To your desired base add a layer of old book pages - I used modpodge to adhere them and a layer of lightly spread gesso.
Step 2:
Apply a desired layer of paint or multiple colours and place stencil while the paint is still wet place the stencil on top of the area you want to erase and with a baby wipe.
Step 3:
Continue with this process placing the stencil over various part of the paint to create random markings.
Step 4:
Place the floral stencil in the desired area and use black to make it pop.
Step 5:
Tape off the part of the stencil you would like to use for creating further and apply to your page with a contrasting colour.
Add a phrase that represents you the mood and voila!
Anouk here, and today I'm sharing a page that I made in my tall journal.
Making my own art journals has made me experiment a lot with a lot of shapes and sizes. Awhile ago I made two tall shaped journals, and they are so much fun to play in! It did took me awhile to get used to them though, but once you crack the code of the weird composition this size gives you so many possibilities.
When I work in this size I almost always grab a tall stencil that will fit the narrow pages, but this time I want to play a little bit with layering a repetitive pattern stencil. I'm working with the Japanese Tulip Oriental Rug (L921) by Cathy Nichols.
01. Setting up the basics
This page already had a thin layer of gesso on it, so no need to add extra. I grabbed a few collage bits and layered them on the corners of the page. I normally don't bother to put clear gesso on top of my collage, but since I'm using a piece of pattern paper I wanted to be safe and applied a thin layer.
02. Gel printing
I used a small Gel Printing 3x5 inch plate to apply some Dina Wakley - Heater acrylic paint. I love how you can print paint quick and easy with this small play plate without making lots of mess. I stamp the plate directly to the page making sure I don't use too much pressure. The goal here is to make some marks, not to get the entire print.
03. Stencilling
I'm sorry for all the red lovers out there, but I always soften my Naphthol Red Deep paint with a bit of Titanium White to create a tone that is the perfect mix between red and pink. I then applied it with a baby wipe through my stencil, because I couldn't find my ink dabber.
So if you ever can't find your stamping and tool know that a baby wipe is the perfect alternative.
04. Gesso
Now it's time for my favourite part. After the colour explosion I tone it all down with a little bit of gesso. I don't cover it all up, just a little bit to make it more softer. Then I grab my stencil again and I apply some gesso through it with a pallet knife. As a finishing touch I watered down my gesso to make some splatters.
05. Colour
The fabric on my journal gave me the perfect inspiration for my colour pallet. So grabbed Dina Wakley - Sage acrylic paint and applied it with my fingers blending it with the wet gesso.
06. More collage
When the, what I like to call - base layer was done I add some more collage elements to the page. When the elements were dry I made them blend in with the page by adding a tiny bit of gesso here and there.
07. Coffee
I don't know how it happened but coffee became my signature move in art journaling.
I splattered some dry grounded coffee on my page and sprayed some water on top of it to create these intense coffee marks.
08. Finishing touches
For the finishing touches I cut out a few words form a Dutch book and glue them on my page. Then I grabbed my stencil again and some gold paint to highlight the words a little bit.
Have you ever worked in a tall journal?If you didn't I hope that this blogpost has given you a bit of inspiration to start one yourself.
Vintage Music and Book Paper Pattern Paper DecoTime Lace DecoTime
Tea Bags
Amsterdam White Gesso Amsterdam Clear Gesso Mod Podge Matt Dina Wakley Acrylic Paint - Heather Dina Wakley Acrylic Paint - Sage Amsterdam Napthol Deep RedAmsterdam Titanium white
Amsterdam GoldInstant Coffee
Thank you so much for reading my blog post. I hope that I have inspired you to create today! My name is Anouk or Creanouk on social media, and I'm an all-round creative from the Netherlands. I love art journaling because I can put my heart and soul into it. You can find my work on Instagram and Youtube.
Hi beautiful artist, Anouk here today with another blogpost about art journaling. A couple of blogpost back I shared a page that I made in my naptime journal. Today I wanted to talk a little bit more about this journal and how I have different approaches for it.
My naptime journal has been born out of the need to journal when my baby is napping. I actually thought that once my baby would be older it would be easier to art journaling while he was awake. But truth to be told I just can't concentrate while he's playing on the floor besides me. He's also very cute and funny so it's quite distracting.
My naptime journal has had many names over the years. But it always has the same purpose: A place to create in when I don't have lot of energy or time. I keep my journals for this purpose small. They are passport size (A6ish) filled with different kind of papers. I want them to be filled easy so I don't make them too thick. Five papers in each journal max. I get so discouraged when a journal takes forever to fill, so I've learned that ten to twenty pages are my magical number.
The first edition of this type of journal started as a travel journal of sorts. I took with me to my parents house where I was puppy sitting my dog three times a week. I couldn't bring my whole collection of art supplies so most of the time I just did some collaged, made some sketches or add marks to my pages. I discovered that, for me, this journal had the perfect size for the moments when I couldn't spend a lot of time to be creative. Whenever that would be time wise or health wise.
With that realisation I started using this journal as a 5-minute-art journal. Every morning I would spend just five minutes to create an art journal spread. It really helped me to start the day with a positive mindset. It made me realize that 5 minutes of making art is enough for my brain to feel more relaxed.
Making art is something that I know is good for my soul. But sometimes life happens and even 5 minutes of art can feel like a lot. And that's okay too. I'm currently in a season of my life where it's hard to find the time to do something that's just for me. Having a chronicle illness and taking care of a baby is a lot. Some days I'm very good in taking those wonderful minutes of art journaling. Other days I'm just walking around like a robot changing diapers and doing laundry. Ha! Cutest laundry and the best diaper changing giggles from my son if I may add. So it's all good.
In the last trimester of my pregnancy I quickly make another small junk journal that I planned to use for when our baby was sleeping. And that's how the naptime journal was born!
When our son was over a week old my husband encouraged me to spend some time in my journal. I knew I wouldn't have energy to create something in my larger journals, so I was very happy that I made my tiny little journal before our son arrived! I was the most magical moment almost feeling like myself again after an intense week of getting used to the new situation. After that I didn't touched the journal for at least a month. Ha! I just enjoyed napping with our son on my chest too much for the first two months.
Anyways, our son is currently six months old and I just started working in my second naptime journal! He doesn't even want to sleep on my chest anymore so that means that my naptime journals are getting used as planned. Every now and then when I have a tiny bit of energy left during one of his naps I sneak in my art room to play in my journal.
There are three different approach that I like when it comes to my naptime journal. When I have time and energy to art journal in his 'long' nap I like to work on one 'big' spread. Making it from start to finish. To be completely honest when this happens I just use my naptime journal on the side as a second 'leftover' journal. So I would create the page with leftover paint and scraps from a bigger piece in a larger journal.
For the shorter naps I like to work on a few different pages in my journal at the same time. This way I'm not focusing on finishing the page and I don't get frustrated when my baby wakes up while the page isn't finished. It's also a very mindful and intuitive way of creating. Building up the page day after day until it feels complete. This is also great for when you know you only have a few minutes to spare. Just add a sprinkle of ink, glue a piece of paper, using a stencil or spread some watercolour.
And the last approach is to go back to five minutes of art and make a more minimal page. Just set yourself a time limit and create within those minutes. You'll be amazed in what you can accomplish in those precious minutes.
For this blogpost I wanted to show you two pages that I made in a couple naptime moments. I worked on them side by side, not focusing on the outcome but the process of creating them. I used my heath gun a lot to dry the wet pages in between. Going back and forth until they felt completed. In total I worked on them for three days. Building up the pages with each session.
Day 01 - Building up the background
The first step of my art journaling process is often building the background with some collage. These pages are no exception. After the collage was done I started to pick out my stencils. For the first page I used Monet's Foyer (S927) by Cathy Nichols with a purple acrylic paint. The whole colour scheme of this pages matched perfectly with a floral image that was lying on my desk so I prepped it with some Matt Medium and a tea bag to do an image transfer the next day.
For the second page I really wanted to use Garden Botanical Mask (L912) by Rae Missigman, because it's such a gorgeous stencil and especially to use as a focal point. Just a few minutes before my son woke up I decided to use a dark blue acrylic paint and I wasn't so happy about it. But duty called so I left it for the next time.
Day 02 - Creating texture and fixing mistakes
After two days I was able to get back to these pages. At first I had no clue what I wanted to add. I tried to get the image transfer to work but something went wrong and I had to add more matt medium. I was highly aware that this image transfer wasn't the best idea since they always fail and take up a huge amount of time. But I still love the idea of it in the page so I just left it aside hoping for a better result in a few days. When I don't know what to do I like to grab my coffee and pout it on top of the page. Thankfully that did the job and I was back in the creating mode. I fixed some things that I didn't liked from the session before and I add some texture with fabric and ribbed cardstock.
Day 03 - Finishing touches
The day after I was quite pleased with the result. All that was left to do was finish the image transfer and add some words. So I spend twenty minutes of my good time to rub off the paper hoping that the transfer would be successful. Keeping an eye on the baby monitor, crossing my fingers that he would have a nice long nap. And then I typed down some quotes on my typewriter to add to the pages. Faith decided that my son would wake up the moment that I was almost done with these pages. So I did what every good mom would do. I let him play beside me while I add some ink splatters around the pages. When it was dry I let him see what I made and he tried to eat my art journal. I think he liked it!
Are you ready to art journal yourself after reading about my process? I filmed every session while I made these pages. So you can sit back and relax and watch me create, or you can grab your own small journal and journal with me. Enjoy!
Thank you so much for reading my blog post. I hope that I have inspired you to create today! My name is Anouk or Creanouk on social media, and I'm an all-round creative from the Netherlands. I love art journaling because I can put my heart and soul into it. You can find my work on Instagram and Youtube.
Hello Friends! I am here to brighten your dreary Winter day with somerainbow cactus using my set of desert themed stencils.
This year I have chosen a word of the year to guide me in what I need for my life. My word is 'serenity' and one way I am trying to bring it into my life is a daily art practice every morning. I made myself a junk journal...a real junk journal from actual junk. I make work on a page each day, practicing different materials and mediums. I play soothing music and have a nice smelling candle or essential oil diffusing. This practice has been really helpful to give me a calm start to my day. On a dreary Winter day where the sky is grey and overcast....I was feeling like I should make something the colors of the rainbow. That idea is where I started this junk journal page with my cactus themed stencils.
I was really set on the idea of rainbow cactus. But I had no idea where I would be using them. So I decided to start by stenciling my various cactus on tissue paper using acrylic paint in the rainbow order. You know ROYGBIV. Or in my case. Ruby, Lemon, Cheddar, Evergreen, Marina, and Eggplant. I used some sponge dauber tools and a 12X12 piece of tissue stock.
The reason I really love to stencil my images on tissue stock is that they collage down on any surface really nicely. I prefer to use a brush with water around the outside edges of the image. And then I tear it out leaving a irregular edge. This type of 'fluffy' edge on the image makes it just melt into the substrate when I glue it down with fluid medium.
So now that I have a pile of rainbow cactus and it is time to start on my junk journal page for the day! This is my hand made junk journal. I used an empty cereal box to make the cover and added my word of the year, Serenity. Then I sewed in 4 signatures of folded papers that were just laying around on my desk and no longer needed. Why this type of art journal? I feel that it makes me less cautious as I am working in it. The pages are not expensive or even 'nice' paper. It may be harder to work with, but not at all precious. I can experiment as much as I want. I can rush. If it isn't perfect in the end then I really don't fuss over that at all!
I wanted some sort of background on my page that seemed dynamic and painterly. I decided to make some mountains and sky using a silicone paint shaper brush and heavy body acrylic paint. This gave me less control over my strokes and kept from me eliminating all the white space. At the bottom of the page I created a rocky area to plant my rainbow cactus by removing some of the paint through a stencil from my ATC Mix Up Desert Sights design. One of the 9 was inspired by the rocks in my back yard.
Once I had added enough variety of bright rainbow cactus to my background using fluid matte medium, it was time to add finishing touches. I added a sunshine stencil up in the sky. Then I used a few gel sticks to add some shading. And a white paint pen for highlights. I also added black water soluble pencil and bled it out using water at the very end or my process.
If you would like to watch this junk journal page being made from start to finish you can watch a video here. Thanks so much for visiting! Shel C
Art journal spreads goes through many stages. There's the stage in the beginning when the blank page stares at you and screams to be filled with layers of your favorite mediums. Then there's the stage in between when everything is still possible but you have already made your mark. The stage when you sometimes don't know if your previous actions were that good. From there you end up in the stage of fixing your mistakes. Or, if everything went to your liking, the stage where you complement the things you have done just to give your page a little extra. And then of course you come into a stage of finishing where you write or glue down a quote and add some other finishing touches like ink splatters or marks.
Sounds familiar? Or is it only me who unconsciously works in these stages?
The page that I made and filmed for you today definitely went through all these stages. Halfway through I wasn't so sure if I was liking the things that I've done. The colors, which I normally love so much, felt a little too much. The composition is boring. I wasn't so sure what I could do to make it feel right again. But I kept going. And layer for layer the page started to grow back on me. I was reminded to always trust the process of my art and to never give up. Because in the end, I really love how the page turned out.
I used Wildflower Bouquet by Wendy Brightbill in the background as one of the first layers to create some depth in the white open space.
On top of the background, I used Bouquet Greenery also by Wendy Brightbill, to soften up the parts of the background that felt too much. I used white so that everything blended very nicely together. Using the Bouquet Greenery again, with the same Prussian blue that I used in the background but now mixed with my modeling paste, on top of the white print created a very interesting layered focal point.
In my video, you can see every step that I took to create this spread. I've tried to explain the steps that I took in a voice-over, but I would like to warn you that I would rather write in English than speak. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this video, and that you'll trust the process when you are about to give up on the page.
Thank you so much for reading my blog post. I hope that I have inspired you to create today! My name is Anouk or Creanouk on social media, and I'm an all-round creative from the Netherlands. I love art journaling because I can put my heart and soul into it. You can find my work on Instagram and Youtube.
