Sketchbook Challenge - April Theme: Branching Out/Out on a Limb

Here's my finished journal page for my version of the Sketchbook challenge.  It really was fun to push myself to sketch with pen and ink.  I used the Inktense pencils that I won a while back.  They're fantastic!  I highly recommend them.  You colour with them as you would with a pencil crayon, and then use a damp brush to go over them and get the intense colour.  It's like watercolour, but it's actually an ink.  Great product!

Sketchbook Challenge - April Theme: Out on a Limb

As per Jane's description of the April theme, I am definitely going out of my comfort zone with this sketch.  I'm not one to work on paper but I had to push myself to 'go out on a limb' and try it.  The 'big mouthed Nkondi was inspired by some of Lisa Li Hertzi's work.  .  The next step will be to do the fibre journal page.

The Sketchbook Challenge

I don't usually use a paper sketchbook, but I was very interested in the 'Sketchbook Challenge' so I decided to participate using my own twist on the theme.  Each page is digitally altered using Photoshop Elements and then printed onto fabric and sewn to highlight the image.  One the cover, I decided to include the original banner from the official website.

The theme for January was 'Highly Prized'.  I had a beautiful photo I had taken of my dog, Casey, and her new kitten, Arbour (taken almost 9 years ago) and it spoke to me about trust, love, motherhood, etc.--all the things that I highly prize.  Using Photoshop, I added a painterly filter and the text to give the effect  you see.

February's theme was 'Opposites'.  For this page, I started by playing with Shiva paint sticks and rubbing plates, creating the same patterns on black and white fabric.  I then cut those out and sewed them together to create the background.  From there, I took the photo and imported it into Photoshop so that I could add the text and borders.

'Spilling Over' is the theme for March.  Needless to say, I was in a bit of a dark place when I created this page.  The photo of the eye was scanned from a magazine image so that I could digitally enhance it and add the text.

I will continue to post the new pages as the themes are announced each month...

An Alphabet Journal

I got a copy of the book Alphabetica by Lynne Perrella as a Christmas gift, and I was inspired to create my own version of a fibre alphabet book.