{Y} How to create yummy textures in your art journal

There’s something beautiful about texture, isn’t there? The look of a wrinkled background, peeling paint, raised designs – it creates an extra dimension of oomph to an art piece. Now just because you’re creating in a book, it doesn’t mean you have to give up yummy texture! Absolutely not!

There are many ways to create texture in your art journal – one of my favorite ways to achieve texture is with modeling paste. It comes in many consistencies – for an art journal, the best is modeling paste or light modeling paste.

I’m not sure if you can make it out in this image, but I created the flowers with modeling paste.

There are a couple of ways in which you can use it too – through a stencil or as an organic texture on your piece {demonstrated in the video below}. You can also spread modeling paste on your substrate and stamp into it to create texture. It takes some time to dry, so if you get some where you don’t want it, you can easily wipe it off the page.

You can either apply modeling paste straight from the jar – it will dry to an opaque white finish that you can paint over later. Or you can mix it with acrylic paint and then apply it through your stencil or spread it on your page using a palette knife.

Note: Modeling paste takes about 2 hours to touch-dry. But if you plan to paint over it later, it’s best to let it dry overnight.

Here’s a short video demonstration on how to use modeling paste to create an organic texture on your page:

Easy, isn’t it?

It can get more tricky through stencils, and I will admit that it takes some trial and error before you get it right. I’ve also seen that it works best with stencils with bigger openings – too fine a stencil and the modeling paste just seeps through below it and creates a gloopy mess.

Don’t let this put you off though! Once you get the hang of it, I’m pretty sure you’ll fall in love with it!