What do I need to start an Art Journal?

My trip to the Scrap Exchange netted several books filled with wallpaper and fabric samples. Finds such as these can offer a huge assortment of colors, textures and opportunities to simple experiment. After all, nothing happens if you don't try it!
But  don't underestimate what is already in your home. Markers, crayons, colored pencils, poster paints are usually in the art corner or drawer of every home. Did you know that scribbling on a page with markers and then lightly brushing over it with a wet brush will cause the colors to spread and blend into a beautiful random design?

An inexpensive box of markers

 As school begins to start back (yes I know, it's hardly out) the big discount stores will offer HUGE savings on basic art supplies such as Markers, Crayons, Glue (when was the last time you paid .17 cents for a bottle of glue? Rulers, colored pencils, puff paints, craft paints....
and the all important ways to organize them all!

Check the fabric sections in the same stores for sales on ribbons and buttons, zigzag material...KEEP IT SIMPLE!
Running around and around collecting "stuff" can block your creative abilities. Just use what is there, in front of you. The rest will come in good time!

Blending colors. A super background effect!

 

Treasure hunting Recycled materials

In this general NC area, the grand recyclers of them all is a place called the Scrap Exchange located in a huge old warehouse in Durham, NC. When my children were small, we'd wander over to their original location and examine all manner of "trash" to see what we could do with it.

  
The basic concept of the Scrap Exchange is that individuals and businesses donate their outdated, old, unused (or used) scrap items to be sold to the general public and re-purposed in some way. It takes a discerning eye to wander amid the dimly lit, stacked shelves and sift through the vast array of stuff in order to find items that can be used for one's purpose!

Everything from old electronics to a million plastic "what nots" to discarded magazines, cards and envelopes, art, paper, paint, fabric, tiles, medical supplies, guts of old equipment......is available. I spent almost two hours and $40.00  collecting items such as rubber stamps, wallpaper books, corks, spools of ribbon. Oh yes, an old Atlas for my travel art journal!  If it was closer. I would check more regularly but as it is, the odd bits and pieces tend to be perfect for Art Journals  :-) 

assorted ribbon

wallpaper and fabric sample books

There is no doubt that the wallpaper and fabric sample books will be a huge source of inspiration. At just $3.00-$4.00 each with easily 75-150 one of a kind swatches, they are a bargain. I can't wait for the women coming to my Ladies Art Retreat the end of June to select from and enjoy the huge variety of materials that will be on hand.

Let's see what I can make over the weekend!

Journaling and Queen Anne's Lace

My Art Journal page

How can you not be inspired by flowers? Your garden or a friend's? 

The Queen Anne's lace is blooming  everywhere now. The warm winter meant it all came about two weeks early. In NC they bloom wild alongside what we  call "Tiger Lilies" Somehow "ditch lilies" doesn't do it for me! I let a few grow randomly in my garden and love that decision!

Both types of flowers are a fond remembrance of mine of my sister and I riding our horses down the roads and seeing these same types of wildflowers growing alongside the  road in upstate New York!

So a combination of using leaves (yanked from my grass) as a stencil, lace, paint, spray ink, markers and my trusty gel medium, transposed my vision into a fun 9 x 11 Art Journal page of a few sentences and all things Queen Anne's Lace!

It's easy to paint the flower...just blopping dabs of white paint in the general shape of the head of the flower!

The journal next to the Queen Anne's Lace in my garden

A new Journey into Art and Writing

 

Journals. I have kept them for years....written, typed, sketched.....in all formats and all the variables that come with time, where I last put it down and what I remembered or thought about. That is what makes a journal so special and individual!

Often we tend to unintentionally separate  art from writing.But, what better way to write and paint in the world of journaling than to simply become lost in the creation process!

I have SO many art supplies and some, in my art practice, become less useful as my techniques change. Ah but that is the beauty of art journaling. Nothing goes to waste!  
Oh, and all that sewing stuff tucked away here and there? What better way to randomly combine ribbon, ink, glue and paints and create an image to a thought? Join me in this journey into a creative world where there are no rules, no art critics and anything in your imagination is art!