August 9th, 2010
by Rhomany
You know that first day back at work where you know there’s a whole heap of things you need ot get on with but it’s just not happening?
Boy howdy.
I’m trying. I have so much to do and catch up on, but haven’t quite come out of holiday mode. I’ve made a to do list and gotten rid of all the quick and easy things over the last few days, so I feel like I’ve achieved something. But I have a couple of huge projects I need to get stuck into and haven’t quite managed to get into them just yet. It’s coming, I can feel it, but it’s not happening today.
So, here’s a few pics of where I went. We stayed in the converted stables and blacksmith at Schaloen Castle
Plain and simple inside, but perfectly spacious for 6 of us (we had two apartments for the group in all)
Here’s the Castle itself
There were beautiful botanical gardens adjoining the Castle and at the back was a nature reserve, with strange shrines growing in the trees
The rest of the photos all have people in them and I don’t have permission to post them. I can post their cats though so here’s Steve’s gorgeous cat Vazquez
and these two Siamese beauties are Kelos and Beren who belong to Eline and Rien
That’s it for holiday pics. If you were part of the group you can see the rest over on the Truewatch photo album. If you weren’t, you’ll just have to use your imagination and picture 12 gamers wandering around Holland and Belgium, samping beer and getting into mischief. Shouldn’t be too hard.
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July 13th, 2010
by Rhomany
Yes, I totally stole this image from Connie at Dirty Footprints Studio. If you have 5, grab a brew and go check out her 30 Journals, 30 Days post happening right through July.
Last week was busy with personal stuff. This week is busy with art stuff while I catch up and music stuff while I unwind.
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June 30th, 2010
by Rhomany
And we're off!
Apart from a few minor tweaks and links that I still need to do, website functionality has mostly returned, so those of you who have this blog in you rss feeds should be getting this sometime soon 
Not sure if networked blogs and whatnot have updated yet, but the fundamentals of the site are the same, so hopefully we won’t have any trouble there either.
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June 25th, 2010
by Rhomany
I spent the Summer Solstice running errands in town on a very hot day, having left my purse at home. I had to answer about 200 questions at the bank to get £10 out, but the woman was very nice about it and very helpful. The stress of running town errands on a 28 degree day called for an iced coffee concoction and some journaling time to cool off (Costa has air conditioning – yay!)
This is what happened…
'Summer Solstice' 8x5" art journal page, 2010 Klair Scattergood
Another change of style? Oh yes.
I touched on this in my interview last night with Blade over on The Artistic Biker’s U-Stream show. If you’re not familiar with Blade’s show and you enjoy art journaling you should check it out. The shows are recorded so you don’t have to watch them in real time. They’re not how-to shows, they’re more working shows. He uses a different technique each week and shows you what he’s doing as well as answering questions from the chat room and updating what’s happening in the art & art journaling world.
One of the things we discussed was organic journaling. Not just on one page, but in the life of your journals full stop. Truth is, I rarely do the same thing for any length of time because I get bored. Art journaling is not about doing what everyone else does or using specific techniques. It’s about doing what feels right today. Back in May I was thinking I wanted to do more painting and sketching in my journal, so I have a 40 page journal on watercolour paper that is full of paintings. But then I had to work on paintings for a gallery show and when I’m done with a 10 hour day of painting the very last thing I want to do is paint in my journal! So I went back to basics and returned to my illustration roots. My current book is all about the pens and collage.
This page is just a simple illustration with a Pilot g-tec c4 ultra fine sepia ball pen. That’s it. No fancy stuff, no paints, no gesso. For this entire page I used a pencil & eraser (for the initial sketch), the sepia pen for the colour and an ordinary Fine point crystal orange Bic Biro for the writing. No need for an outside journaling supply kit, in fact I didn’t even need a pencil case really, I could have just shoved the bits in a pocket of my bag.
Like Blade said last night, you can do whatever you want in your journal and “no one can tell you that it’s not good because it’s not theirs.” Once you get past your own judgements about what you think of your pages and decide that it’s OK if you have a page of paints, then collage, then writing, then a pencil sketch, then some scrap that you scribbled out and then another collage page, you will start to enjoy the process a lot more.
That’s the central point of all my workshops that I try my best to get across to everyone; do what you want to do today and forget having a style or a technique or a single way of doing things. It will open up a whole new world of possibilities in your art journaling.
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June 11th, 2010
by Rhomany
Well, it’s been a bit of a busy week round here. Amongst other things I’m finishing off the pieces for the gallery for next week, working on 2 top sekrit projects simultaneously and attempting to get travel arrangements made for a very much needed weekend away in July.
Speaking of which, I’ve been looking for a perfect little travel journal to take with me. I normally go with a pocket Moleskine, but I’ve been disappointed in the Moleskine quality the last few times I bought one, so I wanted to try something new. It needs to be something tiny I can fit in my pocket but chunky enough paper to take watercolour and ink.
Then earlier this weekend this little cutie arrived on my doorstep. Here’s Crowe ‘modelling’ it for us.
It comes from the bookshelves of Roz Stendhal, bookbinder extraordinaire. I did her a little techie favour, she wanted to thank me, this book needed a new home, the book made it’s way to me.
It’s beautifully made. The back is all linen bookcloth and the front is this funky watercolour style paper you see in the picture. Inside it’s made of torn edge Gutenberg paper, which I’ve never used, but it’s a lovely buff colour with little black bits like poppy seeds and feels really rough,but takes media smoothly – I’ve already opened it to the back page and tested all my paints and pens on it as usual! It works really well with my ink pen even though it looks like the texture is rough.
I’m thinking it’s going to be perfect for my little jaunt and I can’t wait to use it. I plan on working mostly in pen & ink with watercolours while I’m away so that I can travel light and this will do the job nicely. Plus, it’s so tiny it’ll fit in any pocket alongside my miniature watercolour set.
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