Art Journal: Gelli Tag Book

It’s been a while since I have played with my Gelli mono printing plate, and inspired by the work of Birgit Koopsen and the latest copy of Somerset Studio featuring tag art, I set to. Twenty or so monoprinted tags later, I had the basis of a new art journal – a Gelli Tag Book.

With a quick cardboard cover, book binding tape and a few quotes (and several days later) my journal is complete. Overprinting and underpainting, outlining hand drawn typography create a cohesive whole.

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Art Journal Page: Tears of a Clown

IMG_6189_wI’m leading an art journaling workshop at the end of June, and thought I’d get a few more foregrounds on my many backgrounds in my various art journals. This spread already had the colour (distress inks over gesso with stencilled water bleaching) and the droplets (a Designs by Ryn rubber stamp). I searched in vain for a quote on water drops, but there was something about this phrase that sparked off the image of Pierrot, and the rest of the page came together.

The distress inks, being water reactive and dye based, reacted with the white pigment ink, white pigment pen and white acrylic paint I used, even after I tried to stabilise it with hairspray. I got round it using layers, and drying with a heat tool immediately after applying it. I added colour with Bombay India Inks, and coloured pencils. The harlequin tape is from Tim Holtz Idea-ology tissue tape range.

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Play time with PanPastels

I’ve done a bit of housekeeping on the blog, so that it should now be easier to find things using a more obvious menu system. I’ave also added a ‘reviews’ page under the Workshops tag so that you can read what others have given as feedback about my classes.

And I’ve allowed myself a play day day to experiment with techniques. First on the list was to build on my PanPastel Art Journal that I started a while back with some backgrounds. I’ve recently bought new stamps from Designs by Ryn and Catslife Press that have sat in the drawer unloved and unused – and they are perfect for art journaling. I was also delighted to expand my PanPastel collection with a set of metallics for Christmas (thanks Kathryn & David!). Here’s what I came up with this morning:IMG_4358_wHere’s a time lapse showing the layers building up:

If you’d like more information on how to art journal with PanPastels, come along to my art journaling workshop on 3rd May! Here are a few more pages done this afternoon – unfortunately the metallics don’t show up very well on these scans: