This series was originally a free series of posts, and is now an online class. Learn more about the Art Journaling Basics for beginners here.
Until our next adventure,
Art Journaling Basics – Start Here!
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Tag Archives: art journaling
July’s Art Journals, Gesso, and Gelatos!
Grab your passport because July’s Artful Adventures are going to be fun! We are going to heat it up around here and start off July with a bang!
First off, we are going to get the scoop on Art Journaling. If you have ever wondered what it is, where to start, and what to use, then this is the perfect adventure for you!
Next, since gesso is a basic product and often used in art journaling, we’ll be covering what you need to know about gesso.
Then it’s off to discover Gelatos! I hope you will love them as much as I do! We will be learning how to use them in a variety of ways, and you’ll be so happy to know that they are perfect for art journaling, scrapbooking, and card-making! I seriously can’t wait to show you!
Cheers to YOUR creativity!
Photo Credit: bayasaa via Flickr Creative Commons License
Random Art Journal and Scrapbook Prompts
What do you do when you are totally stuck and really don’t know where to start on an art journaling page or a scrapbook page? Even if you are using a list of simple prompts, you may still need an extra nudge of inspiration! Here is an idea you may not have thought of – a way to look online for very random inspiration!
Layout inspired by music album cover art.
There are many places online to find images. However, we are not looking for something to copy, we are looking for inspiration. A couple of key places to look are Ebay and Amazon! The reason those are great places to look is because there are going to be so many things associated with a word you type into your search. If you are only using one of the regular search engines like Google or Bing, your search will really be much more narrow. The images that come up will be so closely related to your search word, that they will all be very similar unless you scroll down to page 1,000 of the search!
When you use Ebay or Amazon, you should have such random things come up that you might get an inspirational idea such as:
- a color palette
- a layout
- a reminder of a technique you haven’t used in a while or maybe have never tried
Let’s talk a little more specifically. There are often books and packaging that come up in this type of search. Why not use them as inspiration? You may take the layout of the lettering, the graphic design, or the color scheme. That would be three ways to use the look of just one book or package. That’s just the beginning! There are so many ways this could take you
Some ways that you might generate random images could be using:
- your name
- the street you currently live on
- the street you grew up on
- a pet’s name
What you come up with may be very out of the ordinary for your usual work! Here is another post about using prompts.
Have you tried this method of random idea inspiration? What did you come up with?
Simple Ideas and Prompts for Art Journaling and Scrapbooks
Do you ever feel like you just need a little nudge getting starting on a scrapbook page, or an art journal page? Let’s talk about that for just a minute! The other day, I announced that you could get a page of Inspiration Starters for free. It has 45 prompts that you can use for either scrapbooking or art journaling. Today, let’s talk a little bit about prompts and inspiration.
Simple prompts make YOU use YOUR CREATIVITY, like an ink blot test!
Some people like to have an idea spelled out for them, in kind of a “take this and do that with it” way. Since I like to urge you to stretch your creative wings, my inspiration prompts are a little more random that that. They are more like those ink blot tests!
If I say “BLUE,” what would you think of? There are many ways you could go with a prompt or idea that is just as simple as one word. Here are some things you might come up with for blue:
- the sky
- feeling “blue”
- baby boy blue
- your car may be blue
- a favorite piece of clothing
- color of your house
- a room in your home
- a new art product you just bought
- the blue eyes of someone special
- the nursery rhyme “Little Boy Blue”
- your phone may have a blue cover and spend a lot of time on it
- your favorite shade of blue
- … etc., etc., etc.
See what I mean? That’s what is so fun about getting less information with a prompt! When YOU come up with what you are going to do with the prompt, it is truly YOUR idea! So go ahead and get the sheet of “nudging” right now! When you let me know you want the sheet of prompts, you’ll even get a new sheet every month! By the way, blue is not on this list!
Art Journal Calendar, Scrapbook Style
Happy New Year!
Oh my goodness, it’s the new year and I hope you all had enjoyable days during the holidays! Recently, I was invited to join in on a challenge I hadn’t heard of before – making an art journal calendar for the year. Wait, don’t run off before I tell you about it! You may want to try something like this.
Basically, you create your own calendar in an artsy way, and then just jot down something each day! That’s about all the journaling some of us may do! It’s even more than some of us do now! Some people create theirs with 1.5 inch squares, but this one was made with 2″ squares since the pages were large and could accomodate that size. Plus, I’m not sure I can get anything written in something smaller than that!
Since many of you scrapbook, I wanted to give you an idea of how to do this, scrapbook style!
Here’s a basic run down on how my January 2013 was created:
- I did this as a double page spread, using 12×12 inch paper.
- I first used several die cut snowflakes and and inked over the background using 3 colors of ink.
- The bottom was masked off with torn paper, moving it around to ink over the edges and to make my snow drifts.
- Snowflakes were then stamped.
- Squares were cut from a decorative paper and adhered.
- Tiny strips of paper were cut and the days of week hand written and adhered.
- Journal blocks were outlined in black to give a little more definition.
- Die cut letters were made for “January” and “2013”
- White pen was used to make some icicles on the edges of some the journal squares.
- White die cut snowflakes were added in a few places.
- Glitter glue was added to snowflakes, snow drifts and a lot of other places for added sparkle!
I just finished mine today, but I know a couple of things I’ll write for yesterday. Don’t be put off from doing this, just because you didn’t get it ready by January 1st! There are plenty of days to come, and it could be a fun thing to have and look back at. Just think, 12 layouts to sum up a year! What fun to look back on.
If you end up making something, please come over and share it with us over at the Artful Adventures FaceBook Group!