Anouk (Creanouk) - In the Centre

Hello you beautiful artist,

When I first started art journaling I wasn’t very familiar with the using white space in my art. I used to fill my pages until everything was covered. It felt just so weird to leave a little spot of white open. Maybe even a little intimidating? And even though I’m still a big fan of using lots of layers and filling everything up, I really started to appreciate white space more in my art this last year. For me, using spaces of white allows my work (and myself) to breathe and to grow.

For this project I really wanted to challenge myself and work with a lot of white space. Instead of building my page up with collage all over the place I started in the centre with the gorgeous Morocco Rug (L997) by Kate Thompson stencil. I used the stencil to create a little boundary for myself, to prevent me from colouring outside the lines too much and create that nice little white space around the artwork. I love to layer with the same stencil a few times to give the page some dimension. So after I got all the mixed media layers done I used the same Morocco Rug stencil with white modeling paste on the back and foreground to bring all the elements together.

Because this page is happening in the centre I used a lot of liquid mediums to keep it light and airy. There were definitely a few times where I wanted to overdue and put my mediums all over the page, but luckily I could hold myself in and guide the puddles away with my heat gun. 

My heat gun has been such a life saver for me for this page as you can see in the little process video that I made for you. I deliberately left the heat gun parts in the video so you can see how much you can influence the drying process when you are using liquid mediums like watercolours, coffee or ecoline.

For mark making I used the Boro stencil (S705) by Kristin Williams. the background a little bit. This stencil is so versatile! It has ten different unique marks that you can use on their own or all at once.  When I add marks I like to stencil them on top of my collage elements to blend them in with.

Making this page has made me learn so much more about using white space in my journal. It made me realize that I don’t have to fear it all, that it doesn’t make my page look dull and that it can definitely be a big part of the page. I think this page has turned out very interesting and I can’t wait to make more of these centred pages!

If you are just as excited as me to make your own centred page, I made a video where you can see the process from start to finish. Play it while you create, and hopefully you’ll get inspired.

The stencils that I used for this project are:

Morocco Rug (L997) by Kate Thompson

Boro stencil (S705) by Kristin Williams

Product List:

Dylusions Squared journal

Amsterdam - Modeling Paste Matt

Vintage Music and Book Paper

Mod Podge - Matt

Amsterdam - White Gesso

Amsterdam - Persian Rose

Amsterdam - Violet mixed with Titanium White

Red Acrylic Ink Tim Holtz - Sticker Book

Faber Castell - Art Grip Aquarelle

Kaiser Craft Mist - Antique Gold

Instant 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.