Art Journal Page: Brave Choice

This Monday, the art journal session at The Studio has the theme ‘perfect palettes’. For this journal prompt, I picked a colour chart from the ever fabulous design-seeds.com and did my best to match the palette. Of course, this was a little harder when printing out the image – the printer colours aren’t a good reproduction.

And here’s the resulting page (and don’t forget that the colours changed again when I scanned it in…). So the palette isn’t exact, but, as with all journal prompts, it’s what sparks the rest of the page. I also chose the theme to help those who struggle to know what colours might work together.

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Art Journal Page: Experiment

I recently took delivery of a new Dylusions art journal – the 8×5″ landscape format – and last night I took the opportunity to experiment with a 3×5″ Gelli plate and some DecoArt fluid acrylics. Bubble wrap of two sizes and a mosaic stencil added a bit of pattern, and then rubber stamping with acrylic paint added the highlights. Finally, some cut letters as masks and a sponged layer of acrylic paint finished off the page nicely.

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Art Journals: using acrylic covers – part 2

I promised to share my ‘now you see me, now you don’t’ technique for acrylic covers that didn’t quite get finished on air during my last Hochanda shows for That’s Crafty!. Below are some instructions along side the pics I took prior to the shows, and below those is a short video I have done to try and explain it a little more clearly! Apologies for the outside noises on the video – they’re wind chimes and a radiator warming up, if you’re wondering.

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Art Journal Page: Marvellous Mandalas

The theme for tonight’s art journal session at The Studio is ‘marvellous mandalas’. I have played on various software platforms and drawn my own mandalas, but the example below is ripped out from one of the many ‘adult’ colouring books available. I remembered that I had a couple of sets of Chameleon pens, so used those to colour in the mandala (that’s how I got the shading). Bit of gluing and cutting out of letters and my sample was done… though it took a fair bit longer than I expected – I think it’s the pausing to do the whole Chameleon effect doubling the colouring time. Very calming though, all that pausing.

Colouring on white paper and then cutting and pasting onto the black background seems to make the colours pop far more. A little more thought and time would have resulted in better placement of the quote, but it’s not that bad.

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Art Journals: using acrylic covers

I was on Hochanda this week demonstrating techniques for using the acrylic covers effectively, for the A4 and A6 journals from That’s Crafty!. As always, there is too little time on air to fit in all my ideas, and only just enough time to fit in all I had planned! What follows below are photos and quick explanations of how to do your own. I really need to remember to take step-by-step photos as I make so that I can do a proper tutorial post! First is an unbroadcast cover, then the mirrored cover that didn’t go so right when rushed, and last for this post is the bubbling water effect shown in my first hour.

  • Peel off the protective film from the reverse of the cover
  • Work on the reverse side for all the following steps
  • Place the snowdrop stencil in position and fill in using Posca pens
  • Dry, then place the TIME stencil upside down and sponge through ivory paint
  • Dry, spritz with gold mister, dry
  • Meanwhile, print texture stamps onto large Rizla papers using Chartreuse archival ink
  • Heat set the ink, then using decoupage glue/multi medium glue overlapping layers of the printed papers
  • Once dry, any paper over the edges of the cover can be sanded off

  • Peel off the protective film from the reverse of the cover
  • Working on the reverse, add alcohol inks until you are happy with the coloured layer
  • Place the JOURNAL stencil upside down and sponge a layer of Jet Black archival ink through onto the alcohol ink
  • Remove the stencil and then rub away the black in with a clean cloth/kitchen towel
  • Repeat inking steps if you want to remove any more of the alcohol ink
  • Now spritz with a water-based varnish (e.g. Pentart spray varnish) to seal the ink
  • IMPORTANT: allow to fully air dry, do not heat. Repeat varnish layer
  • Spritz with Pentart Mirror Mist and heat dry immediately to stop the mirror mist weakening the varnish beneath
  • Seal the mirror mist with the same varnish and finally apply a layer of black acrylic paint
  • Peel off front film to reveal your results

  • Peel off the protective film from the reverse of the cover
  • Working on the reverse, and using the word stencils the wrong way up, sponge your main colour onto the acrylic; heat dry and repeat directly over the top.
  • Next, sponge your shadow colour through the same stencil, slightly offsetting from the first colour
  • For the water effect, first dilute some white gesso/primer
  • Working quickly, cover the whole sheet with a layer of watery paint and then dab isopropyl alcohol into the wet paint – it will push the paint away and start the effect
  • When you are happy with the effect, heat dry in a well ventilated room
  • Repeat with a light shade of blue, and then another darker shade of blue
  • This technique will work over any sealed surface, but does rely on the paint being thinned and still wet
  • Try adding text to the front of the cover as well, this time starting with the shadow colour and working over the top with the main colour

Bonus post

Later this week I will do a separate post explaining my ‘now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t’ technique that was a wee bit rushed at the end of the second show:

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Art Journal Page: Beautiful Art

The first Monday of the month sees my monthly art journal evening at the Studio, and next week the theme is ‘never been used’. I’ve asked studio guests to bring something from their crafty stash that they have never used, and we’ll be incorporating them into our beautiful art journal pages.

In prepping my sample for the session, I came across an embarrassment of unused kit deep in folders, drawers and baskets. I think I will need to do more of these! I know I’m not alone, so what do you think – anyone fancy a ‘never been used’ challenge blog?

Here’s my show page, worked in my very first art journal from 2011 on a background that I’d not yet used:

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Art Journal: American Adventures [Travel Journal]

It’s taken some time, but I’ve finished the journal I handmade last year and finally got round to taking and editing the photos of the finished article. I intended to journal each day before going to bed, but got a little behind whilst in New York as our room was so small that there was actually nowhere to work on a flat surface, and there was no communal area I could use either. Consequently, by the time I got to Boston, and there was space to work, I was already five days behind. Then life on the road for the final few days also meant I was doing other things at the end of each day. So it meant finishing off the work once I got home, but that brought back good memories of a lovely, and much needed, holiday.

As a format, the piano hinge worked very well – I was able to slide out each of the sticks in turn to work on the pages individually, which was far easier. The fold out sections added a little more space, and the wallets somewhere to put the various bits of ephemera that I collected along the way. With techniques from collage to napkin decoupage, hand drawn typography to watercolour illustrations, it was fun to put together. I would have liked to do more urban drawing, but for speed, mini-photos had to suffice.

Sit back, with a cuppa of your choice, and holiday vicariously as you work through the journal 🙂

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Art Journal Page: ATC Art Gallery

It’s my monthly Art Journal Session on Monday evening, and for this month’s theme we’re tackling ‘ATC art’. I’m not one for making artist trending cards most of the time – for the uninitiated, ATCs are 3½” x 2½” pieces of artwork that are designed to be swapped between crafters – and I thought it was time to revisit the format. I’ve sneaked them into  my art journal timetable, and here’s the sample page. BTW – the frames are one of my first forays into the world of 3D design and printed here in The Studio.

ATC gallery art journal page

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Art Journal Page: Dare [for That’s Crafty]

I think I’ve said it before, but one of the benefits of being on a design team is that you get to play with new kit before it is available to everyone else. So – spoiler alert – it was exciting to see in yesterday’s post some of the new That’s Crafty! journals, stencils and stamps that I will be using on my TV shows on Hochanda on 17th March (7am & 11am). This will be the only sneak peek I’ll be doing until the shows, so see what you can spot will be on sale!

 

There’s so much potential with the new kit for layering, building texture and depth, and so many new elements to add to a page. I hope you can join me either live, or on the catch up on the Hochanda website (or on record if you’re not up and watching TV already at 7am!). The first hour is going to be live in the Netherlands – my first live international audience 🙂

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Art Journal Page: Deep Waters

It was a ‘watersolubles’ theme at Art Journaling last night. In between diagnosing a broken Mac (it was one of the RAM cards that died) and having the car serviced (it was a VW diesel engine…), I grabbed an hour or so to do an inspiration page:

It reminded me that all watersolubles are not created equal, with some water-soluble wax crayons barely moving when wetted, even on watercolour paper, and others wandering off and doing their own thing quite happily. It also is worth noting that, to get best effects, you should gesso or otherwise seal your journal page unless working in a watercolour paper journal.

In the above example, I used the blues on watercolour paper before drying and cutting out the letters on my Silhouette Cameo. The background is a combination of colour and graphite watersolubles over gesso, overprinted with acrylic paint. Handwritten text and outlines finished off the layout.

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