Art Journaling Adventures

I mentioned in my post yesterday that I would show you some of my art journaling spreads I have done over the last month or so.  I am so VERY, very new to this and don't know (rather doubt) if you will get any inspiration from seeing these, LOL!  Hopefully, it will get better the longer I do it.  These pages are not great, but I'm having fun doing them and learning as I go along!  Besides, the number 1 rule is that there are NO RULES!  I LOVE that!

Art journaling has always intrigued me, just as anything arts and crafts has always done since I can remember!  When I decided to take a break from digital scrapbook kit designing to learn the PSCS5 program that my wonderful son bought for me, I decided it would be a great time to explore this world of art journaling.

It started when Cilenia Curtis had a CT call back in the middle part of 2012.  I was still designing at that time, but I was very tired of creating the "traditional" scrapbooking kit.  I decided it would be a good way to learn the digital art journaling from Cilenia and was thrilled when she accepted me for her CT.  It wasn't long before it turned from digital to mixed media to create my own digital brushes to use in my designing.  But, I was still feeling a bit burnt out and decided in August that at the end of September I would take a break from designing.

Well, sometime in December, I got wind of a free, on-line class to make an art journal.  So, I took Effy Wild's Book Binding class 101 at Wild Soul Arts and the rest is history, as they say!  The first pictures show the book I made and the decorating of the cover.  And the rest of the photos are of the pages I've done so far.  I got some Christmas money and spent it on art supplies:  Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists, Crafter's Workshop Stencils, Acrylic Craft paints, Gesso, Molding Paste, all kinds of stamps and stamp pads, art pencils and a few oil crayons plus some "hardware" for doing mixed media canvases like Anna Dabrowska.  THOSE I haven't been brave enough to tackle yet, even though I've been collecting things to create them with!  One of these days you will see those on here, too!  :D

So, here is the art journal I made using white canvas, watercolor paper and jute twine.  To find out how to make it, click on the Wild Soul Arts link above.  It is a free class and I think you could still take it.

The next assignment was to decorate the cover.  I used a pack of coordinating tissue paper that I got at Dollar Tree years ago when I still lived in WV.  This was applied to the cover with gel medium (I used 1:1 ratio of Elmers glue and water).

Here's a close-up so you can see the texture.  I purposefully "wrinkled" the tissue paper to get this texture.

So, here is my first spread I did.  The mesh you see is cheesecloth.  I didn't like it for the art journal paper as it is too stiff and harsh for me.  The other texture you see around the photo and the bird was created with molding paste.  The "shine" you see is from the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists.  And there are a few of the Crafter's Workshop stencils vaguely in the background.

When I started this page, I didn't know WHERE I was going or would end up, LOL!  Inspiration started with the song, "I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord" and then I found the verse of Scripture that I wanted to use.  The cross was created from molding paste.  The stenciled white is a Crafter's Workshop stencil, as is the stenciled verse.  The heart is free-handed.  The journaling is free-handed.  The small hearts are some Studio G stamps I got at Walmart.  I painted the blue on the background first, using a cross-hatch type of technique and while the blue was still wet, I finger painted the yellow in so I could blend it in a little bit around the edges with the blue.

This one is a little crazy, lol!  I had the idea that I wanted to use a tag and a "doll" on this page.  I started with spraying various colors of Glimmer Mists to the background.  Then I added some stencils and sprayed some more Glimmer Mists.  I sprayed the final top, right-hand side HEAVY and tipped the journal to allow the Glimmer Mist to run down the page.  I sprayed and stenciled the tag and wrote the verse on it (No good thing will He withhold from me if I walk uprightly.  Psalm 84:11).  I drew the doll and colored her with regular coloring pencils and glued her down.  Thinking her dress was to plain and boring, I splattered some Glimmer Mist on her and then stamped a few "so thankfuls" and "be happys" around the page which, except for the one at the top, you cannot really see.

This one I did for the Project Life 365 prompt of Confused.  I had just been talking about the Tower of Babel Bible story with someone, so that was the first thing that popped into my mind and instead of doing a picture for the prompt, I did a journal spread.  The left side of the page was inspired by something I saw on the internet.  The right side is just free-handed drawing and text.  The background on both sides is Glimmer Mists.  The black, red and brick color is acrylic craft paints.

This one was totally inspired by my granddaughter's beautiful, spunky smile as she posed for her mommy one day playing in the snow.  I used various stencils for the text with a permanent marker.  I painted the tree with acrylic craft paint and then added some modeling paste for the snow and also in the bottom corner for snow.  I had to paint it with white acrylic craft paint to get it to show up as snow.  The other color on the page are Glimmer Mists.

This page started with a quote that was going around facebook that my DIL saw and shared and said she thought of the photo of her daughter standing by the ocean with her arms spread when she read the quote.  So, that was the inspiration.  I did some stenciling, made the butterflies on and above my granddaughter, painted the top one with Glimmer Mists and the bottom one with ink pad.  Bent the wings up and glued the body to the page for the 3D effect.

I think this is my favorite so far.  It was alot of work to get the journaling and title on the page, but so worth the elbow grease!  The morning glory vine is a brush in one of Cilenia's kits that I printed out, traced with a graphite pencil and then transferred to the journal.  I found out that the ink jet ink would transfer to the journal, too, so instead of doing the extra graphite pencil step, I just fixed the title and journaling to print backwards so that I could then transfer it to the journal.  I still had to go over the ink to make it dark enough to see.  The first thing I did was to decide what colors I wanted the morning glories to be and what color I wanted to use on the leaves.  I then painted and blended both of those colors onto the background.  Then painted in the morning glories and the vine.  I am really loving this!  :D

I was reminded of this acronym while listening to Christian radio one day and decided it would make a great art journal spread.  So, I sprayed and stenciled the background using Glimmer Mists and acrylic craft paints.  Then I placed the letters where I wanted them to go and glued them down.  I stamped the acronyms on each letter and there you have it!

And, here is the one I finished today.  This is a song I heard on Christian radio this past Sunday.  I used stencils to create the door and stone wall on the bottom right.  The bicycle is a Studio G stamp as are the scattered black keys and flower-type shapes.  I did the background a bit differently on this one.  I sprayed my FAVORITE Glimmer Mist color, Dragonfly, which is the teal color, then rubbed it to make it look like water color instead of spritzes.  Then I laid down the letters of "PRAYER" and sprayed the "Mardi Gras" Glimmer Mist.  Let that dry before removing the letters.  Then used a stencil for "FAITH" and sprayed on the Mardi Gras color.  I outlined the letters with a black oil crayon to give them a little dimension.  Then I did the stamping and the journaling.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed looking at my pages and reading about the process and what inspired each page.  I hope you have gotten even just a teensy weensy bit of inspiration from my art journaling adventures so far!

Blessings to you!