Let’s look at some ways to get started on a page. Here are three methods of creating your page.
Create a background and then decide what you’ll put on the page as you move forward.
Have something already selected that you want to make sure your background will work with.
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!
As we continue our Art Journaling Adventure, we’ll step back a minute and look at gesso, before we move ahead into discussing some adhesives. While we used gesso in turning a book into an art journal, you may be wondering why we didn’t just use white acrylic paint, instead of the gesso. So, we’ll talk about that now.
Although white acrylic paint and white gesso may look a lot alike, they are different. Gesso is made to actually seal a surface and still provide a very slightly textured surface, also known as “tooth.” This gives paint something to grab onto. That means that you can use gesso on all kinds of surfaces and be able to paint on it. Without the gesso, many surfaces would absorb too much of what you are using, such as paints, ink mists, and adhesives. Gesso also has more of an adhesive property than acrylic paint. You can use it and then work an artful creation on many surfaces which your paint or other mediums would not normally stay on very well!
Different brands of gesso have varying degrees of a textured surface when they are dry. In our art journals, we can just use one that does not really have a lot of noticeable texture. A liquid gesso is easy to use and will work well in an art journal.
As we move forward, you’ll also find that mixing a little white gesso into a paint will change a paint color in a different way than white paint will change it.
So, don’t be afraid to grab some gesso at some point, even if you have decided to purchase your art journal instead of using our recycled book idea! I promise that as we move through different Artful Adventures, you will have a use for it.
See you on our next stop on the Art Journaling Adventure,
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 episodehere.
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!
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
So far, in our Artful Adventure into Art Journaling Basics, we have covered:
