Category: art journal

There is nothing like nature itself to inspire me. This week “plants” is our theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge blog and I couldn’t help but be inspired to practice my drawing skills on some lovely redwood trees while outdoors last weekend. I played first with Prima Watercolor pencils, then added some water (waterbrush), then went in with some KOI watercolor. Still not quite there, I went in with some of the new clean color pens.

FYI – I like these pens and they are considerably cheaper than my own DIY watercolor pens (aka dylusions or distress mist in a water brush). But that said they’re not “better” than those in fact they are very similar in what happens which makes them my friend and this sentence too long. Moving on! I’m super inspired by all things green lately in my art, and I want to get better at bringing plants of all sizes big and small into my page. While not perfect or by any stretch of the imagination a superb work – I am happy with this creative play and I had a great time!

Simon is offering a generous $50 voucher that will be randomly drawn from the eligible entries each week. Join the fun by creating a project this week – and for your chance to win a $50 voucher you should hop on over and join in the challenge here.

For this week’s challenge at Simon Says Stamp I thought about making something hours before the challenge – in fact I had a few things started. ah, but then I got to thinking about how all weekend I sketched, played, and generally ignored deadlines and all the daily stress we all so often face. I just doodled and played with Prima pencils + my notebook. I have many pages (above) that are simple and quick and fun. Some (below) aren’t nearly finished! As I moved around Girl Scout Camp and had to reset in new locations sometimes my idea wasn’t finished.

I’m totally ok with this because it means now at home I can revisit, finish, and keep playing with the inspiration given to me, thanks to the time I took enjoying a camp experience like this. A few times someone came up to see what I was doing and why I was so involved in my book. I got a few compliments too and instead of saying “no this is bad” or otherwise trying to say no – I smiled and said thank you.

The girls and I had a wonderful time – how could we not? Here are a few pictures of where we were…

Now as I said – stay tuned I want to talk more about my art journal and taking time. For now though – the “due date” fast approaches!

Simon is offering a generous $50 voucher that will be randomly drawn from the eligible entries each week. Join the fun by creating a project this week – and for your chance to win a $50 voucher you should hop on over and join in the challenge here.

Art Journal! This week our challenge is inspired by the letter “A” and I decided to play in my art journal for the challenge.

I went wild – I splattered paint, stenciled with gold paste, sprayed & colored all over… FUN!

supplies used:

I love a good wild play session where I just test things out and try new ideas – so this was a great reason. A: start in an art journal and just play!

Simon is offering a generous $50 voucher that will be randomly drawn from the eligible entries each week. Join the fun by creating a project this week – and for your chance to win a $50 voucher you should hop on over and join in the challenge here.

National Craft Month is a great reason to collaborate – and I’m here today with Nichol Magouirk doing art journaling and having such fun. Check out Nichol at her YouTube channel (one of my faves!) as well as her blog here. As I type this I’ve got no idea what she came up with today – we both just decided to art journal and play today and link up to each other. How fun is that?!

I took flight with the final page in my small art journal – and oh what fun I had!

I filmed my whole process – in fact I made this page as I took breaks from cleaning and sorting here in the studio. Multi-tasking at its best! Here is the full video tutorial of how I created this page:

link to YouTube

I’m playing with new Faber Castell clear gel medium stuff (video coming to YouTube next week) and I am also trying to work out ways to work in my art journal and have an area be left totally clean. This isn’t the technique/look I was going for but I’m getting closer to what I want. bit by bit. NO pressure here in my journal – I just play.

My word is inspired by the new Netflix show Unbreakable. I watched it all very quickly as I worked so it isn’t surprising the word wound up in the journal. The show is funny and light – I wish it had gotten a bit deeper though. Could have been just as funny but with a bit more meat if that makes sense. The overall message is a real good one – she’s not a victim, she’s not going to give up or let life break her. She’s going to get up and go at it again. and again. Put in the work and make her dreams a reality. Love that!