Lot's of reading, not much art...

Well, I seem to have had my nose buried in a book this last week, so two new entries for my reading journal.

The Cellist of Sarajevo - by Steven Galloway

I loved the lyricism of Stephen Galloway's writing, but found his characters hard to warm to, even though they were in the trying circumstances of a city under siege.

My second book this week - A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khalid Hossini - also had war as a theme. I found this book utterly heartbreaking, and totally gripping...

Note: If you haven't read either book, then be warned that the text in my journal page will contain some spoilers...

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Inspired by Eliece's blog By My Hand I decided to start a reading journal to keep a record of some of the books I have read. I have decided not to keep it chronologically, but paint pages in advance and find a page that suits the mood of the book (as does Eliece). That will also give me some flexibility in going back to cover books that I have read in the past.

Having said that I started with a book that I have just finished reading - the wonderfully named "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows. This is a very easy book to read as it's epistolary style makes it easy to pick up and put down, but I whizzed through this charming story in a couple of days.

For this journal spread I chose some pages that I had previously painted with shades of blue acrylic, then as the book is partially set in Guernsey, I printed out a map of the island and cut it out to use as a mask. I also used images from the book cover, both collaged and painted on.

The Road

The Road
Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

“Just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ and felt inspired to do a journal page. I wanted to try out a new material - Safmat, a transparent film, from Letraset that you can print onto.

I edited a couple of photos of winter trees in photoshop and printed them onto the Safmat. I then peeled off the backing and stuck the transparent film with the printed image into my Moleskine sketchbook. I had used a grey PanPastel on the page first, deliberately patchy, to create the dusty landscape depicted in the book.

Quite pleased with the Safmat, it is very thin and ‘almost’ invisible, so a good way of getting photos into your journal without creating too much bulk.”