Anger Management using my Art Journal :)

Until now, I haven't written anything truly personal in my journal and thanks to being thoroughly pissed off at someone.... I went for it.  It was exhilarating and therapeutic nonetheless!  So here goes....  I started this page with a watercolor background.  I misted my pages well and just started spreading reds, blues, oranges, and purples.  I left a few white spots as well.  I knew I would cover this up so I wasn't particular in my painting.  I let my pages dry for a bit and hit them with the hair dryer to finish it off.

Once my pages were pretty dry I grabbed some bright acrylics (blue, red, and purple).  I mixed a little water into each color to dilute the paint a bit.  I did this so that some of the watercolor underneath would show through.  I very haphazardly added some blocks of acrylic color over my watercolor.  I did not cover the entire thing.... I just mindlessly added blocks of color, moving back and forth between each as I went.  Then I hit it with the dryer to speed up the drying process.  After it was dry enough I doodled around the bottom edge of both pages using a micron and a silver metallic gelly roll.

Next, I dove into my piles of scrapbook paper looking for patterns and colors that went with the paints on my pages.  I tore strips of paper and framed my pages with it, using my adhesive runner to adhere them to my pages.  I did not plan any of this... I just tore and laid it on my page to see where I wanted it to go.  I also cut some circles from scrap paper I had laying around and cut flowers from a pattern.  I used a Micron pen to doodle within the existing flower.  I felt it made it pop more.

Then I saw my Twilight Eclipse book on the table, tore out the Robert Frost poem, and burned the edges for an embellishment.  Warning the paper burns easily.... have a cup of water ready just in case of an accident!  I noticed in the table of contents that there was a chapter named Temper.  I should have remembered this since I have read each book of the series 4 times... YES- I am a Twilight fan :) and proud of it!  This gave me the theme for my page.... Anger.  It made all the sense in the world especially after becoming extremely peeved at someone the last couple of days.  So I decided to tear that page out as well.  I mixed up a little Gesso and water to make it more translucent and covered the page in that.  I set it to the side and let it dry.

While the page from the book dried, I drew a small doodle on the purple heading strip (right page at top) using a micron and moonlight gelly rolls.  Then I took my micron and wrote a message at the top.  The thin black ink did not stand out enough for me so I put a little gesso over it.  I hit it with gesso and used the dryer on it.  Then I used a Sharpie Fine Tip marker to re-write my message.

I then worked a bit at placing all of my book pages, text boxes, flowers, etc on my page.  I finally decided on a layout I liked and I glued everything down using my adhesive runner.  I took a step back and looked at what I had and decided what needed a little "umph" to pop more.  So I took a micron and went over the word Temper on the book page and wrote it twice underneath using different forms of my handwriting.  I used a bracket template (made with my cricut, poster board, and Wild Card cartridge) to outline my temper words.  I traced the template with a pen and then colored it in with black oil pastel.

Next I wrote: * Count to 10 and breathe and added some scrap zebra ribbon underneath.  Then I journaled a message on the text box I had previously made.  It reads:  I'm going to have to learn to control my anger..."  In the box on the right hand page I wrote: "Instead of letting my anger control me." Then I doodled the word breathe using lettering from Joann Fink's book Zenspirations.  It is an excellent book and I would highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys doodling, patterning, and lettering.  Finally I used a white gelly roll pen to decorate blue (painter's) masking tape.

I hope you enjoy these pages as much as I did making them.  I will definitely be writing more and adding more personal messages on my pages... the reward was great.  I am way less pissed now :) .  

Acrylic and Watercolor Bird Journal Pages

This morning I watched part of a Bush concert on television.  I really enjoy some of Bush's songs, like Glycerine and Come Down.  Given that Gavin Rossdale is their lead singer, I listened to some songs I don't really care for.  During this time, I reflected back to the 90's and when I was in love with Nirvana.  The song plateau entered my mind and I haven't been able to shake the only few lines of the song I know.  So I figured why not and decided to let Nirvana be my muse for the day.  

I had been wanting to try scraping acrylic paints with an old credit card after getting the idea off of a YouTube video.  This is how I created the background of my page. To begin I sprayed my pages with a little water and a small misting bottle (the kind you find in the travel section at Wal-Mart) and applied black paint straight from the tube to both pages.  I then took my card and pushed the paint around. Once I got the black the way I wanted it, I applied Calypso Blue directly to the page and scraped it around.  I set my pages to the side to dry.  

While my pages were drying, I cut the little birds using my Cricut Expression machine, which I should add, is an excellent tool to have on hand.  I had the birds cut in less than 3 minutes!  Then I hand cut the leaves and flowers from scrap paper left from cutting the birds.  Then I hit my journal pages with an old hairdryer because I don't have a heat gun.  

After my pages were dry I gesso'd the tree onto my pages.  I added a little water to my gesso to make sure that it would be pretty translucent.  That dried fairly quickly because I used such a thin coat.  I then used a watercolor pencil to color over the gesso.  I was not neat in my application.  Using my water brush from my Koi set, I applied water over the coloring.  I was really impressed with the texture that the gesso gave my tree.  I am not sure if you can see the texture in my photos, but it is there.  Then I glued my leaves, birds, and flowers down using my Xyron 1.5 inch sticker machine.  The lyrics to the song are written in yellow, orange,  and purple Sakura Souffle pens (because I like the raised ink) and  a white Gelly Roll pen.  

To top this page off, I decided to create a mandala.  I used tanglepatterns.com to find tangles to use in my mandala.  I attached this to my journal using a paperclip.  There you have it... easy as pie!

If you have any question regarding techniques, products used, or opinions please comment below.  My blog is extremely new and so far I have had no feedback... so please let me know what you think! Thanks a bunch.

Watercolor Resist with Crayons

After watching a YouTube video about watercolor resist techniques, I was inspired to use some of what I learned in my journal today.   I was also inspired by a great lettering video by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. I began this page by writing my name in mixed letters (found in the middle photo).  I then used a variety of Sakura pens (Moonlights, stardust, souffle, micron) to trace and color each letter.  If you watch the lettering video, you will notice that you can take a water brush to your Stardust pens to blend them.  This needs to be done quickly before the ink dries. I completed my name, drew the bird, stamped the cat,  and found my trusty white crayon... I have always wondered why they even make a white crayon, but now I know :)... I used the crayon to draw designs on the edges of my pages.  I tilted my paper in the light so I could see what I was drawing.  I then grabbed my Koi watercolor set and mixed up blue and green on my palette.  I painted over the crayon in a sloppy manner with blue, then filled in the rest with green.  After my paint dried, I hand wrote my favorite quote and  browsed some magazines for clippings of things I like.  I then decided to cut out each letter of my name and write an adjective for each letter.  The words I chose are words that I feel describe me.  There you have it.... my journal pages for the day!  I hope you enjoy them... maybe you are inspired to do some resist techniques yourself!

Watercolor Fascination

Among many other things, watercolor has become one of my recent fascinations. I was inspired by my Sakura Koi watercolor set.  This set is truly exquisite in that it is very portable, contains a water brush, a nice palette, sponges, and beautiful, deeply pigmented colors.  I was so moved by wanting to use this kit that I began researching watercolor techniques on the Internet.  I stumbled upon a nice site with plenty of tutorials and tips.  I found the info on this site to be really helpful and decided to jump in.  So I grabbed an apple out of my fridge and set it on a table by the window.  The picture on the to is the result.  Later I decided to tackle more.... resulting in the picture on the bottom.

I have always struggled with watercolor.  After reading tips on this site I found my problem..... I didn’t know that you could watercolor in layers.  The texture found in my fruit was captured through layering paint.  Starting with the lightest colors and letting each layer dry before beginning the next.    I was pretty impressed with my first watercolors...  you see everything I do with art has been self-taught through research on the Internet.  Unfortunately, I have never had the opportunity of having a great art teacher.  Hopefully seeing that I can teach myself, will inspire you to bring out your inner artist!