Art Journal: 30 Days, Days 15 - 19

Okay, it's getting serious now - only 11 days left in our class!  Yikes!  BUT I am SOOOO jazzed about how this art journal page turned out.  I've never done an art journal page over black gesso, and oh my gosh - I'm so totally hooked!  (As in, I went out and bought another big jar of black gesso this week just to make sure I don't run out!  Ha!)  

These flowers...I have to tell you about them.  Because they started off being colored with my Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watercolor crayons - which I absolutely love.  I only own 13 of them, but I adore them.  I have 2 other kinds of watercolor crayons (did I mention I'm a watercolor junkie?), and while the Stampin' Up watercolor crayons ARE pretty decent, neither they nor definitely not the Reeves ones can hold a candle to the Caran d'Ache crayons.  And I was SUPER excited to learn that they would color over black gesso and show up!  How awesome!  The first time I colored, I added water, and didn't really care for the results...so I colored over them again and just left the crayons.  It was pretty cool looking.  But they just weren't popping quite as much as I liked.

And THEN, at Aaron Brothers, I found these awesome things - I say "things," because they are sort of a cross between a pencil and a crayon - they're made by Stabilo, and they're called "Woody 3-in-1" - and they work as a crayon or a colored pencil or a watercolor crayon.  

Anyway, I got them, and I colored over my flowers again - and SHUT THE FRONT DOOR - look at how bright my flowers got!!!  These babies rock!  

How much fun is this, with all the white journaling (done with a Pentel Sunburst gel pen), and the doodles (if you haven't tried the Sakura Souffle pens, you MUST), and most of all...those incredibly brilliant, vibrant pops of color in those flowers!  (And YES, I know I spelled "believe" incorrectly...but it was so pretty, I didn't want to mess it up by trying to fix it...such is life!)  

Anyway - if you haven't given black gesso as your base a try - you should try it out!  SO MUCH FUN!

Supplies Used:

Art Journal: 30 Days, Days 11-14

Wow, it's hard to believe that we are already half-way through our class with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, 30 Days In Your Journal.  I think I'm going to need a support group after we're through...I'm having such a good time in the class, and the accountability is awesome.  I love being able to post my pics to the Flickr group and receiving feedback from the other class participants, as well as seeing how everyone else in the class is interpreting Julie's instruction and ideas.  When I started, I wondered if I'd really be able to commit to art journaling every day for 30 days, and now, suddenly, 30 days seems like such a short time.  I find myself wishing the class was just a bit longer!

Anyway, here is my spread for days 11-14.  I am super happy with how it turned out.  The page on the right was a background I had previously completed during Christy Tomlinson's She Had 3 Hearts art journaling class...but I didn't know where to go from there.  It was really bright, and even though I loved the page, I just wasn't sure what to do with it.  The page on the left previously had a couple random stamps on it, which didn't turn out well, so I had painted some random paint over it.  Then when we prepped these pages, with Color Wash sprays, I just let the sprays cover the paint.  I used colors that would complement the colors on the right page, and then on the right page, decided to use white Golden Airbrush paint to create drippage and soften the colors.  

Once the journaling was done, I did the large writing and the doodles using a paint brush and black fluid acrylic - my first time successfully doing so!  It's really hard with my shaky, weak hands (due to my neuropathy and rheumatoid arthritis) to do detail painting, so I was super excited when I was able to successfully paint the writing and doodles!  I used fluid acrylics to paint in the painted writing and doodles.  I used oil pastels (cheap children's ones from Faber-Castell) to lighten the circles with the numbers and to darken the other circles.  

There is still plenty of time to join the class if you are thinking about it - the classroom is going to be open for 3 months.  Come on over and join us!

Art Journal - 30 Days In Your Journal, Days 6-10

Well, I finished up my second 2-page spread in my art journaling class, 30 Days In Your Journal with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer (actually...I finished it up on the 10th...and I'm close to finishing up another spread by now).  Still loving the class, though I'm not sure I love this particular spread.  But.  But.  I'm TOTALLY OKAY with that.  

Why am I okay with that?  Because I journaled all of those days.  And I used up junk tags from my junk stash...you know, tags that didn't work out when I was trying new techniques or whatever; and I used a receipt; and I used a note from a company I was doing a review for...stuff from my everyday life - and THAT is cool.  I like that.  Plus I used a couple embellishments from my always-growing embellishment stash, a couple that have been in there for going on a year or so, that really needed to be used.  

So even though the page itself isn't my favorite (I think maybe it's the colors I used on the background, because I do like the colors of the tags I used and the colors I splashed on the receipt/postcard/etc.)...I am happy overall with the fact that I did it, and with all that is encompassed on the page.  Does that make sense?

Out of the Box Art Journal Page

Over on Craft Test Dummies on Monday, I am posting a review of this adhesive tape runner, Glue Tape by Plus.  It was new to me - I had never heard of it - and Jenny had sent it to me after Summer CHA to give it a try.  Make sure you go check out my review - I was pleasantly surprised by how it performed, especially since it is lower priced than many of the tape runners on the market.

Anyway, while doing my review, one of the "happy accidents" I discovered (I almost ALWAYS have accidents while arting - some are happy, some not so much...) was that this stuff makes craft foam stick really well to itself!  Why, you might ask, would I care about this?  Well, I had just seen, a couple days prior to playing with the Glue Tape, THIS tutorial, and had picked up a pack of thin, cheap (as in Dollar Tree) craft foam in the hopes of doing the same thing. The foam was super thin, and one layer wasn't going to work for the stamps - so I needed to double it up - so I was happy to find that the Glue Tape would make it easy for me to do this.

So, anyway...on my shopping trip...which was a LOOONG one...picture this: me, all four kids (my 6-year old, my twin 3-year olds, and my 10-month old).  We've already been to the bank and the post office (where I had to drag all of them inside, to stand in line, to mail 2 packages - all because I only had cash to pay for the postage...normally I print Priority Mail labels online and do Carrier Pick-up).  I was in search of miniature rolling pins, or else cheap regular-sized ones.  I called Jo-Ann's - they said they had none.  I called Michaels', and they said yes, they had them in the dollar aisle AND that they were on sale 40% off!  Score!  So off we went to Michaels.  We searched the store up and down and found ONE miniature rolling pin.  One.  And it wasn't on sale.  So we got it and headed for the Dollar Tree, in hopes of finding some regular-sized ones for a buck each.  Do you know that they carry every kitchen utensil you could possibly need at that store EXCEPT  rolling pins?!  Sigh.  

At that point, the kids were tired and hungry and getting cranky.  Or maybe it was me who was getting cranky.  It takes a lot of work to get 4 kids in and out of car seats at every single stop.  Anyway, I stopped to think for a minute.  Or five.  I wondered if perhaps I should think outside the box.  Why did it have to be rolling pins?  Wouldn't pretty much ANY long, slender cylindrical hard object work?  

So off to Home Depot we went.  I grabbed a 1" diameter, 10-foot long piece of PVC pipe off the rack, and asked a worker if he could cut it down.  He said sure, and asked how many pieces and how long.  I hadn't really thought about it, so I quickly said, "Uh, how about ten 1-foot pieces?"  He agreed, and I asked how much it would cost for the cutting.  "Nothing, just whatever the pipe itself cost."  The pipe?  Cost me a whopping $1.49 plus tax.  Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!  I was so excited about my score that I completely forgot I'd been wanting to pick up some washers and a few other trinkets to use for stamping as well...ah, well...I guess we'll need to get out of the house some other day.

For this one, I went ahead and used the ONE miniature rolling pin we did pick up.  (However, I have already made a stamp from one of the PVC pipes, and it works great!  And I'm SO glad I have 10 of them - because this is totally addicting!)  After I cut a bunch of squares and rectangles, I used my hot glue gun to glue them to the rolling pin.  I used a brayer to lay down some paint on my journal page, and then used a paint brush to put paint on the rolling pin before rolling it across my journal page.  This is how it started out:

And after many, many layers (don't you just LOVE layers?!  I can't get enough layering!) - this is what I ended up with.  I had no idea where I was going with the page until almost all of the layers were on the page and I had worked on it over the course of almost a week.  

And then suddenly, I was inspired by the squares and rectangles to journal about how much art has changed the way I look at life and approach life.  I used to be such a "color inside the lines" kind of person, such a rule-follower.  I lived such a constrained life.  But I feel like art has freed me in so many ways - is freeing me in so many ways.  So that's what the page is about.  And I love the way the circular journaling looks in comparison to the boxed-in title.  I wasn't sure I was really loving the page until I finished the journaling, and then I loved it!

What have you been up to lately?  Leave me a link - I'd love to see.  And don't forget to come visit at Craft Test Dummies on Monday for the Glue Tape review...I'd love to have you visit over there!