Our next Bible journaling session has ‘rubber stamping’ as its theme. It will be a departure from my normal style, and it took some time to find suitable stamps to match some verses and themes. When creating, I also chose to break my ‘rule’ of not working over the text areas of the page. I made sure, however, the work I did was transparent and the text still readable:
July’s theme for my art journaling session (spaces are available) is ‘black and white’. This is my example art journal page… I photocopied a magazine page and used it for an image transfer on the left side with an inked vignette effect using blended archival ink. The text is stamped in white picket fence distress ink using with the ‘colour’ cut from the original magazine page. There’s not much contrast between the coloured word and the black – I’m still not sure what to do about that as I’m not keen on outlining it and distracting from the colour itself.
It’s time to share my submission to the February Pick-A-Stick Challenge #PASC0219. I’m working in my very first art journal started in 2011. There are lots of spreads where I was playing with backgrounds and which had never been ‘finished’.
For the unfamiliar, PASC stands for Pick-A-Stick Challenge. It has been a long while since I last participated in the challenge, and the format has changed slightly. The team now randomly draw words which it is left to us to interpret artistically. The only stipulation is that the order of the steps is followed. Everything else is artistic licence, and anything can happen before, during and after the steps to complete the page. There’s also a shorter ATC (Artist Trading Card) option. Here’s my January 2019 layout:
Continue reading On Monday night I have my art journal session in The Studio, and we’re using the prompt ‘New Year’. This layout developed from a teaching session I did with a new Studio guest a few weeks ago, showing the difference and similarities between Distress Oxides (left-hand side) and Distress Inks (t’other side). A quick layer of acrylic paint forms the background to the white text. The purple text is a combination of stamped and handwritten, using Distress Oxides and Posca pen respectively.
It’s time for my monthly art journal session on Monday evening, and it coincidently happens on 5th November – fireworks night. It seemed fitting, therefore, to have a suitably explosive theme ‘whizz, bang, pop’. There are spaces available, just let me know if you’d like to come.
Here’s my take on the theme:
Used in this layoutIt seems that for the last few days my corner of blog land has been out of service due to a duff plugin. Apologies! Here’s another art journal spread to make up for the absence (not that anyone noticed and let me know!). I experimented with collaging papers for the background and unifying the whole layout with a blanket stencil design. Masking off the area intended for the stamp and covering with gesso helped take the busyness away behind the ‘mum. It’s the first outing for my new Dusty Concord Distress Oxide ink pad. I’m not sure if it’s all a bit much, but experimentation is the name of the game in my journal.
Continue reading As I’ve previously mentioned, the August art journal session at The Studio is all about ‘tints, tones and shades’. Playing with light and shade on a page helps give depth and interest to the piece. Here, playing with the properties of distress ink and distress oxide provides the opportunity to get every shade of the same colour. The use of water also helps with the lighter tones.
Continue reading Next month’s theme for my art journal session (Monday 6th August, 7:30pm) is ‘tints, tones and shades’. I wanted to try a cool ombre effect as part of my suggestions (tint, white added, lighter; shade, black added, darker), so that’s what forms the background of this layout. Then a quick play on words for the shades and a suitable quote and this page is complete.
I don’t experiment much in my art journal any more, which is a shame. I have developed a style and, generally, keep to it with occasional variations. This week, I was inspired by the work of one of my colleagues at That’s Crafty!, Lynne Moncrieff. She has a wonderful grunge style that uses nature as inspiration, developing textures and colours from natural inks, pigment crystals and sprays.
So I raided the tea bag waste bin for old tea bags and reached for the sprinkles. And learnt that I need to do far more experimentation with both! The pages started to come together with the various bits of ephemera and using some tea bag paper to mount them on. It finally knit together with a healthy dose of vintage photo distress ink and oxides.
But what to write? Well, having done so, I wish I hadn’t! I found a fountain pen and filled it with sepia ink – but of course, it didn’t really like the gessoed page. Tracing over it with a cocktail stick dipped in the same ink gave a much better finish, so next time I’ll go straight to that. I recovered slightly by spritzing with water – the smudging and feathering is now deliberate rather than accidental 😉 Continue reading
