All posts filed under: Art Journaling

‘I Like’ Friday. My Art Journal – ‘Get Messy’ Season of lists.

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For this week’s ‘I like’ Friday I have been working on some art journal pages using the themes and prompts from the Get Messy Season of Lists. It turned out to be a classic example of nothing going to plan. I was planning to use the same colours in each page and make all five pages work together. First flaw was that I only made three pages (and I really don’t like one of them very much). Once I got my colours out, I did three base pages using the diagonal ‘stripes’ in the corners using different ephemera and still planning to stick to my grey/pink/green/brick red colour scheme.  I ended up using navy instead of red because it was being used on the eye shaped stencil and I really really didn’t want red eyes (not on this spread anyway, maybe on a page which needs creepy red eyes…). As it turned out I didn’t use the colours anywhere else on the pages, so the colour scheme plan went out of the window right behind …

Tangling, Drawing and art journaling.

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I have this ‘pretend’ friend called Jeanette who writes at Craftwhack blog and has written a rather fabulous book called ‘Tangle Art and Drawing Games for Kids‘ which I got to play with and now I am going to tell you about!   I have met lots of ‘pretend’ friends – you know the ones you meet on the inter webs but not yet in real life (no, I don’t say IRL, I am not a young person).  They are all talented and amazing and when they write a book, I want to see it! This book was no disappointment, in fact it was an inspiration from page to page.  So many great ideas and not just for kids in my opinion, I saw lots of stuff I wanted to incorporate into my art journal. So I did. The Geometry tree (#1) caught my eye and I could not stop smiling at the tangled hair project (#45), so I thought I would give them a go.  At first I decided to concentrate on the crazy …

Get Messy Art Journal. The Season of Lists.

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I am happy to report I am managing to do some work in my art journal almost every day which is something I have been trying to do since I joined the Get Messy community at the beginning of the year. I rarely start and finish a page in one sitting, mainly because each layer has to dry before I add anything else.  This is another reason that I usually have more than one sketchbook on the go. This first page is one I started over a week ago when I saw the fabulous crane in an old National Geographic magazine.  I added a little gold craft paint to the gesso and glued down my bird.  Then I left it.  For ages. I added the triangle doodles and left it again.  Today I finished the page with one of the list prompts from Get Messy Lists – ‘Mysteries to Explore’.  I jotted down a few mysteries and I am not sure that my bewildered crane has any answers! The top spread started as a watercolor …

The 100 Day Project 2016

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What could you make/create/invent for one hundred days straight?  What do you want one hundred of? Pages in a novel (it would be a great start to a book!). Learn a foreign word. Make a pattern every day. Use one colour in a photo or a sketch. Sketch a face. Photograph the same scene – see how and if it changes. Make an altered playing card collection. Design an alphabet. Run a mile (100 miles would be an impressive achievement). Invent a recipe (another book in the making). All kinds of things you could do and by one hundred of them you would be pretty good I think. I did the 100 day project last year and I drew/made or photographed a mandala a day and it was a very good project.  Over one hundred days, you really get into it and turn out some wonderful things and some rather terrible things, but the main thing is to keep doing these things until you have achieved that one hundred day point. My mandalas are all …

‘I like’ Friday. Art Journaling Supplies.

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I have been reading a lot lately about the supplies people like to use in their art journaling. These posts are inspiring and helpful all at once, so I thought I would add my two pennies worth and write a post about what I like to use. As I have only been art journaling deliberately for a couple of months, I suspect the supplies I rely on will change and develop over the next months.  I look forward to how my supplies evolve. Of course the first thing we need to journal is a sketchbook.  I have filled a Strathmore 500 series book which has very nice heavy paper and I have just started a Ranger Dylusions sketchbook which has heavy paper too, but is a little thicker.  I can’t wait to fill it up! These are both larger books, 8″x 11″ give or take a quarter of an inch. I like to have lots of space to play with, so I like this size. Pens pens pens.  I use Micron pens in almost everything …

Art Journal ideas and progress.

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This week I started to fill a book with patterns and doodles just to see how many ideas I can come up with. I want to fill pages with stripe ideas and then more with dot ideas until I can’t think of any more, then fill some extra pages. For this I am using an old library book which I bought for 25 cents from our library’s sale cart. ‘The Shelf Book’ is my pattern sketchbook, I will try anything in it, it is not precious.  So if I don’t like a page, never mind, turn to the next page and carry on.  It is very freeing to be honest, I have only just started to fill the book and hopefully by the end I will have a nice collection of ideas for journal pages, backgrounds, colouring sheets and maybe a post card or two. I started a new spread in a new sketchbook too which is a wonderful thing.  I am so happy to have filled one sketchbook and to be onto the next …

Get Messy Thursday. Art Journal pages.

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Two bright and colorful journal spreads this week! I picked up a pile of old National Geographic magazines free from the library and I used images from the magazines on both spreads. The honey comb in the top spread is from the magazine and the background rice field in the bottom spread. I tried out my new stencil from Stencil Girl in the pink pages, I love how stencils add to a page either as a base layer or on top of everything. I must admit when I added the drippy ink, I wished I hadn’t, but I carried on and I like how it turned out. The green page is mainly acrylic paint and fortune cookie wrappers and fortunes on top of National Geographic pages and a page from an old dictionary.  Lots of layers on this page. I hope you have had a creative week too.  The new Get Messy season starts next month, so if you are interested in joining, pop over and see what it is all about. Happy Thursday.

Get Messy Art Journal ‘Happy’ Season.

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The weather today is pretty grey but I like to think of this page as grey sparkle rather than dull weather grey. As I splattered the background I managed to cover myself in black ink as well as the page and the floor.  Don’t worry I did the splatting outside! I did have a very nice time with my gelli plate and some pages from an old dictionary.  I used a used gift card and feathers as texture creators in the paint. I mixed some paints, but stuck to the grey theme. I also did some prints using dry deli paper for a lovely see through effect when I stick  them on my final page. It really is wonderful how many effects can be created using lots of different techniques and tools.  I am so pleased with the gelli prints on this page. All of this journal fun was inspired by the week six prompts over at the Get Messy Art Journal website. The idea was to cover the background with the same colour, so I chose …

Get Messy Friday. Art Journal Pages.

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This week has been a funny old week, I seem to have been busy busy but when I look back, I haven’t achieved very much.  I am already behind on March projects which is a great start!  Next week I will catch up.  Hopefully. Maybe. The trouble is I keep finding new things to learn and do!  There are so many classes via Creative Bug or Skillshare, not to mention the endless classes provided by various blogs and websites.  I am skipping from one thing to another like a Spring bunny. There is an urban sketching class, a watercolor class, another watercolor class, a sketch-a-day class, a drawing on a photo in photoshop class, not to mention all the books I borrow from the library.  This bunny needs to focus! In the midst of all of the skipping, I did finish some journal pages and started some too.  I tend to work on more than one page at a time because I will start one page and always come up with another idea and start another …

A month of Tinkersketch drawing challenge

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Through the month of February I joined in with Rachelle from Tinkerlab for the Tinkersketch drawing challenge.  Prompts were provided along with ideas for each day, sketchbooks were grabbed and art was created. I decided to use an old book discarded from the library as my sketchbook and I had filled it by the end of the month.  I didn’t use every page because I used all kinds of media which invariably ruined the next page or two. Here are some of my favorite pages from my little vintage book as sketchbook.  I quite like that I ended up with lots of bugs scuttling across my pages! Day 2. Mirror. Day 7. Repetition. Day 5. Tiny Doodle. Day 11. Stamp. I used a squashed cardboard roll to stamp hearts. Day 14. Hearts. Day 15. Sky.  Watercolor with masking fluid and pen and a collaged moon. Day 19. Junk Mail. Day 27. Mismatched. Day 29. Torn Paper. The final prompt which was ‘torn paper’ was completed on the very last page of the book. Thanks to Rachelle …