The Pen and Ink Journal

The Pen and Ink Journal

Or... my understanding of a Witch's Grimoire or 
Wizard Journal or perhaps an Ashmole 782.

This is my most recent art project,  a pen and ink journal. As artists, one of our biggest challenges is "What do I paint?" (or draw, or create). This little journal gave me a direction for everyday. I hope to document it in a way that explains my process as well hoping to keep you interested in the content.

I call it "Wonder, Dreams and Curiosities".

I have my faith in God, and I am also drawn to Harry Potter and Witches and all things magical. I see nothing wrong with this. Perhaps you shouldn't read any further, if this will aggravate your sensibilities. It was meant to be a little dark. It was meant to answer many of my questions about topics that I've been taught are taboo. 

When painting and writing about a subject, it requires some research and understanding of the topic, whether it be an armadillo or Tarot cards. So research I did. 

I WONDER and I DREAM and I have many, many CURIOSITIES.

While walking through Target, and past the clearance bin, there stacked neatly were a dozen "Lay Flat" journals. The inside pages were all brown (ish)  and not the usual white, so I wasn't sure I wanted it. However at $3.00 I couldn't go wrong. It sat in my studio for a long time until I went to Universal Studio and saw the Harry Potter City. Oh my!

 I couldn't wait to make my own Grimoire ... spell book ... Ashmole 782 ... or Wizard Book.
Don't we love all things magical?

I am so glad the "Lay Flat" ended up in my shopping cart,
all 242 pages of it!

This is the book distressed and finished on the left, and I bought a few more
(Walmart~ on line) to show the before and after.
This is the same book.

You can see it has brown pages. These pages were wonderful to work on. They took ink, water, paint,  pastels, chalks, stamping and then I  even ironed them! This paper is tough and takes a lot of abuse.

By the time I finished (242 pages) it had grown to twice its thickness.

I had to re~glue the spine (E6000 glue with clamps to hold in place) to reattach it.

It looks like I had imagined, a very old, ancient and worn, magical book that you have to blow the dust off when you pull it from the shelf. When you open it, it is surrounded by a glow of light with an  iridescent shimmer that casts shadows into the corners and may cause a slight shock to your fingers when you first touch it.

Supplies:

tissue paper (I use old sewing patterns)

Mod Podge

soft, thin leather strip for spine

paint brush

Polycrylic (Minwax) or a sealer (use flat or Matt)

acrylic paints: I used a dark brown, chocolate bar and metallic gold

Directions:

Start with the back cover (for practice) and apply an even coat of Mod Podge.

Smooth the tissue paper out carefully.

Repeat on the front cover.

Cut a strip of leather to cover the spine and slightly wrap the front and back cover. Mine covers the front and back  only about a 1/4 inch. I used a generous supply of E6000 glue. I needed it to stay through a lot of abuse. This is an important step because it will really help support the book, plus it adds to the old look.

Paint the entire book brown. I mixed in a little black on the edges.

Now, by the time I finished the book, I had completely worn off the title. Which was fine by me because I changed the name of the the book. It also had lots of paint smudges on it that needed to be painted over. 

In the end, I found the new name and did the layout. I used a Sharpie to do the line work and then filled in all of the lines with Gold Metallic paint.

I sanded out parts of the Gold to make it look worn.

Finally I sealed it with 2 coats of Minwax Polycrylic.

  

See the inside and how I aged the papers in upcoming posts

xo

k