All posts tagged: Art Journal

Art Journal Pages. Season of Dreams week 3.

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We are in the Season of Dreams in the Get Messy Art Journaling community and inspired by the wonderful Tanyalee of The Drawing Board, I created these two pages in my journals. I painted a watercolor wash over some vintage ‘onion skin paper’ which is very thin paper which is slightly wrinkly but I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t completely crinkle when I added the wet paint. Using this paper I cut out circles and butterfly shapes which I layered over the base pages I had created. The top page has a loosely painted self portrait with watercolor splashes which I glued the shapes over. The bottom page is  butterflies glued and layered  along the bottom ‘escaping’ from the darkness of the black gesso. I used a fine black pen to make some outlines and doodles. I have some sheets of watercolor wash left to play with, so I wonder what I will do with them! Happy Friday x        

Paint and Ink in my Art Journal.

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It is week two in the Season of Dreams from the Get Messy Art Journal community and as well as prompt ideas, we have some great tutorials. I often mix ink and paint, but these pages use two different ideas which I interpreted using  acrylic with ink pen and watercolor with a Micron Pigma pen. The first page was a deliberate attempt to finger paint flower shaped images with acrylic paints and when it dried I went into nearly every ‘flower’ with a nib pen and ink to add lots of flowery detail. I approached the second page quite differently, the base layer is a very loose array of watercolour blobs in a minimal colour choice.  Once the colour dried I looked into the images in front of me and pulled out any creatures I could imagine.  I used the colour and the negative space to find lots of imaginary dream-like beings. When I was splashing colour around the page, I was not at all sure what I would find to draw, if anything at …

Get Messy Art Journal. Season of Music. Week 2.

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I just realized how different these two pages are!  Both from the season of music and both influenced by a close time period.  However that time was the eighties and when I was a teen and my taste moved from trend to trend by the minute. Which I suppose is how it should be as a teenager, lots of different experiences in music, fashion, make up and all the things. The first page features lyrics (ha, I use the term loosely!) from the first single I bought for myself – Mickey by Toni Basil.  I loved that record and played it and played it while bouncing around the living room!!! I wrote the words on tracing paper which is between some pages in my handmade book.  I added crazy colour on top of some gesso on the original music pages. The second page I started last week when I glued the gelli plate print to the pages of my book and painted in some neon pops.  This week I painted the names of some of …

‘I Like’ Friday. The Get Messy Art Journal Edition.

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I have been having some great fun during this first week of the new Get Messy Art Journal season. ‘Get Messy’ is a community of art journalling ladies who hang out via the inter-webs and sometimes in real life.  If you are interested in creating art journals or are a seasoned art journaler, you may be interested in joining. For this ‘season of music’, I made a journal for the first time which was quite a leap, I thought I would not be into making a handmade journal at all. I make enough mess in my art journals and sketchbooks, what if I make the mess of all messes while making the darn book! I chose a small music script in the form of a book which was stapled together to unstaple and add my own pages as well as keeping all of the original music.  I used pamphlet stitch and added tracing paper, mixed media paper and watercolor paper. I soon ended up with a natty little handmade journal to fill. ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ is …

Get Messy Art Journal and sketchbook pages.

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I brought my sketchbooks on holidays and am happy that I did because I have enjoyed doodling some patterns which I am sure I will use in the future. I often plan with all good intentions and end up doing nothing I thought I would. This time I have enjoyed having my sketchbook to stick old pages in and practice my buoy sketches.  For this season of Get Messy we are using a book as a sketchbook/art journal which is something I like to do anyway, so I am happy with that. I did have a false start though. The original book I was going to use had very thin pages and I knew I wouldn’t be sticking any together to work around this so I picked a new book.  This one is the ‘avocado’ book which I picked up from a yard sale here on the Cape. There is a picture of the front cover in my last post.  For the above page I used three different flower stamps and gave them a painted …

Get Messy Season of Lists. Week 4.

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Lists lists lists!  Most of these pages did not turn out at all how I had envisioned.  I had no idea where my crazy eyed skull was going and I really didn’t like the ‘Six Months’ base page until I added the yellow and black. It just goes to show, the best thing about art journaling is where you end up and the fun and mess you can create along the way. If you want to know more about the Get Messy Art Journal community, pop over to their website and see if you want to join the fun! Happy Thursday x  

Get Messy Art Journaling – Stencil and Pink

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This week in my art journal I have been playing with stencils, single line drawing and making a spread using only pinks.  All super fun!  Thanks to the fine folks at Get Messy Art Journaling for the ideas and enthusiasm. This double page was made by applying a thin layer of gesso then I used the stencil I made to create the all over design. All in an old book I have selected to use as a sketchbook.  Watercolor paint created a nice gentle colour which is lighter and darker at random.  You can see the stencil on the right of the photo, so it took a few layers to cover the page.  I am a little bit in love with this effect though and I have fallen hard for stencil making. Making a drawing using a single line and not taking your pencil/pen off the page until you are done sounds rather intimidating, but this was such a great exercise.  I took the pressure off myself and grabbed a teal blue colored pencil and …

‘I like’ Friday. The Art Journaling Edition.

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I am really really really liking art journaling at the minute, so today’s ‘I like’ Friday should be called ‘I really really really like’ Friday! My art journaling journey began late last year when I joined the Get Messy community and started to follow along with what the talented people over there were creating.  I wasn’t really making any pages myself because honestly I felt rather out of my depth.  It was all so full and layered and complicated and I am a kind of simple soul, especially in my art.  So I watched and chatted and absorbed as much as I could. Then a prompt appeared on Instagram with instructions, just vague directions, but that was just what I needed.  So I gesso’ed and I stuck paper down and painted and stamped and wrote and doodled and I had a great time doing so. I did it again and this page (above) took on it’s own little life.  I never intended the girl to have wings, but there they appeared as I drew some random …