First Art Journal Pages

So for the last few days I’ve been playing with my September Unity SMAK kit, Everything is Up to You, some new stencils from Stencil Girl and a bunch of products from Altenew (spray), Versafine (ink), Dylusions (acrylic paint), Ranger (paint) and some random acrylics, embossing powder, and pens.

I decided to try my hand at creating a two page layout in my new ArtC art journal I had picked up at a Tuesday Morning last year! What fun... must admit I love watching mixed media artists on YouTube and get a lot of inspiration and courage from watching them play and change things up on the fly! I did the same thing with this layout.

I began first by “gessoing” both pages. I then filled the pages by stamping a sentiment from the kit all over as well as 2 background stamps. I then started adding sprays and paint all over. I knew I wanted to try my hand at Talaya, Goddess of Rain Stencil. So appropriate, as we have another ashy, gray, bad air quality day from all the West Coast fires! I first painted over the area I was going to stencil with a flesh colored paint. I then took a dark brown paint and added the girl. I spent a bit of time adding color and shading to her hair and face and continued this till the end.

I tried adding other stencils and stamps and ended up going over what I had done with white and cream colored paints... hey, can always change it up... and, this is my first try, and... it’s for me! So next, I embossed the leaves from the kit twice with copper powder. I added paints to it and fussy cut them out. I continued to add lowlights and color to these till the end as well. I used the background stamps, again, from the kit to darken the area underneath where I’d affix the leaves. I then adhered them to the pages and tried using charcoal to outline them. I wanted it darker so I used a Brea Reese paint pen to add outlines. I added another sentiment from the kit by stamping on orange paper cutting it up and backing it with black paper,

I’m pretty happy with the delightful meaningful mess I created for my first attempt! I plan to continue attempting more pages going forward as this was so fun - turning blank pages into color and form! Be interesting to see if I can improve my skills in this area! There is certainly a ton of room for improvement!

Well, till next time, happy crafting!