJ where the lovely Tracey is hosting the My Favourite Colour is October challenge, and with Paint Party Friday because it’s Friday and I was actually painting on the right day – yay! Well not very exciting painting, barely qualifies as painting, but it did involve paint and a brush so it’ll do me today. 🙂
Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading!
Ingredients
my A3 sketchbook journal, gel print image transfer, gold acrylic paint, black acrylic ink, recycled paper bag strips, gold pen, white pen, gel medium, glue, pressed maple leaves from the garden,
Challenges
Art Journal Journey – The Colours of October – October Challenge – my colours are red and black
Paint Party Friday – Week 30 Year 11 Check-in (how funny, after mentioning Tracey above, I just noticed that Tracey is the featured artist this week!) 
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Beautfiul art, hope Mr. G feels better sooner rather than later.
Oh My! What a fabulous page. Thanks so much for linking to AJJ, Chrisxx
A stunning page. it was good to see the stages of how it all came together. Its fabulous inspiration for the AJJ theme, thank you for linking with us there.
Yvonne xx
A fabulous page, the black edge and the leaves really set if off.
Your transfer came out amazing Elle. I am impressed. Do you remember how you did the transfer? And I like the dried leaves you added. It is fun to change up journal sizes, and good for the brain too to think in another size. I hope the kitties are doing well, especially Mr. G., and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Hugs-Erika
I was really enjoying seeing where this started and where it took you. This turned out great. I am in awe of your recycling and also how you framed the face. THe dried leaves were the perfect finish. Thanks, too, for sharing this with us at Art Journal Journey with Tracey’s theme.
It’s a beautiful print with it’s wide edge left for embellishment, your dried and pressed leaves look like they are gently falling. I’m so glad to read the book has a happy ending.
Wishing you a creative weekend & best wishes for MR G, hope he feels better soon.
Happy PPF & thank you for joining me again @ AJJ.
Hugs Tracey xx
P.S Yes my boot is a Dr. Marten a very well worn one :))
I love how your page turned out- beautifully done. happy PPF!
I feel like the poem… I enjoyed your process…