Although I have been doing mixed media for a very long time, I've never really made my own collage papers. There have always been enticing patterned papers all around and it never really occurred to me to spend some time making some of my own. It was only recently that I have been focusing on making things ahead of time and breaking up my working process, that I have discovered the joys of making my own papers. This is a great project for when you might be in a rut, but still feel the urge to be creative. It requires little thinking, and is an almost meditative method to build your art menagerie. Follow along to see how fun and easy it is to create these bright pages.
To get started, I scrounged around my studio for papers that I didn't really love or were experiments of one technique or another.
Once I got the first layer on, I trimmed everything down to about a 4"x6" size sheet to make it easy to store for future use.
I then took another stencil from
this month's StencilClub stencil set and added more layers with neon orange paint to add more texture.
I then took some black gesso and made large painterly circles, although any pattern will do. I made sure to leave lots of brush marks and keep the design open so as to expose good portions of the printed layers beneath.
Next I added the smallest stencil on to portions of the bold black swaths of paint with a bright white. I kept it random so as to leave some room for more texture.
Lastly, and my most favorite part, I added doodles and marks to the pages with paint pens in coordinating colors. This is my favorite part because each rectangle can look so different from the next. When you are done you will have pages ready to be used as pages, cut into shapes, or torn up and used in your mixed media project.
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Hello! My name is Megan Whisner Quinlan. I have been art journaling and book binding for about 20 years. However, I took a 10 year break from paper arts when I had my first 2 children. About 5 years ago, I came back into journaling after some big life changes, including 2 more children. Journaling had always been a part of my life, especially to work things out in life on paper. When I first started out, I really only focused on making books by hand and some basic collage and stamping. I was intimidated by the amazing art journaling artists out there who could create elaborate, mixed media spreads. When I came back to journaling after such a long break, I decided that I was going to really push myself to learn all the techniques I had been too afraid to try. Painting and drawing have really allowed me to find so much joy in my creative process, and I now almost exclusively create mixed media every day. I feel excited to have joined the art journaling community and you can find me on Instagram @Megan_Whisner_Quinlan or on Youtube: Megan Whisner Quinlan.
