Tag Archives: art journaling

Art Journaling Basics – Sample Page

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While creating the Art Journaling Basics series, it seemed like there was not much time for much art journaling.  Ironic, right?  There are several backgrounds ready to go from the video on creating backgrounds, so I decided to grab one and use one of the vintage images from yesterday’s post.

kristiesloan_20130716_vintage-seaside

Here’s how it this art journal page was created:

  • Applied gesso to a book page
  • Applied a light watercolor wash to page
  • Printed vintage image and did image transfer using a gel medium. You could easily just print it, cut it out and use it as is.
  • Stamped sea shells in the corner of image
  • Spritzed a bit of ink from markers to make specks of color
  • Printed quote; cut out; used matte medium to adhere
  • Used matte medium over image to seal and brushed a bit over the stamped shells
  • Used waterproof, black fine-point pen to do rough, sketchy line under quote sections
  • Randomly dabbed a bit of white on the page

As the vintage image was getting a light layer of matte medium to seal it, I noticed that the first sea shell it touched was beginning to bleed.  I liked the way it softened the edges of the stamped images, and I continued to lightly brush the medium over the other stamped shells.  Then I realized it was causing the ink to look totally different.  You could see more of the red in the brown!  If I had wanted to make sure the water based ink did not begin to bleed with other layers added, I would have needed to use a workable fixative before using any other waterbased products in layering.

Grab your art journal and make a page before the Artful Adventures’ train leaves this station!  Then come over and share it on the Facebook Group page!

Wishing your Artful Adventures!

KS

Art Journaling Basics – Page Starter

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In this stop along our way, we are going to look at using an image to add to our page for a jumping off point.  Our mixed media art friend, Joanna Grant, has provided some vintage images for us to use. We thought these bathing beauties would be great to use for a variety of themes – reflection, women, beach….!   Print one or more to use on a page. You may also like to use one of the quotes listed below the photos, or feel free to do whatever you’d like to do!

Simply double click on an image to get the full size. Next, right click on the image to download and print it off to use on your page.

“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“There are no good girls gone wrong – just bad girls found out.”
― Mae West

“A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.”
― Coco Chanel

“A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

“Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition”
― Timothy Leary

Joanna has several CD’s of vintage images in her Etsy store, and often offers seasonal images for free on her blog, or her Facebook page:

www.joannabanana.etsy.com
www.facebook.com/JoannaGrantArt
www.joannabananadesignoriginals.blogspot.com

Be sure to share you work with us by linking to the comments, or by coming over to the Facebook Group!

Cheers to YOUR creativity!  — Kristie

Art Journaling Basics – 5 Ways to Create Backgrounds

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Art Journaling Basics - BackgroundsSo far, in our Artful Adventure into Art Journaling Basics, we have covered:

Now, let the fun begin!

Let’s look at some ways to get started on a page. Here are three methods of creating your page.

  1. Create a background and then decide what you’ll put on the page as you move forward.
  2. Have something already selected that you want to make sure your background will work with.
  3. Work on part of your page and as it evolves, fill in the background.

There, now that doesn’t sound so hard, does it?

Today, we are going to look at some ways to work with the first method – starting the background first. With all the products available, look around at what you already have. Grab something and let’s go! You can use watercolors (cheap ones will do!), acrylic paint, or patterned paper.

Don’t worry if you don’t know what the page will look like.  At this point, we may not have any idea, and that’s fine. Stop looking at the blank page and just get started!

We would love to see your backgrounds!  Share them by linking in the comments, or come join us on the Facebook Group!

You may also be interested in:

Art Journaling Basics online class with eBook bonus!

Click the image for more information

Until our next Adventure,

KS

 

Art Journaling Basics – Adhesives

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Today’s stop on our Art Journaling Journey will be a stop to visit our good friends – adhesives. You may not need adhesives on every page you create, but when you need something, you’ll want to know just what to use!

You may only need to stick something down on your page with a double-sided tape, or tape runner.  If you are a scrapbooker, or paper crafter, you probably have plenty of this type product. Glue sticks are also a quick way to adhere paper to your page. Double-sided tapes and glue sticks are best used on paper to paper surfaces.  If you need extra strength, something like Sticky Strip will provide an even greater bond.

Glue dots are great for adhering small embellishments, and will give you a little more bonding strength.

If you want to add a bit of dimension, foam adhesive is an option.  It is sticky on both sides, and actually has a nice amount of stickiness!

Craft glues can be used when you need something with a little more strength. They usually are created to become a little more tacky to give some grab to help hold your items together. In my opinion, a glue that gives you just a moment to get your items exactly into place before it really begins to bond, is best!

Collage techniques are a great option for art journaling. What works best for that type of work?  There are several types of products that are great for this technique.  ModPodge and DecouPage are similarly priced. ModPodge leaves a bit of a film and remains a bit tacky in humid areas.  Matte Mediums are probably a bit more costly and come in a liquid version, something a bit more creamy, and products that are more of a gel consistency.  Remember, we are using art journaling to try different products and techniques.  You may fall in love with a product that someone else doesn’t particularly care for. Not only is there no right or wrong way to art journal, there are also no right or wrong products to use!

We’ll soon be trying some collage techniques, so try to grab something soon.

Enjoy the journey!

KS

 

Art Journaling Basics – Art Journal from a Recycled Book

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The second stop on our Artful Adventure into Art Journaling is learning how to recycle a book into an art journal.

Not only is it economical, it’s a very “green” thing to do! Read, watch, or do both! It’s up to you!  You can find the first episode here.

We have a thrift store nearby that always has an excellent selection of books, and I periodically stop in to see what there is to choose from. For this episode I stopped by and found a fun book by Erma Bombeck. I always loved her column and her take on looking at life with humor. The book was only 99 cents, and was a pink tag item. Pink tag items were half off today! So I picked up a hard back book for 50 cents. However, as I began to flip through the book, I decided I would rather read it before I turned it into an art journal. Yes, this is problem you may have when selecting books that you don’t own.  You may decide you want to read it first, and then you have to select something else.  I found another one that was a similar size and that I could live with taking it home to turn into a journal today! Actually, I think I read that book before! No wonder I didn’t mind turning it into a journal!

After you select your book, you need gesso.  That’s it!  If you want to use a brush or a sponge applicator, you may. However, I will warn you now, you will have to clean them!  So, I just prefer to use my hands to spread the gesso.  I use a liquid gesso, and it makes it so easy to smooth onto the pages.

Before you start applying gesso, you’ll want to thin your book down.  As you work through your art journal, you’ll be adding layers of paint, paper, and who knows what else!  So you’ll want to thin out some pages so there is actually room for your art journal pages to live within the covers, and still have a chance of closing it.

As you look through your book, there may be pages you want to keep free of gesso, and leave in the book.  That way, you can have some text backgrounds, or some titles or phrases peeking through that really “speak” to you.  You don’t have to, it’s just an idea. Again, I remind you, there is not a right or wrong way to art journal!

Now, you are ready to start weeding out pages and thinning down your book.Leave a few pages, and then take out 3 or 4. You can carefully tear them out, or use an craft knife to cut close to inside edge of the page.  Keep the ones you remove to use for text pages in your journal or for other projects.  Just repeat the process until you have made your way through the book.

Next, pour a little gesso on an open spread of 2 pages, and just smooth it out with your hand, brush, or applicator. Leave it open until it is dry. You may need to hold it open by clipping a bit of the edge with a clothes pin, tiny clamp, or binder clip. If you are in a hurry, you may like to use a heat tool to dry it.

You can take the bit that is left on your hand and smear it onto the next page, and it will act as adhesive and you can adhere two or three pages together to give more strength to the page.

That’s it! Acrylic gesso cleans up with water, so just clean up your hands or brushes with water!

The next stop on this art journaling journey will cover different adhesives we can use in our art journal for decoupage, collage techniques, or just sealing things down.  So stay on board, I’m sure you’ll want to know about them!

Oh, we’d love to have you show or tell us about your journal you create with this method! Feel free to connect in the comments, or over at the Artful Adventures Facebook group!

Until our next stop,

KS