For the month of December I signed up for a journal swap where each day we had to do some sort of journaling. Normally I go for a traditional journal and just write a page or two telling about my day.
A few months ago I was part of another journal swap and was totally blown away by the journal I received from my partner. Instead of writing to me everyday she did "art". Different kinds of artistic entries like collages, mixed media and even drawing. This totally was the best journal that I've ever received and I was so touched by the amount of work that went into journal she sent me. So when I signed up for this December Journal swap I decided that I wanted to go outside my comfort zone and push myself to create a little bit of art each day. I'm not really an artistic type person, I tend to lean to the more crafty side but I thought it would be fun to challenge for myself. I'm not quite finished with all my entries in the journal but below you can see my work in progress. I tended to skip around in the journal and not just go in order. Depending on my mood for the day I would sometimes do a adult coloring page or a drawing but I didn't want to have two of the same artistic endeavor in a row so if I decided to do two drawings on back to back days I didn't put them in the journal next to each other. I would separate them in the book to different dates. Please enjoy my creations below and remember that I am NOT really an artistic person so try to be nice. lol
Above is the cover of the journal. I thought it came out kind of pretty and it made me laugh because the flowers in the center of the frame are actually cut outs from my son's "Color Wonder" coloring book. hahahaha
December 2nd
This is the day I began my journal. I really love and am addicted to this whole adult coloring book craze. I like to attempt different coloring styles and in this picture I did the outline method where you outline each section darkly and then using the same color fill in the section. It gives it a really pretty shadow effect.
December 3
Okay, don't laugh. I know this is totally hilarious. This was my first attempt EVER of drawing a kawaii character. There is this cool youtube channel that I subscribe to that has tutorials every thursday do help to teach you to draw. I saw this character and just had to try if for myself. You will find several of these drawing attempts from her channel. You really should check it out. She has so many awesome videos and is a awesome artist. Her name is Mei Yu and her channel is called Fun2Draw and you can click the link to go to her channel. You can click here to go to the turtorial that I followed.
December 4th
Here is another coloring technique that I was trying out. I totally love this one! I used shimmery gel pens and water color pencils. First I outlined each section with the gel pen and then while it was still wet, I colored the inside of the section with a "matching" water color pencil. The affect was that the liquid from the gel color pen made the water color pencils smooth on and create an variegated look. I didn't even have to shade and do shadow because the pen/pencils did it for me.
December 5th
Here is another one of Mei Yu's turtorials. Her's is so much more pretty but I like the way mine turned out. I'm not very good at the shading yet but I hope to improve with time.
Click here to go to her tutorial.
December 6th
This is just a cute page I put together for my partner. Her name is Ying Ya hence the name at the bottom of the page. The background is tissue paper and banners are from a past PaperPumpkin kit I got a few months ago. I think it was for making birthday and anniversary cards but I thought it would be fun to use here. I initially planned on having 6 banner flags with the letters YING YA in them but I didn't have room for 6 banners on this page when I started laying them out. I ended up using only 5 and taking bakers thread and making cute handing lines and bows. If you notice each banner is a small shaker. :) I love making shakers.
December 7th
Another coloring page. Pretty straight forward but I think it is pretty.
December 8th
This is part one of this page. In the back of my one coloring book is cutouts that you can color and give away or use, whichever. These really pretty bookmarks were found and I colored them and decided to give them to my partner. But instead of just sticking them to the page I decided to awesome share the nams of some of my favorite books. There are two on this page and another two on the page for December 10th which you can find below. Each "book" has the name of the book and author on the front and when you open it there is a pocket that holds the bookmark and on the pocket is a quote from the book. I forgot to get pictures of the inside of the little books but if anyone comments that they want to see them then I can upload them later.
December 9th
MY FIRST EVER ZENTANGLE!! This was so fun and totally a stress reducer. I literally sat there for hours drawing this out and just shading each area. If you've never heard of an zentagle you can click here to find out more about them. You can also search google images and find all kinds of examples.
December 10th
Here is part two of my bookmark page.
December 11th
Another fun coloring page. I tried to add a lot of shading to the page to make it more interesting.
December 12, 13 and 14th
My partner in this swap really loves crochetting. ( I read it in her profile) So I decided to crochet her a pretty dishcloth and then wrote out the direction so she can make one for herself later on. The directions go across all three pages and I fastened the dishcloth to the December 13th page by poking holes through the page and sewing the dishcloth to the page. I didn't include a pic of December 14th but on the page you see little bows that are holding the dishcloth in place.
December 15th:
I wanted to include a recipe for Wassail punch but I wanted to do it in a way that it was kind of an art project. I decided to make the ingredients like a guessing game :) I had fun making this page.
December 16th:
Just a page colored from one of my son's Color Wonder books. I love tinkerbell.
December 17th
This is actually a drawing of what actually hangs on my bedroom window. I have these really pretty window clings that look like above.
December 18th:
I wanted to make a few more bookmarks as a gift.
December 19th:
My second attempt at a Zentangle. But this one I did in color.
December 20 and 21:
This is one of my favorite coloring pictures that I did. I think my coloring of Alice came out really good. I worked on shading her hair to make it feel more life like. I actually went back and colored the crowns later one before sending the journal to my partner. I didn't like them the white color. I colored them in a gold tone marker.
December 22 and 23rd:
My partner later told me that this was one of her favorite pages. She loved all the different crochet stitches. This page was time consuming but fun!
December 24th:
I recycled some of my Christmas Cards to make this arty page. I like reusing cards with pretty pictures.
December 25th:
I did another layout using recycled Christmas Card parts.
I actually hid a gift behind the door for my friend.
December 27th:
This is another drawing tutorial I did from the YouTube channel, Fun2Draw. I will be honest and tell you I was totally impressed that I did so good! I wasn't expecting it to come out as well as it did. I actually prefer the black inked version of this I did prior to coloring it.
December 27th:
Here is what the drawing looked like after I colored it. My markers weren't waterproof so they bled out when I was trying to color in the sections. They were pulling the black outline pen's color in and smearing it.
December 28th and 29th:
This is a page I colored from my "Alice in Wonderland" coloring book. I thought it only fitting that I include a selection of teas for my friend to try. She prefers foreign teas so I tried to accommodate her. :)
I got totally excited and forgot to take pictures of the rest of the journal, so I can't post pictures from the 30th and 31st. Total bummer, but perhaps I can find the pics later on and show you. My partner said she was going to put in on her blog also, so if she does I will link to her page.
