In this, the last session of the year, it seemed appropriate to take on a Christmas theme. In common with previous December layouts, I’ve chosen some shiny finishes to bring a bit of light into the dark moments. There are several new techniques that I have tried for the first time: foil-on-toner, cut and design stickers and a laser-engraved piece of MDF. Here’s my take on a Christmas porch:
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:
I have a friend (in fact, several) who is big into Pokémon. So much so that when we’re away with friends, we’ll often pause on walks for some sort of game interaction. There have also been trips abroad for various Pokémon events. So when it came time to wrap a birthday present, I raided my ‘to be altered’ stash, selected a papier-mâché suitcase and customised it:
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.
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:
This month’s theme for the last art journal session of the year is ‘Christmas NBU’. A long while ago, I suggested the tag #nbu for ‘never been used’. I’m not sure it caught on… So this wintery layout uses items that have not been used yet alongside other bits and bobs that came to hand:
This month’s art journal session, “a tale of two halves”, required a little playing to pull together. It became a lesson in contrasts: complementary colours, techniques and reflectivity from varnishes and mica.
Here are five new illustrations for verses from Revelation. They were the templates/samples for this evening’s Bible Journaling Session at the Studio. You’re welcome to book in for this monthly session, usually held on the second Monday of the month and open to beginners or confident artists. For more details, see my workshops page. As normal, the templates are available as a free download for you to use (but not share!). Scroll down for further information about how I completed each illustration.
Today’s Art Journaling Session at the Studio revisited working on aluminium foil. Last time, we used thinned acrylic paints to cover the foil with multilayer colour. This time, we played with alcohol inks. The inks are designed to stick to shiny surfaces and really pop against the reflective metallic background. There are various ways to add depth and texture, take ink off and add other inks on to make a very shiny and interesting collaged background for a suitable saying. I’ve included making notes below, along with a video of the techniques.
This evening’s session was all sparkly with gold leaf dust! We spent our time working on a colour theme of pink, turquoise and gold, throwing in some dry embossing and distress oxides along the way. The main focus was on techniques for layering acrylic paint to build a background and the incorporation of imitation gold leaf for a very shiny bit of bling:
