Experience Art Journal Page and Tag

I am experiencing art techniques that I haven’t ever tried before.

First I painted the blank page with white Gesso.  I’m not sure why.  It’s just what I’ve seen other artists do.  Good reason, eh?

Then I stamped with Archival black ink with a large rubber stamp.  Next I scraped white modeling paste through a couple of stencils.  When the modeling paste dried, I used watercolors very wet and pigment applied to the top of the page.  I spritzed the paint with water to help the color drip down the page.  Then some black splatters with black acrylic paint watered down some.

I turned my journal upside down and did the same from the bottom.  Let me tell you...that is fun as well as rather unpredictable.

It all looks like a mess and almost ugly and I love it!

I used a Tim Holtz Small Talk sticker for the phrase and a label maker for the word experience.

This is a technique that I need to practice and fine tune.

Today I wanted to make a tag.

I’m linking my tag to Tag Tuesday where the theme this fortnight is FACES.

I’ve joined a free week long daily video demonstration at Willa Workshops called Fodder Challenge.  This particular day was Workbench Remnants by DeeDee Catron.  She made the chevron fodder.  I had the same stamp and wanted to make one too.  Then I needed something to put it on.  A tag was born.

I love these scribbly, sketchy line drawn ladies by Clearly Impressed, The Unruly Girls Club.  I’ve had these stamps forever and they’ve hardly been stamped on anything.  But they are going to make appearances on tags at least.  Because they’re fun.

Girls just wanna have fun...and I am!

Art Journal Page

One of the faux postage stamps I made and shared in my previous post has made it onto an art journal page.

It was just what was needed to finish off the page.

The theme this month at Art Journal Journey is BUTTERFLIES.

I didn’t think this page would turn out to be a keeper, so I did not take process photos.

The background is Distress Spray Stains in Speckled Egg, Stormy Sky and Antique Linen.  Splattered with Distress Oxide Spray in Speckled Egg and some white correction fluid.  The Xs are white acrylic paint pounced through a stencil with a make-up sponge.

The numbers are rubber stamps in various sizes along with portions of a couple of text stamps all stamped with archival ink.

I love how the spray stains moved over into the binding.

Then I very carefully glued some pressed flowers and leaves onto the page.  They are so delicate and fragile to handle.

The pressed flowers were totally not in my original thought process for this page.  But when all else failed and I spotted them on the shelf, I thought, well, let’s see.  I still didn’t want to use them.  As you can see, they won out as what was to be on this page.

Many times the art knows best.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this art page.  I’m protecting this page from the page facing it with a sheet of  clear acetate attached with a glue dot on the inside corners.  The facing page has the potential to be unkind to these delicate pressed flowers.

Quiet Music

Music can be seen as well as heard.

Flowers are the music...

I’ve made another art journal page inspired by the theme LANGUAGE at Art Journal Journey .

Also inspired by this Pinterest pin https://pin.it/73QjtTc

To get some color speckles all over my page, I placed my journal inside my spray painting box and lightly spritzed Cracked Pistachio Distress Spray Stain holding the bottle about 18” above the page.

I then used some stencils to direct intense color through the designs.

After the stencils I sprayed very close to the page to get spots of intense color over the page with Cracked Pistachio and Peacock Feathers Spray Stains.

I then embossed the grid stamp with white embossing powder.  That made the ink blobs blend into the background.

(I’ve been using black archival ink to emboss over. I really should get a clear embossing pad.)

I don’t draw well or easily, so I traced a portion of a flower cutting die with pencil then went over the pencil lines with an 8B graphite pencil.

The flower petals were painted with a white heavy-bodied acrylic to give the petals some texture.  It was here the top ink blob looked quite out of place.  I worked at it for awhile using a variety of ways to get it blend into the background.  It refused.

My final attempt before trashing the page was to just add more embossing.  Although I now had more embossing than I wanted, it did save the page well enough.

I wet the graphite pencil with a water brush to outline the flower petals, but it just wasn’t bold enough.  I am new to Distress Crayons.  But they’ve done the job.  And we all know how I love a bit of grunge.

I stamped the words on white cardstock, added hints of the colors and grunged the edges.  I placed them as leaves for the flower.  The original quote says “ Flowers are the music of the ground...”. But I liked the word earth better than ground.

I love these colors.  I attempted to make a postcard in a similar fashion but I ended up with color all over.  That worked out fine to white emboss, add modeling paste through a stencil and a white die cut  to decorate all the color.

If you’d like to receive this postcard in the mail, let me know in a comment.



When I see the beauty of flowers, I can’t help but feel happy.

Abstract Bird Art

My painting is for the birds lately...literally.

I found a tutorial on how to paint an abstract bird on Pinterest.

https://pin.it/5dQpcQ9

I received a very nice gift of Prima Marketing watercolors for my birthday.  This set is Essence.  I wanted to give them a real try.

And here is my result.  Although I struggle to work correctly with watercolors, I am pretty pleased with my fuzzy bird result.  I used Vermilion Neocolor II crayon for his bright color beak and legs.  White and black acrylic paint for his eye and spots.

I left him this way for several days not knowing what to do with him until I was inspired to give him some ground to stand on.  Again I’m surprised to be pleased with this painting.  There is a strip of Washi tape at the top of the painted ground.

But my journal page remains like this as I don’t know what else to do for his background.

But I loved trying to paint him and wanted to do another.  This next one is a postcard size.  I added a defined wing with a portion of a flourish rubber stamp.

Still fun, so another postcard size.  I’ll decide what to add for greeting when I decide where he goes.

And then I thought I wanted a tag size bird.  With very long legs.  And I drew his wing.  That was brave of me!  This tag bird’s body was painted with Neocolor II crayons.  I found a YouTube tutorial on how to use the crayons like watercolors.

I outlined these smaller birds as they felt like they needed it.  After I do that I question whether they need it or not.  I still don’t know.

I used some gold watercolor paint to give their wings a bit of glitz.

I have had the best time painting abstract birds.  

Tweet, Tweet!

Language Art Journal Page

The theme this month at Art Journal Journey is LANGUAGE.

As I played around with this page, I thought about people who talk in circles.

I stamped a large stamp on a mixed media paper.  Aligned my circle dies over the writing, taped them with Washi tape so they wouldn’t move,

then ran them through my die cutting machine 

To get a variety of circle sizes.

I glued the circles to my page using a spray glue.  When the glue was dry, I wet the circles with water as well as parts of the page outside the circles.  Then added watercolors sloppily around the circles in light and dark tones.

When the paint was dry I stamped writing in the two largest circles with black Archival ink.

Using a circles stencil I drew circles around the outsides of the paper circles with a black Zig Writer marker then added scribbles over the drawn circles.

Lastly I scraped modeling paste through different stencils on the page outside of the circles.

I thought the modeling paste would take up some of the watercolor but it didn’t.  That was a surprise but I liked that it remained white.

Of course I kept thinking what should yet be added.  I liked the page as is so I decided not to ruin it with overkill like I usually do.  It is so hard for me to learn to STOP!

I didn’t intend it, but I now see the scribbles as noise vibration (that could be heard along the telephone lines way back when) of those who can be so good at talking in circles.

Yakety yak!

Twinchies Art Journal Page

Twinchies are a 2” piece of art.

Strange as it may sound, for this art journal page I was inspired by my own long ago art.  As well as being inspired by Sheila of Orange esmeralda convincing me to give art journaling a try through Art Journal Journey  monthly challenges.

The story behind this page is...

A flickr group had a Twinchie swap.  I’d never made twinchies before but they sounded fun.  And they were.  We were given a partner and were to make 4 twinchies to send to our partner.  I made these Twinchies.

There are times when my art surprises the heck out of me!  These were like that.  I couldn’t believe I made them.  I loved them.  I proudly mailed them off to my partner.  We’ll skip a description of what I received in return.  But I wanted my twinchies back.

I always wanted to make more.  But, what would I do with them anyway.  So I never did.  Now that I understand art journaling as the desire to simply make art, I wanted to recreate the twinchies.

I pulled out my stash of previously watercolored papers to choose the 2” backgrounds.

Got out my box of rejected doodads.

Will need some bling.

Made some new doodads.

And began embossing base images with white embossing powder and then adding bits from there to create six twinchies.  Four were recreated  similar to the original four and two new ones.



I’m so glad I did this.  I loved making them again.

The page is sprayed with Old Paper Oxide Spray.  Then Brushed Cordoroy Oxide ink dabbed through a stencil.

Then some modeling paste scraped over another stencil.  The modeling paste goes on white.  As it dries, it will absorb the colors of water based inks.

I forced myself to be patient allowing each application of the paste to dry before adding more to each area.  It’s a nice payoff for sure.  I’m usually trying to get it all done at once and always end up smearing the previously applied wet paste.

I arranged the twinchies on the page.

Added some Washi Tape pieces to the page edges.

Finally I added the words after darkening them with StazOn ink.

Now I feel like I’ve got my twinchies back to enjoy whenever I want.



Have a fun filled artful day!