Over the Xmas break I joined a very cool online class called Remains of the Day by Mary Ann Moss.

It is something completely different – making journals out of scrap paper and sewing them together – and I signed up because I have been wanting to include more collage in my sketchbooks.

The class turned out to be the most fun I have had in ages – can’t tell you how much of a buzz I got out of the sewing the scraps together and now I am filling it up, it is just as much fun.
So finally… here are some images of it….

My Remains of the Day Journal Cover – the first bit of sewing I have done in probably a decade. There are lots of things that I would do differently next time.

My finished journal – I was in a rush to finish it before going away to the beach for a week so took a few photos before I left.

Some of my pages from the journal. I put them all together in one afternoon so didn’t have time to think too much – just went for it! Every second spread uses blank watercolour paper as its base but generally there is not much left – so I will have to sketch small!
I put the journal together without any thought as to how the spreads would go together – this could have been better – but oh well….
BTW my do-dads are mainly tickets from my overseas trips which I have not known what to do with.

My first attempts at actually using the journal when I was on holidays….

Wow. It is a real adventure to fill in my remains of the day journal.
It is nice to have some blank spaces – if not I have lots of postcard
wc paper to sketch on.
I wish I had had time to print off some labels before I left for holidays. I was still using my normal sketchbook so shuffling between two journals was a challenge – my ROTD was just a selection of small random events/ objects.

This journal is so much fun to work in… I either have to sketch small and constrained to fit within the white space left on the watercolour pages… or I sketch on postcard size WC paper and stick in.
My first attempt of free motion stitching on paper wasn’t quite as successful as I had hoped – but did I think of doing a practice run…no, not me!

I know this is long and skinny – click on image and then on flickr hit the all sizes to see full size..but I am trying to explain the sequence of one page – so much fun to work with. BTW I was on holiday and watching the cricket (I hardly ever sit down and watch it so it was a treat and my journal is full of score updates as a result!)
So much fun… and I haven’t even finished this page yet!

… All this was done in the first week in Jan and on Thursday night I decided to have a look at it again…

I got the orange thread back in my sewing machine and did a few bits and pieces in my Remains of the Day journal. This is just a total random way to work – but I love it!
I have decided to use it on a part time basis and not chronologically either – so it will be a collage of the trivia in my life!

And then last night I took it out with me instead of my usual sketchbook.

A quick sketch of a cruise ship departing Circular Quay, Sydney this evening – stuck into my Remains of the Day journal. I have turned the page around so you can see the sketch the right way. Ticket from a visit to Norway in Sept 09 has been folded out.

Had a fun evening with two friends tonight and did a few quick sketches to fill up a spread in my Remains of the Day journal…it is hard to explain in scans what an adventure it is to fill this up!