Heart and Soul: Stenciled background grids with Jennifer Gallagher

Hello! 

It's Jennifer Gallagher here with you again, this time with a vibrant art journal page for this month's theme of Gift it or Grid it. I love a good grid or geometric pattern. So, of course I chose to grid it. I'm popping open a brand new art journal for this spread and the pages are black. However, you could easily manipulate this technique for your art journal with white or kraft pages. It's super easy, so let's get started.

First things first! I began by finding the center of the left hand page and marking it with a small pencil mark. Then I taped off the largest shape on the stencil from StencilClub release July 2019. Using painters tape to create the exact shape I wanted helps to prevent accidentally painting through parts of the stencil that I do not want. I made sure that the pencil mark is in the center of the stencil shape. Then, using a mini blending tool, I applied white acrylic paint through the stencil. The top row is three across, the middle row is four across, and the bottom row is five across.

Next, using a few pieces of painters tape I attached the next stencil design, Union by Carolyn Dube, behind the grid stencil. I applied a shade of teal acrylic paint through the stencil with the mini blending tool. 

Using a stamping platform and archival black ink, I stamped a floral design onto deli paper. I chose to stamp on deli paper to give myself a light outline that I will follow over with paint in a future step. The deli paper is thin and I like the way it blends into the background.

In the upper right hand corner of the right page I applied white acrylic through the Circle Rays stencil by Michelle Ward. Then, using matte medium, I applied some collage tissue produced by Ranger Ink along the ends of the rays. 

Using a permanent black pen I added a little doodling in the white squares. You could also use a black acrylic marker for this step.I left one square totally white because this is where my words will go.

Now, back to those flowers! I cut out the flowers. Then using Posca Pens, I added white, yellow and black. Don't stress over perfection or realism. These sketchy elements will really pack a punch against our bold background.

Using matte medium, I adhered a sunflower to the center of each doodled square and I added the wording for the center white square. Once the matte medium was dry, I added yellow dots with my posca pen onto the doodled squares.

Next I worked on my focal image. First, I colored in my sunburst, and surrounding circles, with a yellow posca pen. Once that was dry, I adhered my largest image, the little girl, and a few flowers, with matte medium. After that dried I doodled around her with a permanent white pen. To tie in the white, I sketched around each square and in-between the sunburst rays.

All that is left is to add the final touch, a few twinkling stars, with decofoil Metallix Gel in champagne mist. I've applied it with a palette knife through the stars on the StencilClub stencil from the December 2018 release.

That is it for me this month. I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as I enjoyed creating it for you. If you would like to see what else I've been up to, you can visit my blog or look me up on Instagram.

Happy Creating,

Jennifer Gallagher