I’ve snatched some ‘me’ time in the studio today and revisited some of the lessons on distress stains and markers from Creative Chemistry 101 – a staggering four years ago! It’s part of the Summer of Creative Chemistry from onlinecardclasses.com, in the lead up to the brand new Creative Chemistry 103 from Tim Holtz. These are three tags created for Week 2.
These pages were an exercise in complementary colours. Using the Distress palette, I chose a colour and then the closest colour to its inverse – a different way to find a complementary colour than using a colour wheel. Above, Stormy Sky meets Gathered Twigs, whilst below, Crushed Olive zings against Shaded Lilac and Dusty Concord. Oh yes, one more thing – buckled pages do not make an easy surface to be stamping paint onto…
In my last post, I showed the start of my hand-bound art journal in response to Wanderlust Course Week 10. I promised some more pics of the inside pages… and here they are. The scrap pages allowed for some overlapping designs across spreads, and the different colour backgrounds inspired some of the colour choices.
I’ve had fun doing various different techniques and experiments, varying my style and choice of media – there is something about the informal scrappy pages that releases a more creative side than normal. Just two and a bit more signature bundles to go to complete this particular journal, but in the meantime, I have another two more formal ones on the go 🙂
With one or two other things going on, I am not keeping up with my Wanderlust course! I did however catch up with Karen Michel’s class, where she showed how to make our own journals using the cover of an old book, some fabric and lots of scraps of paper and card. It’s a far more informal journal than I’m used to, and as a result, it invites creativity as some pages overlap others, and each page has a different colour and texture. The fabric I chose was one of Tim Holtz’s Eclectic Elements designs. I’ll post the inside pages at a later date.
Over the last two days I thought I’d construct my own art journals. I’ve adapted a slot-and-tab technique to make the inside pages from 160gsm white card. Each journal is A6 in size. The brown has a grungepaper cover with greyboard support behind, coloured with Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Sprays and sealed with DecoArt Media Soft Touch Varnish. The grey has a wrap around cover in the same card, decorated with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics and with a grungepaper and baker’s twine closure. Now all I have to do is fill them 🙂
This week’s class on Wanderlust (a year long course encouraging art journalers), we’ve been shown how one artist, Kate Crane, creates her own journal to fill in as she travels. Here’s my take on the project. Using two sheets of 12×16″ watercolour paper, I created the concertina pages, incorporating pockets into the overlaps. I’ve chosen to create faux leather straps to hold it together, rather than ribbon, and have made these from Grungeboard. Lots of layered DecoArt Media paints and interference paints over some embossing paste create the cover decoration, and the pages are covered in Distress Paints, DecoArt Media Titan Buff and Quinacridone Gold fluid acrylics and gesso applied through a couple of stencils. Now it’s ready for filling with travel goodness 🙂
In the first Wanderlust class of the year, we were prompted to use just one word on our pages – and yesterday, I was so tired. Poor sleep, recovering from a cold and a wet grey day all got poured into this art journal spread. Building on the learning gleaned from the first pick a stick challenge, I layered and layered, and am actually rather pleased with the result, as grey and drab as it is!
It’s the first time I’m working in a spiral bound art journal – this one is a Daler-Rowney Cachet Artist’s Mixed Media, A5 sized, 30 page, 250g/m2. The paper is wonderful to work on, didn’t buckle under the wet media or bend with dry acrylic and basically took everything I threw at it. There’s just one issue – the spiral bound spine: those pesky wires. I’m sticking with the book for the Wanderlust classes, but will be looking for stitch bound journals in the future.
Gah! It’s so frustrating when you write a blog post and then there’s a glitch and it’s gone and even the saved drafts don’t seem to exist any more… so for the second time of writing:
During the week I was invited by an online friend I got to know through the Creative Chemistry 101 classes a few years ago to join a new art journaling challenge group she was organising. The Pick A Stick Challenge Group on Facebook is open to anyone who would like to join in and is an active art journaler. The premise is simple: each month, ten sticks are drawn at random from a pot of prompts covering media, styles and techniques. The only other stipulation is that you layer your page in the order the sticks are drawn. That is where the process becomes a little more tricky!
This is very much a work in progress, but since progress seems to be going smoothly and fairly quickly, I’ve something to share mid-way. I was sorting out the sheds on Saturday and came across this printer’s half-tray that had been tucked away. I have a feeling it’s another save from my grandfather’s outhouse.
I brushed it down, glued it back together, and then lined it with Tim Holtz French Industrial papers with Walnut Stain distress ink to blend it all in. I then set about finding all my little bottles that I’ve accumulated – a combination of Tim Holtz and Woodware. They looked a little too clean, so I’ve added Latte and Mushroom alcohol inks to give them an aged/nicotine stained look.
I raided the kitchen for every spice and herb I could get into the bottles and decided to leave one shelf free to hang some bay leaves in, and to make a mini-pestle and mortar to fit. Now all I needed was some labels, so I have spent the afternoon making my own in Illustrator and cutting them out on the Silhouette Cameo before ageing with distress inks and water. Next was working out how to get a liquid appearance in the tall bottles without it actually being liquid. UTEE came to the rescue, and I think it turned out ok – although there was some shrinkage as it cooled, so that might not remain the case. Here’s what it looks like now:
I’ve had a lot of fun with the labels, finding the latin names for everything, including the silver balls, tapioca and hundreds and thousands. The shelf is ready for the leaves and pestle and mortar and I think a couple more adverts as well. I’m not too sure if I should stick the bottles in place, or keep them loose so that they can be pulled out… or fall off when on the wall…
With all the new colours coming monthly from Tim Holtz/Ranger Industries, my existing system of Distress products storage (5 litre Really Useful Boxes for the stains/paints, 9 litre for the sprays) was no longer large enough. After a little research, I’ve moved them into a 33 litre Really Useful Box – and even that isn’t big enough… I think I’ll need a second. I’ve arranged them as shown so that I have a ready reckoner when taking my kit to classes where occasionally one or two bottles accidentally end up packed away elsewhere – this way I can quickly do a stock check and pin down what’s missing. The browns and speciality colours are currently in a 9 litre box until I can get hold of another 33 litre one, which I’ll also add the ink pads to fill up the free space. Now all I need to do is find somewhere to keep this box…