Garden Art Journal Week One

Okay...you have had four weeks to get your journal, gather your supplies and get yourself psyched up for the class. Now the moment you have been waiting for. Your first set of prompts. Please remember that you can change or alter the prompts at any time to suit you. The techniques, questions, and things to include on the page are just suggestions. You may do the prompts for the week in any order, single or double page layouts. Also note...if you can not keep up the pace of three pages a week...do two or one...whatever suits you and your lifestyle BUT the goal is to get something done in the journal every week! Another key point: This is an ART JOURNAL so experiment with art techniques and try new creative things. AND be sure and write something, express yourself with poems, your own notes, or journal entries.

Prompt One: Favorite Flowers/Colors Main Idea: Experiment with Color

• Create a page about your favorite colors in the plant world. Are you in love with roses or do you drool over Gerber Daisies? Do you like sunshine yellow or deep red?
• What colors, shapes, and sizes catch your eye the most? You may use clippings from magazines or seed catalogues. You can sketch or use water colors. You can use paper to cut or tear your flowers. Or try creating one from ribbon.
• Use actual photos if you like or leave a space to add one later.
• Write or find a poem about your favorite plant and use it as your journaling.
• Use color swatches instead of actual plant pictures...detailing the colors you love most!

REMINDER: These are just ideas to get you thinking...use one or two of them...or pick something of your own! I have my page almost done and hope to get a photo up later tonight!!

Prompt Two: The Palette of My Garden Main Idea: Examine Visual Appeal Create a page of the layout of your beds or pick just one bed to feature on this page.

• Sketch, use ribbon, or other materials to represent the flowers and bed.
• If you have pictures of your beds in full bloom include them or leave spaces for photos taken later in the season.
• For ideas about bed design: Flower Garden Design Tips or The Kitchen Flower Bed
• Journal about the kinds of layouts you like....all one kind of flower, mixed, sizes etc.

Prompt Three: Mary Mary Quite Contrary How Does Your Garden Grow? Main Idea: Journal About Your Experiences This page will focus on a success or failure in gardening. that wheel barrow full of dead plants that never got in the ground or that award winning rose bush. Your choice but this page needs to contain the story of the success or failure...either in words, pictures, or both.

• This might be a good two page layout...one side a success....the other a failure!
• As an added challenge...find words or a sentence in a magazine to include in your layout.
• OR use the nursery rhyme Mary Mary and reword it to make a statement about a success or failure!

Okay...that's it for week one...but check back in because I will be adding photos throughout the week.

Pre-Class Assignment

Okay to get your creative juices flowing here is a little pre class assignment....

 

 

Decorate the cover of your art journal...one word of caution....if you are going use a lot of embellishments or bulky items to decorate the cover....you may want to save this assignment until the very end instead of doing it ahead of time.

Date pieces: Have you decided if you are going to have one item that you use for the date on every page? Like a metal tag...punched flower....or little plant stakes cut from paper? No matter what you want to use...make a bunch of them up this week...you may not be able to add the date itself since you won't know exactly the days you will be working on your pages but you can make the embellishment and then add the date as you make the pages. I'll try to get back in a couple days and post pictures of my cover and my date items...

Floral Inspiration

Our class will start soon. In the meantime...get inspired by looking at beautiful pictures of flowers and gardens.

 

 

This lovely dark and light pink appeals to me. And also the bright colors of these Gerber Daisies. I love the fresh crisp colors and the smooth lines of the Daisies....they just say FUN to me.

 But nothing is as beautiful as a whole bed full of wonderful colors mingling together and glistening in the sunlight.

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So browse the internet, get out those seed catalogues, or look at your gardening books. It's time to let our eyes feast on the beautiful colors of flowers! Let's plan to bring some of those colors into our own personal art journals.

Tips and Ideas for Garden Art Journal

Dates: It is wonderful to document your work by adding the date that each page was created somewhere on the page. You can do this in a unique and individual way each time or you can come up with a certain element that you include on each page and add the date to that element. For example you can use precut tags or labels that you create ahead of time and then just add the date to one and attach it to the page as you complete it. Other things to consider using include those teeny tiny file folders, buttons, or flower shapes punched in different colors to match individual page colors. Using the same type of item gives all the pages something in common and allows you to premake at least one item for the pages!

Title Page: You may make the title page prior to the start of the class or you may just leave the first page blank and create it at the end of the class. Think about a dedication, poem, or other items to include on the title page.

Album Box: Gathering supplies for this class and putting them together in an album box, drawer, or basket will help you create stress free when the time arrives. Right now...go through all your "stuff". Sort stickers, paper, embellishments, and other items. Place the ones you think you might use into your storage container. Think about the colors you associate with the garden. Look for unusual items you might use in your creations!

Photos: If you have garden photos that you might want to use, sort them, print them, and put them in your box. You can use past photos for this project but if you don't have any don't despair...you will have opportunities to snap them as we create the journal. Or you can create the pages leaving space for photos of this year's garden. Remember some people create their art journals without a single photo...using sketches, water colors, chalk and other materials.

Garden Art Journal Class

Here at CS from April 14th thru June 30th we will be creating a Garden Art Journal. Each week will contain three prompts or ideas for pages that week. So the goal is to complete either three single pages or three two page layouts per week or a combination of one and two page layouts but something for each of the three prompts. Your art journal will end up with 36 pages if you do the one page layout approach at the rate of three per week. Goals of the Class

• Discover more about yourself and your gardening style.
• Gather ideas about gardens/flower beds
• Express yourself creatively
• Experiment with some creative techniques
• Create an artistic representation of your garden (photos or sketches)

Materials for the Class:

• A scrapbook/art journal. you can find them at Walmart, Michaels, and just about any craft store. You can use them with or withour page protectors. You can use spiral bound, binder style, or any type. You can use any size you want. Immediately following the this list I will include some links so you can see a few kinds.
• Some kind(s) of adhesive. You might want several kinds...glue dots, tape runner, craft glue.
• Paper...you decide on colors and pick them out ahead of time or just use your stash as we go along. But you will want to have an assortment of bright, beautiful colors.
• Embellishments: Can include traditional items like stickers, ribbon, brads, buttons etc. Or non traditional items like magazine pictures, seed packets, plant information stakes, jewelry, etc
• Photos of your garden...past or in process this year, pictures of plants, newly emerging beds, and in full bloom! Or you may use sketches, water colors, and other materials to create representations of your flowers and beds.

Links to examples of art journals: Three ring 12 x 12 album 8.5 x 8.5 post bound album All sizes of Spiral Bound Examples of 12 x 6 and 6 x 12 Albums These links are for looking at examples ONLY...most sizes can be purchased locally even at Walmart or Target. MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE CLASS WILL BE POSTED IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS!! Please check out the forum at MHH where we will be discussing our class as we create together. Garden Art Journal Class Forum.

Interesting Blog

For anyone interested in more fully exploring art journals I would suggest a visit to ArtyEm's blog: The Creative Art Journal I have been spending some time over there looking at her many wonderful pages. Some honestly, I can't envision myself being "daring" enough to try. But at the same time I love the artistic spirit of her work....and it inspired me to try some new things. First of all chalking some pages in my journal and second of all doing...A LOT of writing on one of my pages. It was fun! So hop over and visit...the pages above are just an example of her creative work.

Celebrate Me Art Journal Continues

Here's the latest two page layout from the art journal. I actually have two other pages to share with you but I forgot to take pictures of them when I did this one. This is the first page where I used paint and the first one so far that has included a photo. I used some paint I got at Target made by Making Memories. It is suppose to be specifically for scrap book pages without wrinkling the paper and such. I bought the package of Harvest colors because I found them the most appealing but they had Brights (primary colors) and another package also I think called Jewels.