I last had tags, pockets & flaps as an art journaling theme quite some time ago (a decade!), so I decided it was time to circle back and use it for another layout. This month’s session used a pre-printed pocket and tag as colour inspiration, and we used several techniques to build the background. I did attempt to film the make, but I’m a bit out of practice, and we’re left with just stills for the tutorial – apologies…
I’ve loosely used the theme of ‘strips & stripes’ for this month’s art journaling session at The Studio. I’ve plenty of stripes included, but the strip of ribbon and a strip of masking tape was as far as that side of things went once I had finished creating my layout. There was a great deal of prep for this layout… Each time I thought about what I was going to do, another idea came up and another bit of work to carry it off was needed. Happily, I have the kit to do the creating! Read on for a step-by-step making guide and some free downloads if you want to do exactly the same as I did.
For the first session of the new year, we are using a requested theme: ‘sunbeams’. I took a little while to work out what I’d like to do, then did a bit of browsing for inspiration and came up with this layout:
I selected my blue Renesans watercolour paint to lay down a blue wash, dabbing with a paper towel for a background cloud effect. Once the sunbeam panel was in place, I added another layer of paint around the edges to add contrast. A very dilute wash of the same colour worked well on the clouds in the panel.
The sunbeams were coloured using a blend of yellows, oranges, and reds, with small touches of chartreuse, magenta, and purple for added contrast. I worked with Winsor & Newton Aquamarkers on watercolour card, blending the ink using a clean water brush.
For the text, I used the same colours on the background card. Using scored lines (see below), I was able to place the colours precisely – multicoloured on the top three lines of text and the yellows for the ‘sun beams’ line. The original quote separated the ‘sun’ and ‘beams’ rather than using the more common compound word, so that’s what got cut out. I’ll triple check next time…
Both illustration and text were created digitally in Adobe Illustrator. I experimented with several techniques to make the outlines and tabs needed to prevent the pieces from falling out during laser cutting. My initial attempt (as pictured) turned out to have too many and too tough tabs. It was difficult to break apart the pieces to stick down to the page. My next iteration had wider ‘spokes’, fewer pieces and thinner tabs and worked much better (and took less time to glue in).
For the text, there are two panels: a base panel with a scored offset outline of the text (for colouring in) and then a top panel with the text cut out using a stencil font. Once the base is coloured and dry, the top can be stuck to it for a crisp finish.
I used my new xTool F2 Ultra UV laser to cut the watercolour paper. The UV laser doesn’t cut by burning so much as wobbling the molecular structure of the paper apart (so-called cold lasering). This meant I could cut the 300gsm paper with very little char on the edges and with much greater detail than my other laser options.
I attempted to use UV resin to add a glossy emboss to the coloured letters, by filling in the cutout areas. Unfortunately, before I hardened off the resin, it started soaking into the surrounding paper, turning it grey and ruining the contrast and crisp white overlay. I got around this by adding a second cutout layer over the top. I’m not sure what I could do to prevent this, but perhaps using a matte multimedium to seal the paper may work. I thought about using a waterbased dimensional gloss medium, but I reckon it would rewet and move the watercolour paint around (which I didn’t want to happen).
My art journaling sessions run at The Studio on the first Monday evening of each month, starting at 7:30pm. Spaces are limited, so let me know if you’d like to attend and I’ll get you booked in. You don’t need to be artistic, or even have a journal – one can be purchased on the night for just £2. The session remains at just £5 to attend, and all the materials are included. The theme is ‘strips and stripes’, postponed from October, and will feature distress inks, distress oxides, a dress, floorboards and a bit of rubber stamping too.
If you’re UK-based, you’ll be well aware that it’s Bonfire Night on 5th November. For those in other places, you may not know that this is our way of commemorating Guy Fawkes plotting to blow up the Houses of Parliament back in 1605 during the State Opening, intending to kill King James I. Rooted in religious discontent which carried on for centuries, it’s now an excuse to let off ridiculously loud fireworks and compete for the biggest conflagration in the area.
So, it is with this inspiration that I have chosen the theme of ‘crackling campfire’. Blessedly silent, this layout incorporates crackle paint to add the appropriate texture to logs and flames, and aptly named distress oxide inks. A bit of sparkle brings the text to the fore and is a nod to firework displays up and down the country.
We’ve not used watercolours in our art journal sessions for some time, so this month felt like the perfect opportunity. I combined fresh washes of colour with toner transfer art journaling techniques, using laser printouts to add layered imagery and texture to the page.. Here’s the sample layout I made for the session:
In this month’s session, we explored art journaling with fusible webbing – a technique that brings texture, sparkle, and surprise to your layout. It’s a heat-reactive mixed media method that uses iron-on adhesive sheets to trap colour, foil, glitter, and more.
I vaguely recall trying out this technique back in art college, some 13 or so years ago, but I came across it again recently. I had been looking through my library of mixed media technique books and found it in both Surface Treatment Workshop (p.114 – Fusible Webbing) and Mixed Media Revolution (p.41). Since I have oodles of fusible webbing available after buying a whole roll of it for quilting purposes, I came up with this after some experimentation:
It’s going to be a two-parter… We’re underway for this month’s art journaling session in The Studio, taking Klimt’s ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’ as our inspiration. When I was putting the sample together, I quickly realised my ambitions for the class were not going to fit the time available so texts went out and my first two-session layout was agreed. My Klimt inspired art journaling layout looks like this:
Regular readers of this ‘ere blog know that I am a quilter. This month at the art journal session, we combined mixed media with a quilting technique (which I have yet to try in fabric). We made a watercolour masterboard and then with a lot of slicing and pasting created a bargello-style background in our journals. With some basic stitched panels as a focal point we ended up with this:
Rooted in the historical tradition of the Bargello Palace in Florence, Italy, the Bargello quilt pattern is characterized by its use of long, narrow strips of fabric meticulously sewn together. This technique creates an illusion of dynamic movement and depth within the quilt.
When I’m looking for potential techniques and ideas for my art journaling sessions, I often reach for analogue sources: books. For this evening’s session, I took inspiration from ‘101 More Mixed Media Techniques’. In the fabrics & fibers [sic] section, there is information on sticking and covering elements and pages. And so my cloth collage theme was born and this is what I came up with:
This month’s art journaling session was on the theme of ‘industrial grunge’. I thought it would be a great chance to revisit rust effects, drips and runs and also use up some of the matte black vinyl I seem to have inadvertently collected over the years… I also exercised AI skills using Microsoft Designer to create the graffiti and worked with ChatGPT to develop the colour scheme, selecting the base colours with my Nix Mini 3 digital colourimeter. Here’s what I came up with:
