Art journal with me: Mixed media collage

Join me at the art table as I show you how to build up a layered art journal spread using collage paper from your stash.

Mixed media collage tutorial for beginners

If you’ve spent any amount of time in the mixed media art world, you would have a lovely stash of collage papers and ephemera — from old scrapbook paper to text pages, brown paper bags, vintage paper, music sheets, and even your own handmade collage papers or gelli prints.

And like any mixed media artist, you would constantly be on the lookout for interesting projects and uses for your stash of collage papers.

So, gather together some of your favorite papers, bring out your art journal and a few favorite colors of paint, and let’s create a sweet little mixed media collage art journal spread.

Continue reading→

Expressive abstract painting tutorial

Join me in my art studio as I show you how to paint expressive abstracts in your art journal.

Expressive abstract painting tutorial

If you’ve been around here a hot minute, you’d know that I love abstraction. Figurative abstraction and abstracted whimsical portraits are my love languages. I’m slowly exploring pure abstraction, but that’s a much more complicated beast to tackle! During my research and experimentation with abstract, I came across expressive abstracts, and fell in love!

Continue reading→

I Am art journal flipthrough

Wrapping up the series on using a neutral color palette in your art!

Art journal flip through of a neutral palette themed journal

Come join me in my art studio for a flipthrough of my I Am art journal. What started as an experiment — exploring a neutral color palette in my art, working in a smaller size, even a new-to-me binding — turned into a beautiful treasure!

Going into this challenge of using a neutral color palette in my artwork, I had no expectations and no idea if I would actually like these paintings, or even be able to paint without my usual vibrant color palette to fall back on.

But this experiment increased my confidence and opened me up to expanding my color palette. The thrill of trying something new — and being delighted by it — was an added bonus!

Continue reading→

Finding your zone of joy

Finding your zone of joy Image shows close-up of a hand holding a paintbrush painting a detail of a flower on canvas

On the final episode of this season of the Art with Soul podcast, we talk about finding your zone of joy as an artist. We’ll look at the careers of Edward Degas, Monet, and Mark Rothko for clues and inspiration on our own journeys, and give ourselves permission to paint in our zone of joy! Tune in!

Continue reading→

How to paint tiny faces: Beginner friendly tutorial

Join me in my art studio as I show you how to paint a miniature face in your art journal.

Painting small can be challenging, especially with portraits, which have so much depth and need to be painted in multiple layers, but it doesn’t have to be! Especially if you paint more in a more loose, painterly style.

Continue reading→

Using collage stacks in your art journal

How to use collage stacks, or stacked collages, in your art journal

Join me in my art studio as I show you how to use a stacked collage to create a simple and quick art journal page. While I am using a neutral colour palette for this page, you can use all the colors of the rainbow in your own art journal!

Continue reading→

How to paint brown skin tones using mixed media

Bring some diversity into your art journal!

Full video tutorial and step by step domo on painting brown skin tones using mixed media

Join me in my art studio as I show you how to paint brown skin tones using mixed media. This is a very simple, beginner friendly technique to paint brown skin tones on whimiscal portraits in your art journal.

One of the most frequent complaints I’ve heard within the art journal community is the lack of diversity in instructions on how to paint faces. Most teachers focus on painting fair skinned portraits, which leaves people of color feeling under-represented and unseen.

Added to that is the fact that getting the shading, highlights, and shadows on darker skin tones is often much more difficult than standard fair featured portraits.

While there are many different ways to approach painting darker skin tones, I’ve come up with a fairly easy way to paint brown skin tones using mixed media art supplies.

Continue reading→

Explore a neutral color palette in your art journal

Join me at the art table as we explore how to use a neutral color palette while painting a whimsical imaginary character in our art journals.

If you’ve seen my art, you know that I LOVE color — blues, pinks, oranges, bright greens — bring them on, please! But what you probably don’t know is that I absolutely love seeing artists who paint with a lot of white and with neutrals — there’s something so very striking about their art. I’ve never been able to successfully paint with a neutral color palette, though. Until last month, that is.

Continue reading→