Art Journalling (Part I)

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog, work has been extremely busy of late and unfortunately I have not had as much spare time as I would off liked especially with the introduction of a small chihuahua puppy Drogo to our family.

I was however fortunate enough to attend an Art Journalling class at my nearby craft store Stamp Addicts with the amazingly talented Lesley.  This was something that I have seen being done in Craft Stamper magazine but was always a little too afraid to dip my toe in the pool as I thought it might be too hard and require an artistic ability I did not think I had.

As I find scrapbooking a large and daunting arena, I thought that as a starting point Art Journalling may bridge the gap and as an avid diary keeper in my teenage years return to me a means of keeping those memories I hold dear in paper form.

I would like to assure you all now if I am able to do this and take on board its techniques (which can incorporate a lot of your crafty stash) then I am sure you will all get as much enjoyment out of it as I have my new hobby.

I have attached below a couple of pages which I did on my first course with Lesley:-

This was my first page and I am extremely proud of it, the background was initially coated in a thin layer of gesso using an old voucher card, once this had dried I then spritzed the background using an assortment of teal, purple and pink dylusion sprays (supplied at the group) and blotted this layer dry using a kitchen towel.  I then selected a floral template and painted through this using Golden acrylic paints (supplied at the group) in both the top left and bottom right corners.  Using some popping packaging I painted on this using white paint and placed this across the bottom left and top right corners.  Using white embossing paste I went through a template on the bottom left hand page and top right hand page.  To complete this first journal page I used pink striped washi tape in the centre top left and bottom right to add further dimension an stamped both the butterfly and inspirational words using a black ink pad.

For my next page I again primed using white gesso in a thin layer, this time however the base colours used were a yellow Faber Castell Gelato which I scribbled on to both pages mixing it with some scribbles of Red Gelato and mixing them across the page using a damp paint brush creating the background.  I then spritzed using Red Dylusion inks to add some movement to the pages.  Using some sequin waste I went through the waste using Red Inca Gold on the right hand page (again all materials supplied with the class) and then placed the reverse impression on the top left hand page.  At this point butterflies were still prevelant in my mind and the lyrics to Dolly Parton's "Love's like a Butterfly" were going through my head, this inspired me to use some sketchbook tissue tape tinted using Orange Gelato and die cut corregated metallic hearts for texture on the page along with a grungeboard butterfly tinted using Distress Inks and the stunning stamped image of the dress makers mannequin with birds using a brown ink.  To complete the page I handwrote some of the song lyrics on to page.

I shall upload further pages over the next few days and would love to hear your thoughts and comments on my new endeavour.

Many thanks for looking
Em