I introduced you to layers in the lesson on backgrounds. But I know I didn’t give you enough information on just how to layer. For a long time even I was confused about the how and why of layering. After all, why would someone create a beautiful background and then cover it up? Isn’t it a waste of paint? And that beautiful stencil pattern and all those collage elements that will just get hidden?
Well…not really.Continue reading
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold or silver. As a philosophy, the belief is that the object is more valuable and beautiful with its history revealed.
But how can you adapt a pottery repair technique to your art journal?
By adapting Kintsugi as a transformative tool in your journal.
As you start to enjoy working on your art journal and experiment with building up layers, the paper you use plays a big role in just how far you can push your materials. To my mind, there are 2 key things you need to look out for when choosing a journal – the binding and the paper.
Let’s talk about binding
Continue reading
Let’s spend some time today talking about inks. And no, I don’t mean the Parker ink you used in your school pen {I hope I didn’t just give me age away with that comment!}. We are going to focus on three types of ink: drawing {or India ink}, acrylic ink, and Inktense pencils.
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Drawing ink
Let’s stop a moment and talk about inspiration. It’s well and fine to know about supplies and color theory and creating quick backgrounds, but where are we going with all of this? How do we put together finished pages? How do we decide on a theme? Where do we get ideas from?
The one answer to all these questions: Continue reading
I’ve found gesso to be one of the most versatile and absolute must-have products in my art journal toolkit. Although it may look like your standard white acrylic paint, gesso is quite different and has its own unique properties. While a lot of supplies can be interchanged or substituted, this one simply cannot.Continue reading
Now that we’ve spoken about supplies and collecting ephemera, and gone into the basics of color theory, it’s time to bring out the paints and create! Let’s start with backgrounds. Here are three of my favorite background techniques.
Technique 1: Spread some color
ephemera
ɪˈfɛm(ə)rə,-ˈfiːm-/
noun
things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time.
“there were papers, letters, old boxes—all sorts of ephemera”
collectable items that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity.
“Mickey Mouse ephemera”
From an art journal perspective, ephemera includes almost any paper element that you can glue onto your pages – ranging from old book pages, letters and Victorian imagery to ticket stubs, receipts and mail order catalogues and collage and scrapbook papers.
While you wait for your supplies to arrive, let’s go over the basics about color theory. This is a vast topic, and this post is by no means exhaustive. It is enough, though, to help you make a confident start with combining colors and understanding how they work together.
The color wheel.
So now that you know what an art journal is, and have a list of inspiring art journal books handy, let’s get right into gathering some essential art journaling supplies so we can start creating!
There are a huge variety of art journaling materials available in the market, and it can quickly get overwhelming trying to figure out exactly what you need! While it is fun to experiment and play with all the wonderful art journaling supplies available on the market, you really only need a few basic supplies to get you started.
The most important, of course, is an art journal!Continue reading
