Loosening Up with Journaling by 5's...

Hey there friends!  Happy April!  How goes it in your neck of the woods?  As we speak I am watching the most beautiful lavender mourning dove perched on the edge of the birdbath in our yard. He is holding on for dear life, cuz it's incredibly windy here today.  So windy in fact, that I had to go out and fetch our gutters that blew right off the house!  But the sun is shining and it's warm so I am happy!

Anyhoo, I have something fun to share with you today - I recently discovered a new thing called "Journaling by 5s;" a system created by Shannon Green, with the idea of making art journaling more casual, fun and quick.  It's like a game, where you race against the clock, and end up with 20 finished art journal pages when you are done!

I decided to give it a try, and want to share my results so far with you!

To get the whole scoop, visit Shannon's blog, or youtube channel; but here's the general guidelines:

-->

Journaling by 5’s

5-10-15-20

5 sessions--all in one day or just one a week...your choice.
10 prompts--2 per session, feel free to make substitutions.
15 minutes per session--that gives you 45 seconds per page so don't mess around!
20 pages--just one side of a sheet of paper, not both sides.

These are the recommended prompts for each session. You may make substitutions to fit what you have on hand:

Session 1-Background: Paint, Ink
Session 2-Texture: Collage, Recycle
Session 3-Pattern: Stamps, Stencils
Session 4-Focal Point: Words, Images
Session 5-Details: Pen, Pencil

So far I have done sessions one and two.

THE SETUP:
I decided to use this journal, which I created years ago, and never did anything with...

 It's a 5"x8" altered book, and I thought the title "play" fit just perfect, right?

It also had just the right number of pages.  Here they are, all laid out on my work table, along with a few bottles of paint, two brushes, a credit card and my water container.  Most of the pages are from the actual book, but there is also one scrapbook page, and one orange envelope in the mix.  A few pages already had a swipe of paint on them, but I plan to add more...

SESSION ONE - PAINT:
I set the timer to 15 minutes and began. Here's what I ended up with at the end of the 15 minute session.  It was fun!  and not hard at all to get all 20 pages done within the time limit...

SESSION TWO - COLLAGE:
I knew this one would be more difficult.  I set this session up at my computer desk...

I grabbed a bunch of papers from my "paper bits" box, and made one pile of neutral colored scraps to the right of my work area...

put my stack of pages in the middle...

and a pile of colored scraps to the left...

set the timer on my ipad to 15 minutes, and began...

when the timer went off this is what my work area looked like.  The small stack in the upper right corner are pages that I never got to.  LOL. 

Here is the unfinished pile up close.  There are seven pages left.  I will have to make up for their lack of collage in the later steps...

Here's how they all look after session two was complete...

I actually took the time to cut a heart on the first one.  What was I thinking?

I think I also spent too much time worrying about which colors would look best on the page.  HA. Live and learn!  :)


But I must say I had tons of fun, and I'm really happy with how they turned out...

even if the last seven are sans collage...

I can't thank Shannon enough for coming up with this idea!  The first two steps have been sooo much fun!  I will be doing the next three steps soon, and I will keep you updated!

Wanna try it?  Here's the link to Shannon's blog and youtube channel again.  Let me know what you think!  I hope you have fun!

Thanks so much for visiting!