Saturday, June 22, 2013

A New Chapter ~ Art Journaling

I signed up for an art journaling club at Scrapbook Centrale. Today was the first get-together. I had no idea what to expect, I just wanted to learn new techniques and have fun. Mission accomplished! We were working with Dylusions sprays by Dyan Reaveley. I LOVE color, so brightness is not something that I am intimidated by. In fact, I usually have an aversion to soft and muted colors. Hmm...what does that say about me? Anyhow, this is the journal that we all had to purchase for the class:
I can tell you I was really excited to get to this class and just play. I am also looking forward to filling this journal over time. Having the club meet once a month will be a lot of fun and playing in between should be great too. Normally, I am a very linear and uncluttered kind of crafter (when scrapbooking), but with this I feel free to just get messy. It's fun to watch your creation take form as you play with it. Here is what I worked on today (the initial sprays of color):
I wanted saturated color, so just putting it everywhere was how I started. I am gonna have to buy these sprays (I feel a new addiction coming on). As you can see, the pages underneath WERE white. The finished product is not indicative of that at all:
I used water to get some dripping. I wanted to see how that looked (I will be using that technique a LOT, I think). Then I used some alpha stamps to stamp "PLAY" because that is what I was doing. I wanted my first pages to reflect what I was doing. I stamped a journaling area in the bottom left corner to explain that it was the first class and that I was having fun. Then I decided I needed a bit of dimension, so I used some stamps the store had and did the butterflies using gesso. You can also see that I used some stencils/masks for the hearts and the bubbles on the top right (all with gesso). While the gesso was still wet, I sprayed the Dylusions on them so that the color would go with the page (I wasn't interested in having them be white and have such a stark contrast). I then added on some sayings and words that were stamped on paper, sprayed them and adhered them to the pages. I went around some of the elements with a white pen to define the edges and used a black one to doodle around the edges of both pages. VoilĂ ! My first pages in my art journal, just playing with color. I have some Stampotique stamps that I think will definitely get some use in this journal. My creative juices are flowing!!!

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Falling in Love with Mixed Media...

I think I am finding a new love: mixed media! My last post was about a canvas bag I painted on and now I am posting a notebook cover I did last night. I used gesso, gelatos, modelling cream, stamps and washi tape. This would be such a great gift to give someone. I'm thinking that making nice notebooks and journals for people would be a great gift. I'm also starting to think about how nice it might be to put together some inspirational quotes on canvas or wood to hang up on the walls at home. Oh boy! My brain is going into overdrive!

I love these colors (okay, I DID choose them myself, so I should love them ~ lol). Such a versatile thing to be able to do! I am picturing all kinds of color schemes. Definitely gonna have to play a bit more with this sutff!