How to Create a Fantastic Art Journal page

When I first began doing art journals I had no clue as to where to start or how to layer my work to give me the best results. I have watched countless tutorials, read several books and viewed many art journal pages, this is the process I have come up with "How to Create a Fantastic Art Journal page".

1) Begin by picking your palate. I usually work with three main colours and versions of them plus black & white. If you're a beginner it's a great idea to invest in a colour wheel, one that tells you which are complimentary colours etc.
Some of my favorite colour combo's are
- Black, White, & Red
- Pink, Yellow & White
- Teal, Cream & Purple
- Fuchsia, Lime Green, & Orange
- Brown, Sage & Rose
- Orange, Yellow & Blue
- Lime Green, Black & Hot pink
I hope you play with colour a little to see what colours appeal to you. Or go through some magazines and just pull pages that you are drawn to to find your colour palette.

2) Begin by applying a wash or glaze in the lightest colour. Start layering come colour, shades of existing colour and textures on top. Use you brushes, fingers, bubble wrap, insides of coffee holders, sponges, plastic bags, etc.
Paint Glaze= 1 part paint-2-3 parts water-1 part acrylic glazing medium Wash= paint + water to thin
*Note- always let each application DRY before adding another colour, unless you want the colours to blend. Too many colours blending together will make for a muddy looking page.

3) Add some texture and interest to your page by stamping some text, musical notes, or other interesting subject to the page. You can also put your personality into the page by drawing a picture of your own then painting it. I have also added decorated, stamped or coloured tissue paper at this point.

4) At this point you can begin adding collage or altered collage images to your page. You can select a theme or just use random pictures out of old magazines. You may also want to add some three dimensional pieces to your work; paper or cloth flowers, brads, beads, feathers, etc.

5) Next I add a bit more paint, often white or gesso in areas that I want to mute out and give a bit of pop. Or I will add low-lights in a darker colour or deeper shade of a colour that is already there to create more depth.

6) Doodle time. I keep pictures of doodles around to give me inspiration on my doodles. Just play and be creative, don't over think it.

7) Journal- a poem, your wishes and dreams, a letter to yourself or another loved one, song lyrics... it's your journal, what do you want to say?

At this point your pretty much done, you can always doodle a bit more or add some more highlights with a white gel pen  if you like, but that's it. I hope you have enjoyed making some art.

Cheers,
Danine

Seed Journal

Good Morning, Afternoon, and Good evening to one and all. I have been quite the busy little bee as of late. Not only did I finish my travel journal; I created a base for yet another journal using all recycled materials, finished putting my table together (ya, the part came in the mail), I also finished days 4-6 of the "Seed Journal" challenge that I'm participating in on the Milliande community I belong to.

So I thought I would share them with you all. OR ya'll if you're from the south.

 Day 4~Seed Wings.... I call her Sweet Pea

I love my sweet, fresh from the garden, peas. 

They are nature's perfect snack, 

complete with it's own neat wrapper you eat.

She is sweet to the core and spreads love and joy where every she goes.

Day 5~Scattered Seeds... The Gardener

Much like my Mother did, and still does, 

she tends the garden with much love.

Sewing seeds and making sure there is growth.

Day 6~Pomegranate... Pomegranate Zentangled

Sweet, juicy, delicious and oh so amazingly good for you.

Hope you like them.
Cheers,

Danine

Happy Travels and Joyous Journaling

After hours and hours of drawing, painting, cutting, etc, etc, etc.... I have finally finished my Mini Art Journal.
If I get any requests on how to go from step one to the finished product I will post a blog on how to do so.
But, for now this is the finished product.

Happy Travels and Joyous Journaling!

Danine

Part 1 Travel Jounal

I began last week by rearranging my office space. I then removed the old make-shift art desk, and began building my nice new desk. I was quite excited to be creating my art on an adjustable desk, reducing the neck and arm strain and general body fatigue that I have when I sit for 5-8 hours a day creating my art.

But as it turns out it wasn't long before I was cursing my new table instead of sitting at it doing art. Because it's tilting mechanism broke off in my hands while I was trying to assemble it... So much for working at my fancy new art table this wk... I will now have to wait a week or so to get the parts so that I can finish putting it together. (And when I say that I'm putting it together , I really mean my wonderful, talented and crafty husband Mike.)

So, I toiled, crafted, and painted away all week at the dining room table, and there I'll stay until my part comes in the mail this week. SIGH  But, onward to our "Travel Journal Challenge". These little set backs can't and shouldn't slow us down.

The inspiration for my Travel Journal came from a youtube video I saw a while back by "mycreativebliss". These are the steps I will be taking to create my Travel Art Journal, I hope you will join me
.
Part 1
A) Cut out 12 - 4x4 squares of water color paper (you could also use mixed media paper) for creating your mini works of art on.

B) Next collect some coordinating scrap-booking papers for the journaling part which will be on the reverse side. If you want to have extra journaling pages for pictures and writing you can also use two sided paper.

To make the pages more sturdy gather heavier stock paper from old cookie packages, cereal boxes, and shoe boxes, which would normally just go into the recycling box, that we will use in between the two pieces.

Stay tuned for Part 2
To make our books a little more interesting we will be embellishing it with ribbon, decorative pulls, chains and other such do-dadds.  We will add some pockets, fabrics and envelopes so that you can have space for ticket keepsakes etc. This process is done before assembling the pages so make sure you don't go and glue your fronts and back together until each process is complete.

Have a fabulous ART filled week.
Cheers,
Danine

Travel Journal Challenge

I'm California bound!!! At the end of Feb two of my girlfriends and myself are heading to LA, Hollywood, and sunny Santa Monica for a short trip. So very excited! This will be my second time there, one has never been and my other friend has been twice before... It's going to be fantastic.

I love, love, love travelling but, I always forget to take pictures, keep my tickets, journal and simply keep records of where I go, who I'm with etc. etc. So this time I want to be prepared by bringing a little something to keep record and make notes. I have several ideas in mind of how to do this... maybe a little chunky 4x4 with a few stash pockets, some lightly painted mixed media pages, some cute pre-painted "Little Ladies" and of course a couple blank pages, OR a scrappy art journal made from mostly recycled materials and bits of scrap booking paper. Not sure which I want to do yet.

So, here is my challenge to you. I want you to create a travel journal. 

It can be an ongoing journal of all the places you go; 

OR a journal for this year only; OR a journal for one 

specific trip. there are a lot of great tips and tutorials on line 

or you can shoot me questions if you are having trouble

 thinking of something. I will do my best to help. Have fun with it 

and I look forward to seeing your art and hearing about your travels.

Many safe and glorious trips to you and your loved ones.

Cheers,

Danine

Dream a little Dream

Good afternoon my lovelies. Just a few thoughts today. 


If you're like me you feel the need to draw, doodle, and simply create something almost every day. For me art is meditation and food for the soul, I can't seem to get enough. But, I often get stuck, not knowing WHAT I should do or WHERE I should begin. Often a nudge is all I need to get started... so, I went on a scavenger hunt on the world wide web today in search of art challenges, ATC challenges, collage, and mixed media challenges. I'm happy to say that I found a great site with many such challenges.
The site has a little something for almost every one. It has art challenges for every day of the week with may different themes and mediums. Which is great for me and hopefully you too. Use them as  they are set up or jumble them up to suite your needs. What ever you do, have fun!


I chose to do a 4x6 Post Card challenge with the theme of 'Swirls, Twirls & Curls'

My post card consists of several collage pieces from magazines, arranged onto a piece of cardboard box that I treated with gesso. I painted, stenciled and stamped the background, decoupaged my images into place, then painted, doodled and grunged my little lovely for the finished look. I hope you like her. :)


This is the site;  http://www.squidoo.com/mixed-media-art-challenges

Danine  XOXOXO

Sow thy Self

Seed Journal #3-2012 - S-Words

So I'm sitting in front of a blank piece of paper trying to think of "S"-words that are seed related and have meaning to me OR perhaps define me in some way, shape or form. And believe you me, it's a lot harder than it looks. These are the words that I was able to come up with; Serendipity, Seeds, Sow, Stand, Self, Signature, & Strong.

As always I wrote a short journal entry upon the finished work, today I used orange ink which blends quite nicely into the background.

As my skill as an artist becomes stronger

I feel a greater sense of self.

Life is full of happy accidents, in art this is especially true.

This year I hope to learn from these mistakes 

And maybe even create my signature style from one.

2012 is going to be an outstanding year!

So in short I hope to SOW the SEEDS of good STRONG habits to become a better artist in 2012. Learning new skills, finding my SIGNATURE style and simply being my Authentic SELF. Perhaps finding a little SERENDIPITY along the way as well.

Doodle till your Hearts content!

"Doodles Unleashed", that is name of the online workshop that I started yesterday is titled. The artist, Traci Bautista, is lovely and talented and I'm thrilled to be involved.~Thanks Strathmore.

But, doodling is a new concept to me, well sort of. When I was in grade 8 or so I would doodle all the time, until a teacher caught me and would tell me to get back to work. I loved to doodle, but inevitably there was always someone there telling me I was wasting my time or that I should be doing something else, something better, with my time. Oh how I wished I hadn't listened to them. Sigh.

Now I'm actually finding it hard to start me doodles. "What if I make a mistake?" "What if it looks stupid?" "What if I don't like it?" and the Ego goes on and on, badgering me and making me doubt my self. Lucky for me I have never liked being told what I could or couldn't do. So I fight against that nagging feeling. I have learned, in a very short period of time, that it's just paint and paper. There is always more and you can always paint over top of it if you really don't like it. Mistakes are sometimes happy and some times not so much, but they are always a learning process. So now, in my wisdom, I welcome them.

I have begun my first piece for wk 1... this is the start (the background if you like) of that first piece.

Happy Doodling.

Cup of tea?

I recently visited my friend Pat in Nova Scotia, Canada. She lives in a large house on the side of a mountain in the Annapolis Valley. She has an amazing view of the valley below and her property is breathtakingly beautiful with flowers, fruit trees, and many flowering trees. We spend a lot of time outside sitting in her gazebo or lounging by the fire under a star lit night.

On one bright morning as we prepared for the day with our morning cup of tea Pat asked if I would like to try some Rose Hip tea.  She then explained how she had picked and dried the Rose Hips herself from the tree in her yard, all about their health properties and even how the birds enjoy them in winter.
I sat feeling very honored and privileged to be receiving such a gift. It reminded me of our friendship, with it's bright protective shell and how it weathered all seasons. The tiny pod reminded me that it's the small things we do for one another that make the huge differences.It's amazing nutritional values reminded me of how Nurturing a great friend can be. I always feel so refreshed and recharged after a visit with Pat. She simply has a way of knowing just what to say or do. She is a "Nurturer".

So, Day 2's Seed Journal entry for "Seed Pods" is Rose Hips & Nurture. I dedicate this to my dear friend Pat House and that beautiful cup of tea.

 Mediums used ~ Water colors, calligraphy ink, nibs, and pen, black sharpie and white gel pen.

Titled ~ "Nurture"
Journaling ~ Nurture One another; Love with your Heart wide open. Share a cup of tea.
Nurture your soul. Laugh & Smile often. Nurture your Creativity. Lend a helping hand.
Nurture friendship. Listen intently. Hold a hand. Hug your children.

Fly

Happy New Year!

I began a new art journal today~Seeds.
I'm joining the Milliande community in this art journaling project.
~ Sowing a seed Vs. Being the seed
~ Daily or Weekly journaling entries.

Day 1 is entitled "Fly"
Mediums used ~ Water colours, calligraphy pens, nibs & inks, prisma colour pencil crayons, white gel pen.

I wrote my verse in white gel pen, it reads:

Let me fly upon the Wind of Whimsy to places unknown, adventures anew.
Let me land upon fertile soils that may enrich my creative journey.
Let my roots grow deep and strong and may I drink from the pools of Wisdom.
Let me grow strong & branches be many,
ever reaching out in many directions towards
Abundance, Friendship, & Community always supporting others,
sharing my fruit, And being ALL that I'm meant to Be.

I choose the seed of the Maple Tree for several reasons. The first being that it has always
amused and fascinated me. As a child I would watch it as it floated, fluttered and flew upon
the wind as if by magic. It's structure sturdy like a helicopter yet feathery and beautiful like
 the wings of a butterfly. "Where are you going?", I would ask. Following it with my eyes
as it danced upon the wind gracefully to the ground. How it gave, and yes still does, give me joy.

Secondly, it is the seed of the Maple tree, the tree that gives Canada it's beautiful
national symbol, the Maple Leaf. Enough said. :)

Thirdly, the Maple tree is strong majestic and beautiful, it's leaves changing to so many
amazing shades of red and orange in the fall. If you tap into it it gives you the most
delicious sap to be turned into Maple Syrup, Canadian liquid gold.
As my poem says, I hope to grow in my art, with strong roots, a sturdy trunk, many
branches and one day be a source of strength, support and wisdom for others.

I look forward to seeing your pages on Milliande.ning.com

Danine