{Sneak Peek at Alice Muchness...}

Discovered something new.  Word bubbles

This is just my first attempt at using these word bubbles and thinking about

how I might use them. 

And of course my new Alice in Wonderland Art Journal

seemed to be a perfect fit.

I am already thinking of more words to add

so the finished versions will be different I am sure.

And I will undoubtly use them more than once.

{New Alice in Wonderland Journal}

I have been wanting to create another Alice in Wonderland

Journal. 

About a year ago I create my first Alice journal.

Since then it has sold.

And although it was sold to a wonderful friend who gave it to her sister

as a gift ~ both real Alice lovers.

I have missed it.

So when I was wondering around the antique store the other day and

game across this rabbit head puppet I just knew

he was the beginning of the new Alice in Wonderland Journal.

I'm not sure how I will use it yet.

Whether it is use as a 3D piece or whether I take photos to use.

Either way he gets new cloths first.

Curiouser and Curiouser

I've been busy the last couple of weeks. Finishing the art journal I started at the very beginning of my blog. It was Misty Mawn's challenge that helped me keep going with blogging. We had some really great weather for gardening. SO I dig up all the bushes in front of my house and plan to start over with something less crowded. I have also been listening to some tutorials trying to learn more about Photoshop. And getting my portfolio ready for a new art gallery downtown, Tis. I will have to find out if they have a web page up yet. Pictures for my portfolio will be the next posts.

For now

here are the final photos of my art journal on Alice in Wonderland. Which I plan to submit for the Ex Libris show at PFAA. I have added many embellishments and "rewrites". It's feeling complete. With plenty of room for adding additional items and words as time goes on.

The final cover.

The book is titled Curiouser and Curiouser

This was a "rewrite" I like it a lot more than the original page. This one is more colorful and easier to read.

Inside pages of journal

Inside back cover pages

ALice iN wOnderLand JoUrnAl

Can you tell where the flamingo legs are ?

The journal is bound. I still want to put a very more embellishments here and there and some on the cover.

When I was younger I never read Alice in Wonderland because of all the insanity.

Now have spent several weeks with the book and journal I see a very different tale.

I found I was not the only one who found Alice as a child to be too insane or even scary.

For all of you I hope this journal can also bring a fresh view of life and Alice.

Can you see the flamingo page?

Through the Looking Glass

Inside back cover. I don't know which magazine I found the picture in or even when I cut it out. And I certainly did not know it would end up in an art journal on Alice in Wonderland on my blog no less!

"Will you come and join the dance?"

Will you won't you, will you won't you, will you join the dance? Photo by Peter Hinson and Selene Gibbous which I got in Artful Blogging magazine. The flowers were cut out of another photo also from Artful Blogging magazine.

"One can't believe impossible things" "or can we?"

I say not only can we. But we should. After all the queen did - and as many as six - seamingly impossible things before breakfast no less! Today I believed I won the lottery and sailed across the oceans, that I ate dinner in the flower garden where I take long quite walks, that I rode my bicycle with a flower basket along the seashore and the sun shining, I danced in a meadow, sipped lattes on the deck over looking the mountains with not a care in the world and swam in my pool under the moonlight.

This is how the page looks in the finished journal. It is the center fold of the book with a smaller book within a book. The photo is by ellemoss. "a very merry unbirthday to you."

The Queen's Croquet Game

We've got a snow day. Yes I know I'm in Arizona but I live in the mountains so sometimes we get snow. And we got it yesterday and last night. So I thought I take sometime this morning to post another page to the Alice journal. This is a favorite picture. I'm not sure what you would call them. The wire croquet "baskets" but I love the way Natasha Burns uses them. I found this photo in Artful Blogging winter 2009. I have played croquet since I was a kid. And still love it. Although never with a flamingo. But it would be fun to give it a try.

The quote reads

“Tis so,” said the Duchess: “and the moral of it is –

‘Oh,’ tis love, tis love,

that makes the world go round!"

The facing page. Another quote goes on:

“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess;
“and the moral of that is

‘Be what you would seem to be” or,

if you’d like it put more simply –

‘Never imagine yourself
not to be otherwise

than what it might appear to others
that what you were"

Having never really read Alice in Wonderland before, either as a child or as an adult. It was just to crazy or should I say mad to read. But having spend some time studying it for this journal I have found that once you sort through the madness you can begin to glean the truths from it.

Just like life.

Isn't it!

And of course I wanted to include the Mad Hatters Tea Party.
I want to show the beauty of what this tea party represents not the insane madness of it. Photo by sandra evertson

We have enough of that.

I did this with pictures spread out among many pages.
Including a little book within a book. (a seek peek)

I did, however, include the riddle;

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?

I will include an answer to the riddle!!!!!!

Not from Lewis Carroll but from Illustrator Ralph Steadman. I will include the answer on the page page of the book.

...which way ought I go from here?

These
mushrooms
are
soooooooo
Alice in Wonder-
land.

I feel so lucky to have them in my very own garden.
The Cheshire cat is one of the symbols I wanted to include in the journal.

Why?

Because this quote is worth
remembering.

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

" I don't much care where."
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go."

So often just like Alice we look to someone else to tell us where we should go, who we should be, when, or how we should do something. We truly are lost, to ourshelves, and to this most enchanting world we live in.

Know where you want to go!

bUnchEs of JournAl PaGes cOmIng

I've got lots of journal pages to post. I am so on a roll creating them
I can't slow down long enough
to post.

But I'm taking pics as I go.
I have even changed one of the others.
I just didn't like it all that much.

And when something just isn't "right"

I can't stop thinking about it until it feels right.

Maybe once I changed that page the others

all just starting flowing so smoothly.

How Perfect Life Is

Here another journal page. It is a photo from ellemoss's shop on Etsy. I printed it on fabric so the colors a bit more muted then the original. With free motion stitching around the edge. Which also adds to the otherside. And I really needed to add another color. The pink was getting to be tooooooo much.

I like how the stitching used on the reverse side adds dimension to this page too. A "twofur". It's amazing how much I can get done when I get to stay home. I just love being at home. I even like to clean my house. But only after playing first. How "Alice" of me. ;-) Lovin Life.

PonDErings and MUsingS

Here is another page. I wanted to get this page done last weekend but it didn't work out that way. It was perfect I didn't get to it. I didn't have the pictures last weekend. I got them yesterday from a friend who brought me the Anthropologie catalog. With this teapot and mushrooms in it. How perfect for this journal. Now It's complete.

I hope to be home at least a little bit this weekend to do more pages. Perhaps I will put the spine on the front and back covers of the journal today. That should not take all that long. Then I need to start the commission quilt project that I have. It is a couple of pieces of batik fabric that was bought in Indonesia.

Croquet with the Queen

Another page to the journal on "Alice". It's a quilted flamingo. And will be THE page. The legs are off to the side so that I can attach them across the spine of the book and will show up later in the back of the book. I love doing surprise pages. They are sooooooooo fun. Especially when you can view and turn them for yourself. They are so unexpected. I first had this experience at dj pettitt workshop. Not what I grew up reading. And perfect for a book based on Alice in Wonderland? Not sure what page it will be yet so check back later to see it finished. I am off to my art group ( more on that to come) but have another page in mind ready to begin which I hope to complete later today.

Down the rabbit hole.

It is difficult to put into words what a picture can say. The reader can only interpret them in there own way. As I have done when I select the images to include in this journal on "Alice". We already know them so well. We are living them or perhaps more correctly, we are dreaming them. These are the symbols of a vast collective consciousness. It is we who choose everyday which thoughts we will emphasis and these form the experiences of our lives.

It reads

" Possible is as impossible does and the impossible isn't?

And vise verse.

And if it is so,

it might be;

and if it were so,

it would be;

but as it isn't,

so it ain't"

Art journaling outside back cover

This will be the outside back cover. I really like this clock fabric I found this weekend. It was perfect for this journal. I was already thinking it would need lots of black and white. to go with the pinks. I've got the inside back cover started but not so sure how I want to finish it yet.