Virginia's DID CJ

"You're So Cool" - a song from one of Virginia's favourite films, True Romance and one that means a lot to her as it was played during her wedding ceremony. I have seen the film but a long time ago so I looked it up and it was the final scene that stuck in my mind when you see the couple and their little boy, Elvis... I know Virginia and her soulmate have a boy and so I came up with the idea of a couple silhouetted at sunset to represent the happy ending of the film but also represent Virginia's own family.

I painted the sunset background, cut the silhouette out and painted over it black then cut the You're So Cool out on vinyl. I wasn't sure if it was too plain but I didn't want to add to it for the sake of it and nothing was springing to mind so I figured if Virginia felt it needed something else she could add to it herself :o)

On the back again I kept it simple painting it black and adding the film title:

I was about to sign it when I realised there were separate sign-in... a narrow escape 

Sonja's CJ

Only two songs left so I chose Amy Macdonald- I've not really heard much of her stuff but I really really liked this one, specifically the lyrics when i googled them- they spoke so much to me of what I encounter in my work when young people are misunderstood and everyone thinks their generation did or knew better

"Maybe if you were some spearheaded guy

I would listen to what you have to say

But you're just some incapable figure

Thinking you're bigger than me. but you're not

Yet you don't know a thing about the youth of today

Stating your opinion and making it ring in my head all day

And you say,

'My children weren't the same'

'My children's children they're the ones to blame'

And you say

'In my day we were better behaved'

But it's not your day no more...'

So I went for a graffiti thing which made a good excuse for buying another mask :)

I used carving paste to push through the mask to do the wall on which I did my little bit of graffiti - it takes an age to dry and don't even think of using a hair dryer or heat gun! (I did experiment first)

The back depicts what Sonja felt about the  song and why it is in the CJ , which I thought was a nice contrast to the front 

Pam's Corpse

I love my Corpse :) 

Thank you everyone for the bits you did :)

Open: the Royal Mail-proof, stay-at-home, collaborative circle journal

Open: the Stay-At-Home CJ

So, with our first circle journal now drawing to a close, it's time to think about what might fill the void....

As most of you know, unfortunately the Desert Island Discs CJ suffered a casualty at the hands of the postal service, with one of the books (mine, sob) lost in transit as it neared the home stretch.

This, and the ever increasing cost of postage, has put a few people off the idea of doing a traditional CJ again straight away ... and so I have been looking into alternative ideas that will allow us to work on a journal of our own at home, while still retaining the challenge of a circle journal (working with other peoples' themes etc), and a collaborative twist....

And I think I've found something that might.....just.....work!

My inspiration has come from the two posts below on the fabulous Roz Wound Up blog, so have a click and a read of  those first, and then I'll go into a bit more detail of how I see this working for us on Collabor-ART:

• http://rozwoundup.typepad.com/roz_wound_up/2013/02/mcba-visual-journal-collectives-new-collaborative-projectdetails-and-deadline.html

• http://rozwoundup.typepad.com/roz_wound_up/2013/06/the-not-so-blank-page-journal-a-peek.html

So - the first step would be for each participant to produce a background page - just the one - dimensions 8" by 10".  This can be in colour or monochrome, painted or collaged or stamped, whatever you like as long as it is FLAT (as it will need to be scanned and printed).  These will then be posted to me and I will make a full set of colour copies of all the backgrounds for everyone taking part. 

These will then be posted back out, and from that point on there's no more posting, each month we will all work on the same background, and create a page to the theme set by the background's original artist.

On the last day of each month, Sarah will upload a blog post with everyone's artwork, it will be really interesting to see how each of us interprets the same theme on the same background, totally differently! :)

(This is a change from the original plan - rather than everyone blog independently I thought it would make more sense if I upload the lot together - participants please see the instruction letter in with your backgrounds which will tell you where to email your artwork and by when....)

I hope that all makes sense - I don't have a great track record for explaining these projects very clearly!

Sooooooo - please sign up below if you are interested!

Or ask me questions on the Facebook group or on the comments here if you're still not sure.....


1.  Sarah - theme 'song lyrics'
2. GlitteryKatie- theme 'Cogs & Wheels and Rust!'
3.  Virginia - theme 'Shakespeare' - characters or quotes whatever goes
4. Carmen -theme 'Beastie'
5.  Wisher - theme 'Art in my Heart'
6.  Sami- theme 'Mermaid Tales'
7.  Pat - theme 'Steampunk'
8. Lou - theme 'for the love of TREEs'
9. Pam - theme 'Innocence and Experience'
10.


Details:

Host: Sarah (Flo)

Maximum number of participants: 10

Timing:

8" x 10" Backgrounds completed and posted to Sarah, with an A4 sized SAE with a 'large' stamp, by:  20th August 2013

Copies made and sent back to participants by : 31st August 2013

First artwork reveal : 30th September 2013

Thereafter, please email your artwork to Sarah by the last day of every month

Before signing up, please read the list of monthly requirements below to be sure that you will be able to comply:

• You'll need to be able to email your page on or before the last day of the month each month -  please don't be late.  Please also hold off posting pics on your own blogs, facebook, instagram etc before the reveal date.  The fun in this one will be that none of us will have yet seen what everybody else did with the same background when we do our own interpretation.
• If you are not going to be able to email on time please let the host know
• Please sign up with at least the intention to stick with the project for 10 months!  (obviously if something totally unexpected happens and you need to back down, that’s fine, we will be able to work around unforeseen problems, but please don’t sign up if you already KNOW you have a major life change planned part way through this CJ that will disrupt your ability to take part)

Everybody shake your stuff! Nigel's DID CJ

You know I'm going to be gutted when this CJ is over, I've had so much fun with it!  I only have Sonja's still to do and then that's my lot :(

Anyway - here's my entry in Nigel's CJ

As he's currently recuperating, I doubt he will be doing much breakdancing at the moment! but I hope that this spread reminds him of fun times at the forces discos :)

My string of luck continues this month, and despite there only being two songs left to choose from on Nigel's list, the one I really wanted right from the start was still available - Street Tuff by Double Trouble and the Rebel MC - love this choooooon! :)

So I started with the concept of "double trouble", I was thinking evil twins a la the Shining:

But then my other half said "what about the Krays?" - genius ....

So I went about cutting a 5"square 4-layer stencil of Ronnie and Reggie..... what was I thinking??? It took ages and gave me a finger blister!

Here are the 4 layers cut out:

Fiddly little so and sos!

And here it is part used, this is layers 1, 2 and 3 before the final black layer goes on:











And here's the end result:

I do like the way it turned out but it was a lot of work!  I need to find some other use for that Krays stencil now :D

For the inside spread I wanted breakdancers, so I cut some masks out from copier paper, being sure to cut them in one piece so I could use both the positive and negative parts of the stencil:

And then I took inspiration from something I had seen Andy Skinner do in one of his videos, to create my little "disco" scene using the gelli plate:

and that's about it, other than my sign in bit on the back:

From that angle you can see the "double trouble" is dimensional - the little title tiles were made using shrink plastic, as I wanted to use these graffiti bubble writing style alphabet stamps, they have a very old school hip hop feel to them, but they were way too big.

After finishing my own entry I did have a good look through the others to see if any of them cried out for the collaboration treatment - but most have already been added to quite a lot.  So all I did was add a couple of bolts of electricity coming out of the cool pylon/transmitter on Virginia's Queen page:

And then I called it a day.

Nigel - I hope you like it!

Sarah's exquisite monster

Woohoo!  my monster is home, and I love him :)

Isn't he awesome :D

From left to right, Karen's tail, Jazz's back leg, Carmen's front leg (complete with real bearded dragon skin!), and my head.

And here are the bits I did for the others in my group:

a torso for Karen:
















A lower torso for Jazz - she wanted a tooled up steampunk badass, with a stick, I hope this fits the bill! :)

and some tentacles for Carmen:

Desert Island Discs for Sian

This is a bit belated as I sent the CJ away at the beginning of the month but I'm slowly getting out the bit again and normal service is resuming hopefully.

This entry is based on the song "That Day" by Natalie Imbruglia and was one I hadn't really heard before. It is important to Sian however and I wanted to do an uplifting entry for her plus I'm really liking yellow at the moment.

This is the title page with the song lyrics and I used some Maya Mist and Dylusions sprays with a vintage doily I have. The stamp is a Unity Brave Girl one. 

This page I layered down book pages and texture paste using a Studio Calico mask. I then sprayed the same colour combination through the doily again. The line that inspired me was about sitting in the sun and I imagined getting strength and warmth from it. I'm still drawing heads as well so I thought it was fitting to have her facing my sun. The hair is a combination of Neocolors and Sharpie poster paint pens. The alpha stamps are Studio Calico while the rest are VivaLasVegas and more Unity Brave Girls.

I hope Sian likes it and it satisfies her brief. We're on the home straight now and I have so enjoyed the journals. TFL. Sonja x

Pat's entry for Donna's CJ

Jessie J's Price Tag

(CJ is looking fabulous)

Rebecca's Exquisite Corpse

Here (finally) is my fabulously freaky face from the exquisite corpse project. Sorry it took so long to get it up here but having no camera is seriously affecting my blogging!

Top left - Me Top right - Glittery Katie (living up to her name!) Bottom left - Pam Bottom Right - Virginia

Thank you all ladies - I luuuuurve my freaky lady and she hangs in my craft area to inspire me. I think she's beautiful.

Cheers, Bex

Donna's Corpse

fabulous don't you think????

Carmen's Corpse

My Exquisite Corpse has landed and it's truly bonkers. Thank you so much to Jazz, Karen and Sarah for your fantastic contributions to my monster! Mwuhahahaha!

Head - Carmen, Tentacles - Jazz, Scaly waist - Karen, Octofeet - Sarah

I'm going to add some colour to the second piece background and then going to frame her - I love her!