Look On The Bright Side Page

This is another page taken from my Teesha Moore Journal Swap, the original page artist of this page is Annie!

Annies page is painted bright yellow and orange and features lots of lovely sunflowers, I dont know about you but to me sunflowers represent all things positive and bright! I decided to use the sunflowers as my inspiration and wrote on the words 'look on the bright side' in large lettering and went from there.

I added borders and lines and dots here there and everywhere! I also drew some small freestyle suns to fill in the gaps then I finally finished off the page by writing on various words and stuff which came to mind from the theme I was going with - reasons to look on the bright side.

Heres my page:

Princess Georgina Page

This is another page I have done for my sketchbook, it seemed fitting that I dedicate a page to my other fur baby who is no longer with us; Georgie :) This photo was taken just before she got really ill, she had cancer and had a huge growth on her head as a result of it which was the size of a tennis ball. If you look closely in the photo you can see the lump had already just started to grow then, we only noticed afterwards when she was gone:

Memorable Moments Page

This is part of my ongoing personal sketchbook challenge which I have set myself to learn how to start sketchbooking! Im working my way through my list of page prompts which I have listed and this page is one of those prompts, 'memorable moments' - pick an event from your life which stays strongly in your mind. I decided to pick a holiday I spent as a child in Great Yarmouth as it is such a vivid and strong memory that I have.

Heres my sketchbook page for this prompt along with photos of myself as a kid in Great Yarmouth!

Normality Is Boring Page

Another page from my Teesha Sketchbook stash, this one was created originally by Rena!

To begin with I went round with a black pen and I added lines, dots and borders to the design to make it stand out, and added some white highlights too.

The words 'quirkiness is everywhere' were already on the page so I decided to use them as my jumping point. Thinking to myself, the words quirkiness made me think of things outside of the norm - which gave me the idea for 'Normality Is Boring' - so I wrote those words on the page and I was away! The other words kinda followed on naturally with the theme. I just kept going with the doodles and swirls till I felt it was complete:

Friends Are The Flowers Page

Another Teesha swap page :) This one was created by our very own Ms Pea.

I decided to add some more doodles on the page, Pea had added a line of leaves on the left hand side, so using the same style I continued the leaves so that they would also appear along the top of the page too. I also drew on a couple of flowers to add interest and wrote the 2 large words flowers and garden in large lettering - Im enjoying learning how to do lettering I must admit!

Then using my letratag I added the words around the page to complete the quotation. Final bits where added by outlining the images and adding dots and bits here and there, basically I just kept going till I was happy with the overall feel:

Walk In Their Shoes Page

Here is another page taken from my Teesha swap stash, the original page designer is Kacy, this page was already decorated with a pair of high heel shoes so I decided to use that as my inspiration for the page theme.

I decided to draw on the quote 'Never Judge A Person Until You Have Walked In Their Shoes' - it just came to me while I was looking at the page and it felt right. Particually as its a sentiment I also happen to agree with 100% and always try to apply it on a daily basis.

I also added the words 'walk on with hope in your heart' along the top in slightly smaller lettering, another shoe/walking themed quote Ive always loved being a closet Liverpudlian at heart.

I added highlights to the dots which where already on the page by drawing around them, then decided to add even more dots (going blinking dotty at this point) I also added some hearts and coloured them in with a red pen.

Finally I felt the page was complete:

My Life In Numbers Page

Heres is another page for my personal sketchbook challenge, the idea for this was taken from one of my page prompt ideas where you have to list numbers which have played and important part of your life.

For my page I decided to write down different numeral events from my life and then I drew bubbles around them all. Then to add interest I drew lines and coloured them in to make it look like a mosaic stained glass window with gel pens:

A Perfect Cup Of Tea Page

Another page taken from my Teesha stash of journal pages, original page design artist is Rebecca. I loved the simplicity of this page and decided to use the Tea theme as my inspiration. What makes a perfect cup of tea? A very good question as we are all different and we all have different preferences, heres mine!

Whats YOUR perfect cup of tea?

Life Is Too Short Page

Heres another page taken from my Teesha Moore Journal Swap, this one was also created by Maggi too! This page had a party theme, I decided to use that as my jumping ground for my creativity and went down the 'life is too short. lets party' route.

I like this page because Ive used some of my favourite John Lennon lyrics on the page:

After All Is Said And Done,
You Cant Go Pleasing Everyone,
So Screw It.

You cant put it better than that can you?! It is so true, a sentiment I now live by!

Heres the scan of my page:

Imagine Page

I recently took part in a Teesha Moore Style Journal Page Swap on our Swap Group, we each had to create blank decorated journal pages in the style of Teesha Moore. In return we recieved gorgeous artwork created by all the participants of the swap. We are supposed to now bind these pages and make them into a sketchbook which we can use.

I decided to start decorating my journal pages first prior to binding them so that I could work on them in stages and also to allow me to work freely without the bindings or other pages getting in the way.

Here is one of the first pages I decorated, which was created by Maggi, I decided for this project Im undertaking Im going to use the main journal theme for my inspiration when I do my journalling.

Here is my 'Imagine' Page:

Family Traits Page

For this page we are supposed to come up with a family tree of sorts of our relatives whom we are most alike and have inherited traits from.

After much thought I decided that I didnt really take after anyone in my family apart from my father. I found a photo of him taken when I was a toddler and decided to put that on the page along with a more recent photo of myself to show that we do look similar. We are alike in many ways and this is a cause of much annoyance on my part sometimes. The same features, expressions, same greying hair, same mood swings and stupid sense of humour too.

Happiest Moment Page

For this page we had to pick one of our happiest moments and do a page about it. A strange thing happened to me when I did this page, instead of doodling and decorating the page first I just put pen to paper and started writing whatever flowed into my mind. While I was writing it I realised that I loved writing and am starting to develop a thirst for it!

The Year I Was Born Page

I was born in 1968, for this page I had to think up of one event or moment that happened during the year of 1968. At first I was going to do something about flower power and the summer of love, then I thought maybe do something about the birth of Apple Records or possibly the making of the movies The Graduate or Space Oddessy 2001. But none of those felt right so I didnt know what to choose.

I went to google and googled for 1968 and after a lengthy search I discovered that it was also the year that Helen Keller died. I dont think this is really a morose or morbid topic to choose because Helen Keller has always been a huge source of inspiration to me. I remember when I first learnt about her at school and I was fascinated, being a young deaf child myself I saw a lot of similaries in her struggle and it was through Helens life story that I was able to overcome some of my own demons regarding being deaf.

So I think this page dedication is a very apt and special one for me, here it is:

If I Was Queen Page

For this page you had to write down some rules which you would pass if you happened to be Queen - its supposed to be a lighthearted page but some of my rules arent that lighthearted! But nevertheless I still enjoyed creating this page!

My Childhood Friend Page

I havent yet added this prompt to my prompts list but I will do! I wanted to do a page dedicated to my childhood friend. In my case my childhood friend was my pony called Smokey, Smokey has long since gone to the big field in the sky but I will always remember him. Ive always preferred the company of animals over people. Heres my page dedicated to the silly bugger of a horse with a daft sense of humour as you can see from his photo in the page below:

My Dog Harry Page

Heres another page, I started this yesterday and have just finished it off now. This page is dedicated to my gorgeous JRT.

Auntie Maud Page

Ive been taking a notebook to bed with me so I can write notes and ideas down for my journal. Last night I wrote a short story about my childhood about a family member called Auntie Maud. I decided to use this story in my sketchbook today, I havent decorated the page for this as I didnt want anything to distract away from the story about my Auntie Maud. Heres the page I just did:

For those of you who are wondering who my Auntie Maud was, she was infact my grandad! He used to get dressed up in my Nans clothes and wig and pretend to be Auntie Maud!

When I Grow Up Page

Finished this page last night, Ive always wanted to be an artist ever since I was small. My dream was to leave school and go to Art College, but I never got to do that because my father insisted that there was no future in doing art and that I should learn something proper instead

At least now in my adult life I can realise my dreams and spend my days trying to be artistic, better late than never!

I decided to make this page look like it was written on a school book with lines drawn across to help you draw the letters - I was always getting told off for my messy writing at school and constantly told to practise on lined paper like this! The pictures I used are one of myself when I was little sitting on a tiger ride and alongside a picture of Frida Kahlo a true inspirational artist which is what Ive always aspired to be.

10 Things I Love Page

Heres the second page I have done for my personal art journal. I originally set the prompt for 8 things I love, but I since changed it to 10 things I love!! For this page I drew on the doodles and the numbers and lettering using a black fineliner pen. Then using a maroon gel ink pen I filled in all the blanks. Highlights where added using gold gel pen. The orange background was done with watercolours.
Heres my scan:

Whats My Name Page

Heres my very first page in my artists sketchbook which I finished last night. The idea round this page is to spell out your name on the page and use each letter of your name to spell out a word you think best describes you! I found this a real challenge because I couldnt think of any positive words to describe myself!!

Heres my page what I did, the background was created with watercolours and apart from the cut out letters on the page spelling out my name and words I chose to describe me; the rest is done by doodling with black and white pens.