Starting a miniature art journal

Look at the beautiful results from our beginner art journalists and see if you aren't impressed? Also notice the gorgeous miniature journals they created from scratch? A few participants got away before I took photos but I will post them soon-simple a wonderful time with lots and lots of art supplies!

June 30 Ladies Art Retreat!

Hey it's tomorrow! Only two spots left for this fun opportunity to learn to start your own art journal! No men-just us ladies :-)

http://artstudentacademy.com/Ladies-Journaling-Retreat.html

Bringing in the vintage photos!

Little Victorian girl

Nothing says "Art Journal" as well as vintage elements brought together such as ephemera ads, photos, postcards and old books.

In my upcoming Art Retreat we will be using this image and many like it. I have so many sources for old images but found this one and the following two on a super blog called "freevintagedigistamps" . I will find the link again as the downloads are all free and fun to browse through!

Check out this super cool image! Can you imagine using this within one of your pages?    Or how about this enchanting young girl from another era?

You can print your images out on computer paper and incorporate them into your journal with words, art   and your imagination. Keep watching for what my students create this weekend!

Lovely Victorian era child

                                                              

Starting a Travel Journal

A page from my travel journal

Art Journaling offers the perfect venue to create, maintain and embellish a travel journal.

You simply fill a bag with your journal, travel watercolors, a small container of mat medium (or elmers glue), markers, scissors and you're good to go!

Collect postcards, maps, travel brochures,...all available at welcome centers and tourist stops, and when the time presents itself, assemble the pieces into your book!

It's a fabulous way to pass the time in the car, a motel, on the beach  (a little sand in the glue?) and create lasting memories of a road trip!

I'm off on a road trip to the coast this weekend to participate in an outdoor art show and I'll bring along my journal to work in when things are quiet!

Teen art journaling

Right now I am teaching a week long summer camp for children 8-10 and 11-15. The kids are amazing, fun, energetic and I have to add that my animals on our mini farm are so happy to have all the attention during break!
My Art camps are what I call "all inclusive." I like to take the energy level, enthusiasm and abilities of my young students and not only paint (this is a Painting Camp!) but let them experience new concepts. On top of that, let's bring in the childhood pleasure of fresh air, flowers, climbing trees, petting animals and running for the sheer pleasure of it!   See it HERE:

Art camp collage

Watch it HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECX-JNgRi70



"Serious" art can wait. The teens whom I taught all year long in my children's classes, have continued their art journaling during the summer break with beautiful results!

Maddie's journal page. Age 14

Art Journal Glitz with paint and kitchen wrap!

art journal page of 9 x 12 book

 As an artist, I have a slew of various paints and assorted art mediums sitting around. Some have sat awhile, fallen out of favor or simply not used to their potential.

It did not take me long to realize that ANYTHING can be used in art journaling! Dust off old pens, paints, markers, pastels, rummage through kitchen drawers for odds and ends.....and by all means, pull out that favorite food saver, the box of clear plastic wrap!

I had a few tubes of Turner acryl "gouache" and simply blended a few of the "pearl" colors onto the previously gessoed pages of one of my journals. ( Gouache is an ancient medium usually seen as an opaque watercolor but more recently re-invented as an acrylic gouache with much the same properties as Golden, Liquitex, etc. Beautiful colors!)

Then I crumpled up the clear wrap, pushed it onto the wet paint, let it sit about 10 minutes, then pulled it off.

The results are a beautifully textured surface, shimmery with gouache paint to which I applied purple and black markers and a few cut out phrases.

Simple, effective and oh so easy!

close up of textured surface

The Garden Art Journal

Cultivating a garden of any size, whether it's a plot of land or a patio pot, is work at some level :-). But behind that work is the promise of a reward and so we pull on the gardening gloves, bring out the trowel or shovel and commence to plant promises.

Even the most novice of gardeners takes pleasure out of the seed actually turning into something! Starting with a plant, a seedling, is one thing. But taking those tiny dry "nothings" and seeing results start after a week or so truly borders on amazing :-)

I have also taken great pleasure in recording random vignettes in my art journal. There is no order or reason to it. With a bit of watercolor, ink and  crayon, I created a page of color. No serious painting or drawing or attempt at painting what I was looking at...just the randomness of expressing what it was that I saw and felt and making swirly lines that began to look like a flower. Not a journey of anything but the fact that I felt like making a permanent image of what I was feeling.

And that is the pleasure of art journaling. Add a beautiful morning on the art studio porch, a cup of coffee and a box of assorted art supplies and allow your thoughts to simply ....expand on that journal page in front of you!

front of studio

Embellishing the art cover journal

Front cover of 5 x 8 journal

So many choices!

So a piece from one of the heavy duty, textured fabric sample books has been re-purposed for the cover of this journal and the wire binder covered with silk scraps. 
Notice the old skeleton key, picked up at a flea market for just $2.00 that adds that certain "something" to the beginning of this art book.

Now what should this key unopen? :-)

Economical papers and fabrics

Purchasing individual sheets of scrapbooking paper can be an expensive undertaking, especially when you may not be sure what to do with them yet.

A good substitute? Both wallpaper and fabric sample books from your local recycling centers, back rooms of fabric shops or Goodwill type stores. A HUGE assortment of fabric textures, colors, patinas...all available for a fraction of the cost.

When you consider one sheet of 9 x 12 paper from a retail craft store can be $4.99-9.99, investing $2-4.00 for a 20 pound book with easily 500 samples ranging in sizes from "3 x 9" to as large as 12 " x 12" sheets of paper or fabric, well the choice is clear!

My next post will show you what I did with a few of the papers and fabrics.