Art Journaling: Up, Up & Away

My next Art Journaling Session is on Monday evening, 6th November at The Studio. If you’re recovered your hearing after the fireworks, do come along and join in! We’ll be working on the theme of ‘up, up and away’ for our mixed media layouts in our journals. Here’s the inspiration example:

Mixed media art journal layout based on the theme of 'up, up and away' featuring a bright ink background and hot air balloon.

Quick making notes for those unable to attend…

Lay down a vivd coloured background with plenty of spray inks/stains. Try a combination of quick mists and slower spatters to add texture. Don’t be afraid to mop up puddles with kitchen towel and then spritz again. Dry thoroughly. I then sprayed with matte varnish to seal the ink (optional, but does stop some bleed through to next layers).

I made stencils for the ballon stamp and the arm. Stamp the balloon in archival ink, lining up the page and stamp block so you can stamp in roughly the same place each time. Line up the balloon stencil over the stamped image and sponge paint through it. I used off-white acrylic paint for a background. It picked up colour from the ink background, becoming light blue. Dry the paint. I printed the stamp again and coloured in the sections using distress oxide inks. The zig-zags were through another stencil, again in distress oxide. Add colour to the basket, weights and pennant in the same way. Dry and stamp for a final time. I used this method to keep everything lined up and to know where to add colour.

Add the stencilled arm using black paint. Add shimmer with the metallic paints – first a gold background and then light gold through the ray stencil. The text is a combination of stamped and traced. Add colour with paint pens and coloured pencils.

Used for this layout

  • Dylusions Sprays: various colours (chosen by the nozzles not being blocked…)
  • Stampers Anonymous / Tim Holtz cling stamps: Remnants [CMS130]
  • Ranger archival ink: Jet Black
  • Ranger / Tim Holtz Distress Oxides: various colours
  • DecoArt Americana acrylic paints
  • DecoArt Extreme Sheen metallic acrylic paints: 24K Gold / Champagne Gold
  • Stamp Addicts cling stamps: Distressed Alphabet [SA-5052]
  • Stampers Anonymous / Tim Holtz cling stamps: Worn Text [CMS156], Tall Text [CMS166], Mini Cirque Alpha [CMS079]
  • Stampers Anonymous / Tim Holtz mini layering stencil: Rays [THMS126]
  • Posca paint pens (various nib sizes)
  • DecoArt Americana matte spray varnish/sealer

An alternative layout using the same theme and balloon stamp can be found in a post from 2015, here.

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