Saturday, January 6, 2018

Frieda Oxenham: Art Journaling

The inspiration for these pages was an advert in a decorating magazine. It was for the fabrics of Linara and featured two pages filled with samples of the colorways this fabric came in. Just seeing those colored squares made me feel happy and I have tried to capture that feeling here.

At first I was only going to make one page but started off by making two with the idea of showing you the one I liked most but in the end I liked them both and they looked great together so here are the two of them together.

This is the step-by-step tutorial:

1.      Gesso two 9 x 12” sheets (I used Langton watercolor paper 140 lb weight, hot pressed.

2.      Using two colors add paint to the pages and remove through a stencil. I used stencil Squares and Dots 9 for this stage but any textural stencil will do. The idea is to add layers of it to the pages. I made one page in hot colors and one in cold.

3.      Continue repeating step 2 using the same stencil and more colors. Make sure to let each layer dry really well before adding the next.

4.      When you are happy with how the pages look start stenciling on squares using Mary Beth’s Grid Stencils and a variety of contrasting colors to the pages. I used hot colors on the cold page and vice versa originally but then added colors that suited the designs.

5.      Finish by adding white squares and also adding small smaller squares in color (I included gold just for that bit of sparkle) using the medium stencil from August 2013 StencilClub set.

6.      Using the medium and small squares stencils from Mary Beth’s Grid Stencil as well as the stencil from step 5, and a 8 x 10” Gelli plate, with black paint, make some deli paper filled with black squares. You can also stencil directly on the deli paper but using the Gelli plate speeds things up no end.

7.      Collage bits of the deli paper with the black squares onto your pages. I used a glue stick but you could also use matte medium.

8.      I cut out the small pieces of fabric color from the original advert and glued them onto the black squares. You could simply cut out pieces of color from magazines and do the same.

9.      Using both black and white markers outline the squares as much or as little as you like. This helps to give a sense of depth and an indication of which squares are in front or behind other squares.

10.  Add the title to the pages. On one of my pages I used the text of the advert that originally inspired me (A Journey of Color) and on the other one another text from a magazine (The Alchemy of Color).

11.  I added both sheets to make a spread in my very large vintage ledger that I’m using as an art journal. I gesso two facing pages with black gesso and glued on the pages with double sided tape.

(C) Frieda Oxenham 2018. To see more of Frieda's work, please visit her BLOG.



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