Only a week ago I signed up for a travelling art journal challenge for some local Aussies, which I’d found on a junk journal facebook group. However, an unexpected fast-track timeline meant I had to turn to a few shortcuts to go from panic to done.

Previously (many years ago) as a paper artist I have participated in several round robins where we create something (a journal, an altered trading card set, a book) and sent it out for others to fill some pages and then pass it on. In all those events I was used to having a month or so to create within any journal which arrived and then meet the posting schedule.

This time, however, the challenge was organised fast. We were grouped into collections of five people and given datelines for when to post off our initial journal and the others which would arrive. Instead of the expected monthly turnaround, we have a fortnightly agenda. This is impractical given the size of this country. I live regionally in New South Wales and have many examples of mail posted to me from South Australia or even Victoria taking over ten days to get to me. Regional towns are supplied through a state sorting centre (in my case, in Sydney) and then drip supplied to other mail sorting centres. Sometimes they sit in Sydney for days without action.

Facing this despondent knowledge that I was looking at having to create in somebody elses’ journal with only a couple of days before the next post (if I was lucky), I was demotivated by the mission to create my own starter journal. I had a whole week to do so, too. Luxury! Or was it?

I eventually decided to use a little handmade junk journal I had made months before and since pushed into the “can’t be bothered to continue” pile, as I started learning other art methods which caught my passion. But it was a good start.

Hoping I would still find time for writing and other more inspiring art projects, I went on. And typically overly complicated my own entries into the journal. I found that all my designs I intended for the pages didn’t fit in such a tiny little book. I also went with printing out designs I have, then using mixed media and collage to format each little scene. This method of using a pre-designed element from somebody else is relevant to scrapbooking and other art journal work, but for me it felt a little like a cheat. Normally I use a lot of paint, stencils, sometimes stamps, but all very detailed. This time. Muh!

Perhaps it’s a cheat. But the shortcut was necessary to get something done and sent off. I’ve not felt the sense of relief for years that I had once this little thing was done.

This little Junk Jar journal is created thus -

Stencil for the mason jar, with acrylic paint for the base of each jar. The instructions to create the cute little jar journal are from Claire Stead / Art Journal Love, a British woman I take online classes from. She teaches this journal through an online class from her site. Note it’s a little difficult to find large Mason Jar stencils in Australia, so I had to go internationally.
Printouts (many from etsy with commercial rights) or from collage printouts available online - these are fussy cut and collaged onto each journal. Note I used normal printer paper for a reason - to keep the collages - often of many layers - as thin as possible.
Each printout was then enhanced with paint, ink markers, and other mixed media methods.
The popouts at the top of the jars were printed onto thicker card for resiliency.
The shelves the jar journal are popped into is a simple cardboard sleeve. I created it as another protective layer for posting.

I normally wouldn’t post something like this, as it’s a little irrelevant to my story world. But artmaking is like writing - sometimes for some reasons a good shortcut is necessary to allow us to move on to other projects we are craving.