Category Archives: Collage

365 A Daily Creativity Journal – Day Four

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Waiting for Summer

After playing about with the weaving last night, I returned to my first scabby pages and gesoed them and left them overnight to dry. As it is the weekend, I simply left the journal nearby and returned to it on and off throughout the day. Thinned acrylic paint with gel medium instead of water and sloshed on a greeny-blue wash. Added collage and rubber stamping. Covered with yellow ochre wash and rubbed it a to get a distressed look. Not that the book isn’t already distressed enough – hope I can keep it alive for the whole 365 days!

Printed off the girl’s face from a scan of one of my other journals, alpha-stamped it and added the daisies using the kitchen paper used in the distressing stage above. You can tell I am recycling all my art waste these days! Used pens to emphasize the stamped words, rubbed some Neopastels around the borders and tis done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update: The daisies didn’t come out well in the photo so tried again. Spent a few minutes highlighting a few details – darkened the eyes slightly and added some white to the daisies as they dried almost transparent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

365 A Daily Creativity Journal – Day Two

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We’ve been out all day so I planned on getting a page done this evening. Had it all worked out -gesso, paint, gesso, collage, a rubber stamp or three and some text. It all went wrong from the off. Applied the gesso to the page. Left it to dry. Went back to it. Still wet. Used hairdryer. Still wet. Blotted with kitchen towel. Big mistake as the gesso lifted off taking bits of the page with it. Panic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end I laminated the soggy pages together with PVA and left the book on the radiator to dry out as best as it could. I then had to throw something together very quickly. And it shows. Torn paper collage, Neocolor 2 crayons and pen doodles. Looked horrible. No time to do anything else so glued a layer of tissue paper over it. I’m not happy.

 

365 A Daily Creativity Journal – Day One

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It’s midnight and I need to post my first day results. I have spent an hour or so working on the cover of my copy of  “A Daily Creativity Journal”.

Started off by making some fabric paper with a muslin base. Glued on some scrapbook papers and then a piece of shimmery silver netting. Splashed on some diluted acrylic paint and let it dry. Full instructions at Textile Art, Fabric Art & …

Here’s the paper. It’s quite tough and leathery so is perfect for book covers. You can also sew, glue it or use it as the background for collage and painting. I love the texture of this stuff and make loads of it when I have a few minutes to spare. It’s really quick and easy.

Next, I cut the paper to size and just stuck it over the existing cover with strong double sided tape.

Stamped some scraps of handmade paper with the year, 2012 and glued them to the cover. I felt that the cover was lacking something so attacked it with some metallic oil pastels.

I may add some more embellishment in due course when the mood takes me. See you tomorrow!

 

Make an Art Journal from Scratch

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Take some paper, fold it, sew it, splash some watercolor on it, collage it, crayon it, ‘zendoodle’ a border,  add some thoughts or a pithy quote or two. There. You have your art journal. Okay, okay, you wanted more than that, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.

I made a Squidoo lens (page) all about creating an art journal from scratch. It includes Teesha Moore’s useful video which shows you how to make the black journal from a singe piece of 22×30″ watercolor paper. There are links to other art journal pages too, including a step-by-step ‘Create a Journal Page’.

If I was asked to give one word of advice of how to go about beginning an art journal (yes, I know I haven’t been asked but I’m going to give it any way), it would be ‘experiment’. Don’t worry about how it’s going to look when finished. It’s about giving yourself permission to be free. It’s not an art class; it’s a playground.

HOW TO MAKE AN ART JOURNAL