Art Journal Memories

I am joining Cathy (Wander Essence) in her new “art journal invitation”

“ART JOURNAL” INVITATION: I invite you to post a journal spread on your own blog about your travels. You can do collage, watercolor, acrylics, stamps, drawing or stencils — whatever art form your heart desires.  These are my first art journal spreads and drawings, so I can only hope I’ll become more creative as I practice and play. I invite you to do the same!

I am taking you back nearly 3 years when I first got the urge to start keeping a journal. We booked into a 7 day art tour in the red centre of Australia, a magical place. If you would like to see more photos and my account of that time go here.

It was a huge learning curve. We used water colour paints, a medium I had never used before. And drew and painted “plein air”, another thing I had never done.

So armed with a small box of Winsor & Newton water colours, water brushes, pencil, rubber, waterproof pens and small sketch book, and of course a hat and sunscreen, I was ready and rearing to go

We worked in A5 size sketch pads, another challenge, condensing this awesome scenery into such a small scale. I was quite tentative. But as the days past I slowly felt slightly more confident.

I will show you the journal pages, but looking at the paintings now, with 3 year hind site, I think the paintings lack a finished look. But they bring back vivid memories of those 5 days.  I actually took a years absence from blogging in 2017 so I could spend more time with my art.

3 years later and I still haven’t finished this yet. Now I have this Coronavirus enforced free time I think I may get round to finishing this. I have the photo to jog my memory.Here’s part of the group of 12. I notice in the above sketch I have called the trees Red River Gums, they are actually called river red gums… Oops….This was a magical place to stay. The dinner was a delicious home cooked buffet, and next morning a full buffet breakfast to set us up for the day of painting.At the end of each day we would gather around for a show and tell and be given an evaluation of our paintings.All good things come to an end, and this was the last place we stayed before heading back to Alice Springs.What an amazing 7 days. I was hooked on painting and art tours and have since been on another 2. But our next adventure was a camping tour to see Uluru. But that will be another post.

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There are many different ways to keep journals, mine are fairly minimal. But Cathy has a great style of recording so much detail, go here to see her post. Maybe you will be inspired to start a journal, maybe now you have time you can record the things around you. I would love to see more bloggers journals.