Dare to Wreck This Journal!

I came across a book by Keri Smith called "Wreck This Journal". In it she encourages artists to explore and be fearless of mistakes.

When I first started keeping an art journal I was afraid of "messing it up". I overthought my pages and found it paralyzed my creativity. I overcame that fear when I actually did mess up a page by dropping an inked stamp. It landed where I didn't want it, of course. I faced the challenge of trying to "fix" the mistake.

Once these random mistakes happened a few times (dripping paint unintentionally, misspelling a word, etc.) I became more confident in my ability to roll with it. In the page above, I misspelled "when" (how do you do that, right??!) so I just painted over the area. The ink beneath still shows through a little, but I've learned to tell myself it's okay!

So my challenge to you is dare to wreck this journal! 

You can find it in my shop here.

Creative Art Journaling: Christmas Eve Magic

In honor of Christmas Eve and in tribute to the Nutcracker 

I present my latest creation:

I miss that magical time as a kid waiting for Santa, listening for reindeer hooves on the roof. It's fun to relive it through your kids, but now as mine is older I miss it again.

I used black gesso for the background with a coat of blue acrylic paint. I stamped a tree in brown acrylic paint in the background and accented the page with swirls stamped with Brilliance gold ink. The words are in Brilliance copper ink.

The wedding photo was taken by a friend of ours, Mark Collie who owns Quiver Tree Photography. It is so beautiful and magical, it looks like something out of a fairy tale!

Creative Art Journaling: Starry Night

 It's been over a year since I made this fabric art journal using upholstery scraps. I have been working on filling it with things that inspire me and experimenting with new techniques. 

The pages are so full now I can barely get it closed. 

Here is a glimpse of the artwork I've been doing inside it...

One of my favorite paintings is Van Gogh's Starry Night. 

I was inspired to try my own interpretation of the artwork

using acrylic paint on gessoed cardstock. 

I added glitter to the night sky and Ranger's Stickles to the moon and stars.

One thing I love about studying art is finding things in the painting I never noticed before. I discovered the rolling hills and the little town under the night sky once I really examined Van Gogh's work. This exercise has given me an even deeper appreciation for this piece.

How Other Artists Are Using My Watercolor Art Journals

When the journals I make leave my studio for their journey to their new home, my hope is that they'll be used and not just sit on a shelf to look pretty.

 When a customer sent me these pictures of what she's been doing with the art journals she bought from me I nearly jumped up and down with delight!

 So pretty!

 I love looking at work spaces, too.

You can find blank watercolor journals similar to these in my shop here.

Art Journal Using Upholstery Fabric Swatches for the Covers

Years ago I found some upholstery swatch books in a thrift store. I've been hoarding them ever since, which not unusual for me. I have oodles of fabric, ribbon, paper, beads, sequins, stickers, magazine images...and so on. I even kept the extra wooden reeds from when I cut the length of my roman shades. I must have 150 sticks in my attic. What I am going to do with them all I don't know, but you never know when you might need a stick for a project!

Anyhow, I thought I would finally put to use all the little scraps of upholstery fabric by making journal covers with them.

The design process takes me forever, partly as I have to organize all the little scraps by color first because I'm like that. Then I have to find the exact right combination of colors and patterns.

I sew all the scraps together and sew a lining on the other side, taking care to remember to include the elastic loop on the back for the button closure. It's a real nuisance if you forget this step as you have to rip out the stitches to slip the elastic in between the cover and liner and sew it back together. Not that I am speaking from experience. ;)

Then it is text block time. I added lots of different colored paper pages and little swatches of scrapbook paper into my pages. I discovered when working within this journal that the colored paper was a moot point as I gessoed all the pages and painted on them, so it really didn't matter what color the page was to begin with. Oh well.

I stitched the pages into the book using a sort of modified longstitch/pamphlet stitch and added a button from my grandmother's collection.

 Ta-da! Finished product. I am about halfway done filling the pages of this book.
Here are some of the pages:

I am making some fabric journals to share and will post the link when they are ready in my Etsy shop.

Here is one ready to ship! https://www.etsy.com/listing/251497590/travel-or-art-journal-with-upholstery