Art Journal Cafe Challenge: 30 Minute Page

I'm so happy to share that I am the Guest Artist for the month at The Art Journal Cafe! The AJC has art journaling challenges on the 1st and 15th of each month and articles/ideas/inspiration throughout the month as well.  The artists who run it are based in Belgium, and the blog is written in French and English, with a Google Translate option for others.

When I learned the theme for today's challenge, I found it a bit daunting.  I tend to work in my art journals in many sittings, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, that sort of thing. I work in many journals at once and rarely complete a page in one sitting. This challenge is to make a 30 minute page. Period. Set the timer, too!

I didn't want to overthink it but I also didn't want to send in something unpleasing. Then I remembered something I read on Carolyn Dube's blog a few weeks ago. That particular post is titled "Don't Take a Canvas Too Seriously" and I encourage you to pop over and read it.  As Carolyn says, it's not like lives are in the balance. I believe you can transfer that thought to any happy art making you may do. It's just a journal page. Have fun with it.

My main thought on a 30-minute page was I couldn't use a lot of wet medium as I don't have much drying time.  So I did a verrrry thin layer of blue paint first, leaving some of the page itself showing in places, heat dried it, and then built up the rest of the colors with gelatos, distress inks, and archival inks.

I used distress ink through several stencils and stamped the letters and vines in jet black archival ink. I had a fairly decent stamping mishap after building up my base. When I stamped the female image on the page it smeared badly. Is there a good smear?

I just restamped her on manila cardstock and colored her in with colored pencils and distress markers. I wanted to carry that yellow out off the colored image so I stamped some of Dyan Reaveley's circle border and cut out a few of the circles for random placement.

So, to wrap up... some of the stamping isn't perfect but it was true to the challenge, a 30-minute page.  No lives were harmed in the creation of this page.  (Thanks, Carolyn, for the perspective!) I made it with nearly a minute to spare:

I hope you'll pop on over to The Art Journal Cafe and join us in this challenge.  Also, poke around their blog for lots of inspiration!

Marjie

Comments

[Marja]

Beautiful page Marjii. Lovely and beautiful colors. Like the face.
Lovely greet and nice weekend
Marja

[Brenda Brown]

A vibrant and eye-catching page Marjie, can't believe it only took 30 minutes. I went over to Carolyn's blog too, so I must hold that mantra in my head because I spend far tooooooo long just thinking.
Have a great weekend.
hugs {brenda} xox

[Helen Tilbury]

Phew Marjie it's brilliant! 30 minutes - that's amazing!! I think it's very good advice not to overthink one's art...

[CraftyDawn]

I love your Journal spread and the confession and how you fixed it. I really like what you came up with and this is a stand out page and lots of good tips to use along the way. I also work like you several journals on the go and lots of wet medium, thanks for sharing, i enjoyed the read as well as your pages. I also do a monthly Journal challenge. But I love this idea and might join in as well. Off to have a look at the link for the AJC xx

[SusanK]

I guess I need to look into the AJ thing more. I've only done a tiny bit; have always been afraid of that white page staring me in the face and the need for perfection, or something like it. lol Will put my big girl panties and like Nike says, 'Just do it!' lol

[trisha too]

Marjie, I read that post, too--it really DID put things in perspective, didn't it? Your pages turned out great!

:)

[Valerie-Jael]

Great journal page, great colours! Valerie

[Lynne Moncrieff]

Incredible to believe you created this from scratch in 30 minutes Marjie, amazing colours achieved (especially as so little wet medium used) and I like that the female image is so distinctive, she could easily have got swallowed up but no, perfect balance. Also, I love that sentiment.
Fabulous work.
Wishes
Lynne

[kate]

Woohoo! THis page is great Marjie - cna't believe you made it so quickly! Congrats on being the guest artist :-))

[jane w.]

PERFECT! Great challenge..better go check it out :)

[Julia]

I think your page is fantastic Marjie! Love the lady stamp. I so enjoyed reading this post - your 'story' is human - love how you tell us about your mistake! - instructive and just SO real!
Not sure I could make anything in 30 mins so my hat is off to you and I'm saluting you too!!
Have a great weekend.
Juliaxx

[Sue W.]

Love how you ended up with 53 seconds left! Great page. I'm gonna have to give this a whirl!

[butterfly]

Hey Marjie... I saw this morning that you were guesting on AJC (a site I've just discovered as I set off on journalling)... and this is an amazing page by any standards - then when you think it only took 30 mins... wow! Definitely going to have a play this fortnight, thank you so much for the inspiration.
Alison x

[Alison]

Fantastic page Marjie, the colour of the background is gorgeous, so much depth!
Alisob x

[Alie Hoogenboezem-de Vries]

Congrats with your guestdesignership on AJC Marjie! And these AJ pages are so nice, you can do great in 30 minutes...I always think: Just go with the flow (and let it happen)

Have a great Sunday! Greetings, Alie :-)

[Anita Houston]

Gorgeous and in 30 minutes is impressive to say the least! Congrats on another fab Guest Spot!!! That's awesome and so are you!

[Susie Jefferson]

Yaaaay! Way to go!

[Tracy Evans]

Grewt journal page, absolutely love the colour and great text and image too. Tracy x

[KimMJ]

Beautiful page! Love the sentiment and the colors are gorgeous. On my way to read the article :) Thanx for sharing

[Anne R]

I always find your work amazing and truly inspiring but this time I am totally impressed Marjie and you did it with time to spare - wow, you really are the Queen of ink and colour - and now speed. Love it! Crafty hugs, Anne x

[Alexa Noble]

I think she looks better for being on manilla!! Great page - Im going to do this 30 mins challenger when the kids are back to school and I get that 30 mins uninterrupted!!!!

[PetraB]

A terrific page, so rich in colour ... and all in 30 minutes! I might have a go .....

[Nicie Ibarra]

Marjie, congrats on being a Guest Artist on yet another blog. VERY well deserved!!!!! This is a gorgeous journal page!!!!!! I have tried the journaling thing but find it stressful. Thanks for mentioning Carolyn Dube's blog. I really liked her article and has given me a little more courage to try journaling again! :)

Hugs!

Nicie

[Lisa Somerville]

Beautiful journal pages - love the colors!

[fern cawley edwards]

Love the concept and your page - you got me going !