Use Your Travel Photos for Inspiration

Hello! I am Kristin Williams, a mixed media artist and stitcher who's been taking a "Gap Year" this year to travel, make art and renew friendships. 

I wish I were as observant of my everyday surroundings as I am when I am in a new city, town, or country. My head & phone whip from side to side capturing beauty, graffiti, textures, landscapes, and beautiful color combinations.

I love the feeling of being hyper-aware of the scenery and drinking it in. I take the most random photos which end up being my absolute faves. My photo quantity is exceeding quadruple digits on my phone. Yikes. 

I don’t like them just to be pretty pictures taking up space on my phone. 

As someone who thrives on color, I love it when a photo gives me a roadmap for a palette for a new piece of art. 

Sometimes it is overwhelming to choose which colors you want to extract from a photo. If you have Procreate or Canva there are ways to generate a color palette from a photo in those platforms. 

If not, I found a successful way to accomplish it through the online app COOLORS.CO. Under tools choose “Image Picker” to upload a photo and generate a color palette from it. You can add colors by clicking the + sign and even rearrange their order on your palette. It’s a pretty handy and, so far, free tool. 

Swoonworthy colors in Porto, Portugal

The Pink Street in Lisbon, Portugal.

Porto, Portugal

Lisbon, Portugal

You may or may not need this, but I think it’s helpful to identify what you like about the photos you’ve taken. 

I definitely have color themes and I’ve realized that my favorite photos or journal pages have an Aha! Pop of color. The analogous colors hang out in harmony and then the complimentary color boldly says “Howdy!”

Textures also soothe my soul. When I see images like these, Mary Beth’s voice rings in my head saying “I see stencils everywhere!” I like to print these texture-rich images on text-weight paper in a variety of sizes and use them in my collage. You can also find sites to upload images and have them printed on tissue paper or fabric. Spoonflower.com is a favorite site of mine for printing on fabric. 

Even if you can’t travel right now, take yourself on an “Artist Date” and snap a ton of photos around your area that make you smile. The Autumn leaves produce beautiful palettes and the hardware store has the opportunity for endless texture photos. 

There is a satisfaction in using your photos in your mixed media work that brands it truly as your own.

Happy Photo Snapping!

Mary Beth Shaw's VLOG: March 2022

Join Mary Beth in Amsterdam and Paris!

Click here for more information and registration!

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mary Beth's VLOG!

Stay tuned!

Mary Beth Shaw will be back again next month with another new VLOG post!

NEW StencilGirl® Products Release!

Mary C. Nasser's NEW Waterways stencil series is available now at stencilgirlproducts.com!

Abstract Water Surface and Rippled Water were inspired by Mary's love of water and time spent traveling on oceans and seas. The abstract designs created in these 6” x 6” stencils makes them great for adding rhythm, movement, and patterns to your art journal pages, mixed media projects, printmaking, and more.

Check out how Mary uses these new stencils in her art journal spreads to create rhythm and movement:

These new stencils work wonderfully in larger abstract art, too,

like in this mixed-media painting by Mary Beth Shaw:

You can find all of Mary’s stencils inspired by maps and travel here.

Travel Art Journaling with StencilGirl® Stencils

Art journaling when traveling brings me awareness of what I am directly experiencing through my senses (mindfulness) by observing my surroundings through my artistic eye. I love to travel and was so excited to re-enter society this summer by traveling to Utah.

Check out this photo of me and my travel buddies at Landscape Arch in Arches National Park. Our matching world map shirts were a blast. When considering the weight of our hiking gear and water, we wanted to limit the art supplies we brought in our backpacks. 

I don’t always take the same supplies but have core items that I choose based on the method of travel, planned activities, and the length of the trip. When traveling by air, I don’t take anything with liquid such as acrylic paint since I tend not to check luggage. I use a watercolor pan set which is light weight and doesn’t take up a lot of space. I also bring a watercolor sketchbook, a waterbrush, a few pens and pencils, and for this trip I added several StencilGirl® stencils.

I have a lot of StencilGirl® stencils and love working with them in the studio. It hadn’t occurred to me to take them with me when traveling, but they are highly portable and do not take up space or add weight. I think they add such a fun element to my art journal pages and are great way to add texture. Here is a list of the stencils I chose as well as why I selected them (not all were used in the video):

• Compass Rose by Julie Snidle: compasses are a universal symbol of travel 

• Windows Large Stencil by Pam Carriker: represent ‘windows’ in the rock formations 

• City Map by Mary C. Nasser: urban vibe as a contrast to nature/national parks 

• Sunburst Crackle by Daniella Woolf: sun for sunny desert location 

• 6” leaf motif from Stencil Club September 2020 by Rae Missigman: botanical 

• Wheel of Hope from Stencil Club May 2017 by Pam Carriker: texture and shape 

• Mash Up from Mary Beth Shaw Stencil Club January 2021: texture

In the video linked above you’ll see how I created a journal page while inside Arches National Park.

After finding a comfortable place to sit in the shade, the view of Turret Arch was the subject for my page. Don’t be surprised by people’s curiosity; I found they were really excited and thought what we were doing was very cool. It was a great reason to strike up a conversation and learn more about the area from other travelers.

I started my page with a line drawing using a watercolor pencil. Next, I painted the blue sky and earth-tone rock formations using a waterbrush and watercolors. I used the Mash Up stencil to add texture to the foreground. I added greenery and then used part of the Windows Large Stencil, subtle symbolism to our location, to add texture to the rock formations. 

A few extra lines and my art journal page memorializing my trip to Arches National Park was complete.

I hope I have inspired you to art journal on your next vacation to create something you can look back on for years to come. I’d love to see your travel journal pages so make sure to tag me on social media and check out my YouTube and Instagram accounts for more mixed media inspiration: https://www.flowcode.com/page/carolynmcgowan 

Native Cincinnatian, Carolyn McGowan works in finance, while also feeding her creative appetite as a mixed media artist through painting, art journaling, book making, photography and travel. 

StencilGirl® Stencils on Collaged Postcards from Lauren Bergold

Hello, it's Lauren Bergold, a StencilGirl® superfan, and I'm thrilled to be a guest here on StencilGirl Talk. Today I've got a brand new project... with vintage flair. I've collected postcards since I was about ten; but I also love making my own. For this post, I've made a set of travel-inspired 5x7" postcards, using four of Mary Nasser's beautiful designs: Map Stencil, Metro Map, Map with Roundabouts (are you sensing a theme?!) and one of her travel word stencils, Let's Go 2, which has the best typewriter font ever! 

I started by making base collages of torn vintage paper, just slightly over 5x7". I used bits of old train schedules, foreign text paper, aeronautical diagrams and... well, a little bit of everything that felt travel-related, but fairly neutral. I covered the reverse side with an old NYC Subway map. Since my favorite postcards as a kid were those which came in a special little folder, I made one of those, too, out of a piece of wallpaper from a retired sample book.

The first thing I do with any new StencilGirl® Stencils is test them out; ok, actually I just play with them, lol! I try different inks and pastes on various types of paper; I experiment with colors and blending; I consider outlines and doodles using my favorite pens. For this project I chose Distress Oxide Inks, in strong but muted colors. I outlined the map images, but left the words alone. 

I don't always cut out all my vintage images before I start, but in this case I had a pretty strong vision and I knew I wanted a car, a ship, a plane and a train. I chose a few travel-related quotes and typed them on vintage labels. There's no earthly reason for flowers to make an appearance, but as in many of my pieces, somehow they worked their way in.

I used the travel words from Let's Go 2, in a medium grey ink on all four cards, scattering them across each panel and letting them run off the edges. I used the three map stencils selectively, sometimes taping off bits of the design, to get a more interesting shape. For example, I used the deepest curve of Map Stencil, to convey the idea of waves under my vintage ocean liner image.

My vintage car collage has words from Let's Go 2 and an angular section of Map with Roundabouts in a strong but muted yellow.

The airplane collage is built around the 6x6" Metro Map in a soft shade of blue; and once again the words from Let's Go 2 are nestled over and under bits of the background.

The ocean liner is floating on the "wave" from Map Stencil, with a sky adorned by that perfect typewriter font from Let's Go 2.

The railroad image is again paired with the finely geometric details of Map Stencil, in a soft green that echoes the foliage. You cannot exactly *read* the words from Let's Go 2, but they definitely add more of the travel spirit just by being there.

My folio has a small car, a huge floral and the anchor of Metro Map, in amber, on a piece of a vintage latitudinal chart, which I cut out with scissors, to capture the beautiful circle shapes.

The four cards tuck neatly inside their folder and tie with torn strips of sari silk. They will be winging off to a travel-loving friend.

I hope you'll be inspired to make your own map-inspired art using StencilGirl® Stencils; until such time as we can all dream of traveling again in real life!

Lauren Bergold

loves vintage paper, colorful inks, 

and (especially!)

StencilGirl® Stencils!

Passages Through Time by Linda Edkins Wyatt

Hello.

Time travel has fascinated me for years. I wonder about past lives, wonder if I have lived before, and if so, who I was. I have sometimes had the experience of being in a new place, yet feeling like I know it, like I have lived there or been there before. I often watch films and television shows about time travel, and one of my very favorite books is Time and Again, by Jack Finney.

This feeling overcame me when I moved to New York City 40 years ago and was exploring different neighborhoods. On the Lower East Side, I saw a park and a row of old houses that I felt I knew. I hadn't seen a photo of it, or read a book about it. But I did feel like there were memories of the park and houses inside me waiting to be discovered. I had the same feeling in Paris, when I visited Montmartre. It seemed so familiar, and I wondered if I had lived there and been part of an art scene from yesteryear. I felt that odd familiarity with a new place driving through an old tenement area, which was under renovation, near Albany, NY. Most recently, that "I know this place" feeling hit me when working in Harlem.

So to illustrate the StencilGirl® travel/passages theme, I thought, "Time Travel!" and decided to create a little old-fashioned city-scape to illustrate the idea.

Here's a video which shows my process:

The woodblocks and matchboxes were painted with a few coats of white or black gesso.

I have been collecting cardboard boxes that hold wooden matchsticks. Paired with some house-shaped wooden blocks that I snapped up for $1 each at a discount store, I had a good foundation for the project. I painted one of the blocks white, and the other black, and did the same with the matchboxes.

Next, I used the December 2018 StencilClub set, Fancy Houses, designed by Valerie Sjodin, to create the buildings. I stamped a Versamark pad through the stencil, then sprinkled the white shapes with black embossing powder, and the black shapes with white powder, then zapped it with a heat gun. On the back of the blocks, I got a little more experimental, using gold embossing powder on one, and on another, adding color with Derwent Watercolor Blocks.

Areas from the Fancy Houses StencilClub set were used to decorate the blocks and boxes.

I had to be verrrry careful with the matchboxes...there was a fine line between melting the embossing powder thoroughly and burning the box! I also had a little trouble getting a crisp image on the box, especially on the sides where there was a textured strip for striking the matches. Since I was using mostly black and white, I touched up any unwanted blobs and speckles with a black sharpie or a little bit of paint on a small brush.

My stencils were larger than the boxes and blocks, so I selected strategic areas of the stencil, like using just the light post on the edge of one of the blocks. On the other sides of the boxes and blocks, I used the windows or doorway areas, and also a key stamp to add interest. On the back of the blocks, I got a little more experimental, using gold embossing powder on one, and on another, adding color with Derwent Watercolor Blocks.

The sides of the boxes and blocks were also painted and embossed.

The cabaret paper doll fits inside the matchbox. Here, she dances atop the backside rooftops.

I couldn't resist making a little cabaret-inspired black and white paper doll to live in--and dance on top of--my time-travel village.

The old-fashioned doll was made with a Rubber Moon stamp and a Graphics Fairy vintage hat image.

A subtle detail was flipping the clock image before printing to give the idea that time was going in a different direction. I used a vintage image from The Graphics Fairy.

While I may never actually time travel, my little village makes me think about the possibility, and definitely makes me want to read my old favorite book again.

Linda