The Other Journal (aka Priority Journal)

I knew I had to do not one but two journals in 2013. That's quite daring considering the number of unfinished projects in my (art) life. But when I was able to complete one journal in 2012, why not two in 2013? 

I planned my second journal to be about my word of the year... My word for 2013 is PRIORITY and I wanted to have a separate journal to work in. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I bought a lot of canvas paper for my Alpha Journal - and I found it totally unsuitable and used regular cardstock instead... But I decided to use the discarded canvas paper for my second journal. I cut it to smaller pieces and bound the whole journal myself. 

What was I thinking? The paper curls a lot when wet and it's so frustrating to work on... I also had to strengthen the cover with tissue paper to make it a bit more user friendly. But only a bit...

This is how it looks now. The cover is dirty, I will decorate it once I finish all the inside pages, because I'm messy and I don't want to spend time wrapping the cover with paper every time I want to work in my journal.

the journal

view from the top

The binding is simple – I just made 6 holes in the spine and sew it all together with thread. And it has a flap to hold it closed.   

I painted the first 2 pages and that was about it for a couple of months. I hated that journal, I just couldn't find motivation to open it and start painting.

But I didn't abandon it completely – I used the blank pages to clean my brushes and/or stencils. And... one day... when I got tired of my Alpha Journal, I took it, started to paint and... a couple of pages later... I learnt to love this journal. 

My first double spread in this journal. The size of this journal is 8,5" by 11", so the double page is 17" by 11" and that is a bit too big for me. But I liked the result and now I'm getting more comfortable with this format.

This page was intended for a “Men” challenge but turned out to be something slightly different from what the challenge was about, so I didn't submit it in the end. I used a coarse structure paste through my newest handmade/hand-cut stencils and played with Daler-Rowney FW inks and my latest addiction – the distress paints. 

This page was created for a Faber-Castell June challenge. This challenge was about “what one important lesson have I learnt this year”. I used my hand-cut arrow stencil + structure paste, Daler Rowney FW inks, Ranger Distress Paints and Faber-Castell PITT brush pens. It turned out quite good considering the many ugly phases it went through.
[note to self: Why can't I look at my art as a finished product instead of seeing all that went wrong during the process of its making?]