ROC journal for 2013

front cover

When I began doing paper arts, it didn't take me long to realize that I work better with a prompt, a theme, a deadline - a breeze of some sort to fill me creative sails, as it were. 

Somehow I found this flickr group and played along with Roc's prompts in 2011. I think I started in May or June, but gradually went back and did the previous months until I had a whole year. 

back cover

Did them last year also, and I'm happy to say, she's doing them again this year so I am too.

I'm not sure why I like hers as opposed to the myriad other prompt blogs/sites/groups, but I do. The first year, I did them in a makeshift journal, interspersed with misc other pages.

In 2012, I made a dedicated journal which I liked much better (when I could find the darn thing! must tidy studio more often...). 

Coptic binding

This year I made a slightly larger one with a real cover and a Coptic binding so that it lays flat to work in. The binding didn't come out too badly as long as you don't look too closely. As we used to say in my Saturday quilt group, "If you can't see it at twenty paces from the back of a galloping horse..."

Coptic is a cool stitch and simply requires a bit of paying attention which I was mostly doing lol. 

The covers are heavy commercial wallpaper that I liberated from work. There's a roll of it upstairs that's probably six feet tall by many, many yards. 

inside front cover

In the Ticket To Venice class, they'd been chatting about using painted or collaged canvas as a cover and when I saw the wallpaper, I figured it might work. 

I covered one side in gel medium and torn up book pages, then did some stitching. The back cover is just random doodle stitching in tan thread.

inside back cover

The front is random zig-zag on one side and a freehand crow on the other. Then I folded each piece in half and stitched around the edges so they'd be pretty durable.

I put grommets in the cover holes since I was a bit concerned about the holes getting loose over time.

The pages are Arches cream watercolor paper of some unknown type and weight given to me by a friend, but they're quite heavy so maybe 140lb. 

I'm quite pleased with the final product.