Class 5 ~ BE Inspired ~ Quotes are like standing on the shoulders of giants ...

This week our theme was BE Inspired. I've always been very inspired by quotes. I think of it as "standing on the shoulders of giants", one of my favourite quotes by Isaac Newton. to me, it means benefitting from the wisdom and experience of those who have gone before us.

I have several journals on the go, and I can't resist the urge to add quotes in many different ways in my journals. Sometimes they're the focus of the page, and sometimes I tuck them into images or artwork already on the page.

Here are a couple of examples:

             Above is found image + scrapbooking paper + blueprint paper + quote done with handwriting and letter stickers.

I sometimes print out a whole sheet of quotes in quite small text and add them to existing pages where they look at home.

Here are pages 1 to 4 of the handouts this week about quotes and working with them. For those of you who were in class, I've added some extra info to the first page about good places to find quotes online. I've put direct links to those sources below the handouts.

And here are the links to the online quote sources:

* www.quotographed.com Quotes paired with beautiful images, perfect to print out for your journal. Sorted by author and topic, searchable.

* www.brainyquote.com Quotes, some paired with images, perfect to print out for your journal. Sorted by author and topic, searchable.

* www.quotegarden.com Sorted by wide range of topics, events, searchable. Looks a bit old-fashioned, but tons of quotes. I use this one lots.

* www.worldofquotes.com Sorted by topic and author. Searchable. Also includes proverbs, sorted by country. Also has list of events through history as a bonus.

At the bottom of page 3 (in the "You Can Do It Section") I wanted to give you an option for adding quotes without adding stress. If you're a perfectionist (or even a recovering perfectionist, like me), then you might feel some anxiety about how your writing is going to turn out. One way I've found around this is to write out my quote on tracing paper till I'm happy with it, then glue it into my journal. This gives the opportunity to move it around and see where I like it best. As a bonus, it also lets some of the artwork behind show through as well. Here's an example of what I did in my journal:

The artwork in the back shows through (nice, hm?), then I drew around the box wtih white crayon.

We also played with gesso to make backgrounds for quotes. I like to recycle old Reader's Digest book pages to write quotes on. I cover the pages with a white gesso wash (50% water, 50% white gesso) and let them dry. Then I turn them upside down to write quotes on them. The gesso wash (and having them upside down) makes the pre-existing text less readable, and you can use the lines of text as guidelines to keep your writing straight. Sometimes I turn them sideways as well, just for visual interest. You can also rubber stamp lines on the gessoed pages and then write on the lines of the stamp. This gives you a good opportunity to introduce another colour to work with. On the page below, you can see I stamped using blue ink.

Black gesso gives your page a "blackboard" effect. Then you can write your quote in white. For clear, crisp writing I recommend a Sakura White Gelly Roll Pen. You can also get a more blackboard sort of feel by using white pencil crayon ~ it's cheaper, but not as strong a contrast. There are other options as well. On the sample below I've also written with a Posca Paint Pen, a China Marker, and a Craft Decor Chalk Writer (which I found at a dollar store). Black gesso is very cheap, and it works not only on paper but also on tags, wood, metal, and bottles ~ totally worth adding to your art tools.

All the links above go to either Opus or Deserres, my usual art supplies stores (I like to shop local), but these supplies may also be available at Micheal's and other art supply stores.

Black and White Gesso ~ and some ways to use them.

And here's all that info on a handout page: 

Here are a couple more pages from my journal using the quotes on the handouts this week. can you see how the colours I chose to add (with markers and washi tape, usually) either contrast or coordinate? For contrast, I choose something *across* from the first colour on the colour wheel, to harmonize, I choose something *closer to* the original colour. With practice, you'll get a sense of what colour combinations appeal to you most.

On this page, I worked through some of the adding quote "options" listed at the top of page 3: writing over pencil, thickening up some letters to make them look more like calligraphy, centering and writing on washi tape.

I thought this dog looked pretty noble ~ perfect to go with the qote about being noble. And notice how the aqua colour balances the brown in the photo? Contrast can be subtle, too.

The background on this page is three strips of scrapbooking paper in various shades of green. All the colour comes from markers added on top, or added onto some of the paper in the background. You might think that working with black and white handouts is boring - but you can tranform them on your pages and make them all "go together"

The word "comfort" was already on this page. I added a couple of quotes in the empty area near the top of the photo, and a couple of words to make the picture more interesting. Notice how I chose pale green to go with the existing pink? Red and green are across from each other on the colour wheel, but I kept these both in the pastel range. I think it looks kinda "minty".

Here's something else to think about when you're working in your journal: Sometimes we look through magazines for sources images and we can't find anything we like. I wanted to tell you that *everything* in my journal this session has come out of the SAME issue of an Oprah magazine (okay, plus a couple of scrapbooking paper scraps, too). I'll admit, the Oprah is getting pretty thin, but setting this limit has also made me be *more* creative about how I use the images. Did I think I'd be using a photo of a dog? Nope. But look how great the page turned out. I think it's a variation on the idea of "necessity being the mother of invention", which is another great quote.