Category Archives: Art Journaling

Art Journal Thursday #19

Good morning! I am happy to announce that my Art Journal Thursday Video #19 has been uploaded out on YouTube! 🙂

The materials I used this week are:

White Gesso
Dina Wakley Mixed Media Acrylic Paints: Lime, Turquoise, Sky, Magenta, Lapis, White
Baby wipes
Dina Wakley Media Stencil: Essentials
Ceramcoat Acrylic Craft Paints: Green, OJ
Folk Art Acrylic Paint: Medium Yellow
Finalize bottle filled with white acrylic paint
Uhu Glue Stick
Uniball Signo Broad White Pen
Black Pilot Permaball Pen
Ranger Archival Ink Pad

This weeks video is rather short and sweet. That is mainly because I lost part of my video footage in the beginning…oops, sorry about that! In case you missed how I got this page started out, I coated my spread with white gesso by using a palette knife to scrape white gesso all over my spread and letting that dry completely. I then used three of Dina Wakley Media Paints to add color to my page, and before those colors dried, I used a stencil and baby wipe to pull some of the color up through the stencil. As I added another color, I made sure to overlap some of the previously stenciled areas to incorporate all of the colors together, and then continued with my stencil technique. I kept doing this until my spread was color!

That is why my video today begins!

I really like the way this spread turned out, at one point I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going with it! 🙂 But as always, it usually seems to turn out exactly as it is supposed to, and I really love it! 🙂

What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art spread!! 🙂

Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!

Until next time!

Here is to a BEAUTIFUL CREATIVE life!

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday #18!

I am happy to announce that my Art Journal Thursday Video #18 has been posted out on YouTube!

This week, the supplies I used were:

Dina Wakley Heavy Body Acrylic Paints: Tangerine, Lime, Magenta, Sky, Turquoise, Lemon, Lapis, and Blackberry Violet
the circular Dina Wakley Media Mask from her Graphic Shapes set
Baby wipes
Fineline bottle filled with black acrylic paint

This past weekend, I was very excited to have gotten the opportunity to take 5 classes taught by the lovely Dina Wakley, over a three-day period!! I learned sooooooo many new skills and techniques, and I am just raring to start incorporating them all, but for today I thought I would start by showing you all how to do a very simple technique that not only had I not seen before, it was one of my favorites!

You choose a mask or a stencil, something with not too small of holes, as well as not too large of holes either!

Spread a thick layer of acrylic paint to cover a surface roughly the size of you mask/stencil.

Lay your mask/stencil over the thick coat of paint, and rub all excess paint off with a baby wipe. (Many baby wipes, actually!) While you are doing this, you will transfer color onto your spread from the baby wipe – that is alright, just make sure to overlap your background colors to make it look intentional and to incorporate all of your stencil shapes together.

Just keep repeating this process until you have as many stencil/mask designs that you want! Make sure you do not clean your mask/stencil as you change from color to color. Part of the coolness of this effect is the color transfer that will happen when you go from color to color!

I hope you get a chance to give this technique a try!!! I KNOW I will do this one MANY times over!!! 😉

What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art spread!! 🙂

Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!

Until next time!

Here is to a BEAUTIFUL CREATIVE life!

If you want a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday #17!

Good afternoon!

I am happy to announce that my Art Journal Thursday #17 video is up on YouTube!! 🙂

The materials I used this week were:

Folk Art Acrylic Craft Paint: Medium Yellow
DecoArt Crafter Acrylic Craft Paints: Leaf Green, Tuscan Red, Tropical Blue
Apple Barrel Acrylic Craft Paint: White
Petroleum jelly
Paper Towels
Card Stock (recycled business cards)
Hero Arts Decorate It Letter Stamps
Ranger’s Black Archival Ink Pad
Aleene’s Quick Grab Tacky Glue
Black China Marker

This week I had stumbled upon another YouTube video showing how to do this petroleum jelly resist, which ends up looking like peeled paint, and I just knew that I had to try this in my art journal this week! 🙂

One of my favorite artists is Rodney White, and I have 4 of his prints hanging in my house, 3 of those are in my living room! His artwork features a peeled paint effect, and I was determined to figure out how to do this, so I could use it in some of my artwork! 🙂

I found a few YouTube tutorials on how to do this, and was determined to give this a try! 😉

This technique turned out to be very easy, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind! You will need a lot of clean paper towels, and I mean A LOT!!! 😉 This will also make a bit of mess on your art table, with all of the little peeled paint bits – kind of reminds me of eraser shavings, but other than that…easy peasy!!! 😉

This is my new FAVORITE spread in my art journal!!! I ADORE all of the colors, and the final peeled paint effect is SCRUM-DIDDLY-UPMTIOUS!!!! After adding the brown color wash, and wiping it off, all of the layers had so much depth to them, that I could seriously see this being a very cool background on a piece of wall art!!!

What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art spread!! 🙂

Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!

Until next time!

Here is to a BEAUTIFUL CREATIVE life!

If you want a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday Video #16

Good morning!

I am happy to announce that my Art Journal Thursday video #16 has now been posted out on YouTube!

The supplies I used today were:

Liquitex Gesso
DecoArt Acrylic Paints: Tropical Blue, Tuscan Red
Folk Art Acrylic Paint: Medium Yellow
Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body Acrylic Paints: Lemon, Ruby, Sky
Ceramcoat Acrylic Paint: Green (02662)
Golden’s Molding Paste
Palette Knife
Adirondack Metallics Acrylic Paint Dabber: Gold
Fineline Applicator (18 gauge tip) – 4 of them
Stencil – I apologize, I have no idea what this stencil is called or who created it – I remember purchasing this at Michael’s in a pack of 3 or 4 stencils

My inspiration for this spread was this cute little wooden wall hanger that I had found on sale at my local World Market. I immediately fell in love with the beautiful colors, and all of the interesting designs. I am thinking it looks very Moroccan in design, which I also LOVE!!

I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to translate this cute tile onto a two page art journal spread, the size difference was a little daunting to envision – a 4″x4″ tile versus a 22″x28″ art journal spread. BIIIIIIIIIG difference!! 😉Anyway, I really like the way that this spread has turned out!
The textures are scrumptious!And the little doodling designs turned out better than I expected. I am really in LOVE with my Fineline bottles!!! 😉
I also really REALLY like the color combinations! I would have NEVER used this mix if it weren’t for my inspiration piece!I also really like that in some parts of this spread, it really does look like this was painted on wood! Doesn’t it???

And the coppery-gold section in the lower left hand corner, is very texturally interesting too!

I really like how this page turned out! I may have to look for more inspiration pieces, in the coming weeks, to keep me arting out of my comfort zone!! 😉

What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art spread!! 🙂

Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!

Until next time!

Here is to a BEAUTIFUL CREATIVE life!

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday #15

I am happy to announce that my latest Art Journal Thursday post is now up on YouTube!

The supplies I used this week were:

Golden’s Fluid Acrylic Paint: Teal
Delat Ceramcoat Acrylic Craft Paint: Pop Pink, OJ
Decorated deli paper, and cardstock
Golden’s Matte Light Gel Medium
Golden’s Matte Medium Bodied Gel Medium
Palette Knife
Balzer Designs Stencil: Blazonry
M Graham & Co Full Bodied Acrylic Paint: White Titanium
Hero Arts Artsy Circle Border Stamp
3 miscellaneous circle stamps – I don’t know brand or name
Stabilo Black Pencil
Paint Brush
Black Pilot Multiball Pen
Uhu Glue Stick
Dylusions Ink Spray: Calypso Teal

If you watched today’s video, you will already know that I did not have any kind of plan for today’s layout. I just knew that I had three or four colors in mind when I first started and I wanted to just let the page take me where it wanted to go!

I also knew that I had some leftover deli paper and cardstock pages that I had decorated using a Gelli plate that I wanted to see if I could somehow incorporate into today’s spread.

After getting all of my colors on my layout the way that made me happy, I then decided I wanted to use one of my previously unused stencils, to overlay all of the bright color with some white – to help tone it down!

Then I created black marks with my Stabilo pencil, and black doodling pen, and I must admit this page was turning out to be a very happy spread!!

I know that this week’s sentiment is very close to the sentiment from a few weeks ago, but this message just kept popping up in my head over and over, so I just went with it, and put it down! I am so glad that I did! 😉

I am just loving how bright and colorful this spread is!

Yep, it’s official – this spread might be my favorite to date! 😉

What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art spread!! 🙂

Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!

Until next time!

Here is to a BEAUTIFUL Creative life! 😉

If you want a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Video #14

Good afternoon!

I am happy to announce that my latest Art Journal Thursday Video is post up on YouTube! Yeah!

The supplies I used were:

#2 pencil
Tim Holtz Distress Stain: Old Paper
Daler Rowney Simply Acrylic: Brown
Ceramcoat Acrylic Paint: Napthol Crimson, Maple Sugar Tan
Art Advantage Acrylic: Mars Black
Apple Barrel Gloss Acrylic Paint: White
Book pages
Distress Ink Pad: Forest Moss
Stamper’s Anonymous Stamp: Handwriting from the Reflection set CMS111
Aleene’s Quick Dry Tacky Glue
Stabilo All Pencils: Black, Brown
Black Uni-Ball Signo 207 Pen

For those of you who had watched last week’s video, you might remember that I was really struggling to get a door onto my spread. After changing my mind last week, and coming up with something completely different, that I happened to have LOVED, I thought I was just going to leave it at that and do something different today too. But that door was nagging me, so I decided I would just buckle down and create my door this week!

I decided it was time to get brave and let my inner kindergartner come out and play. I gave her full reign on what the spread would look like and what materials she could use!! The sky was the limit!

Although my spread wasn’t very earth shattering, materials or techniques-wise, I was still pretty proud of myself that I did it!

Also, I have learned this week that art has a tendency to go through an “ugly phase”, and I have to confess, this spread was no different! The key to the “ugly phase” is that you need to just push through it, and let it all finish coming together!

When I had gotten to the point where I was painting the stairs, I had a moment of, “What the heck am I doing??? I am such a fraud! This page is HORRIBLE!!! I can not believe that I am trying this for the first time on camera!!! Have I lost my EVER-LOVIN’-Mind???” Yes, true story!

I am glad I pushed through because, even though this is not my favorite spread, and it is COMPLETELY different than what I normally do, I ended up having a real fondness for it! 😉

What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art spread!! 🙂

Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!

Until next time!

Here is to a BEAUTIFUL Creative life! 😉

If you want a different life, live differently!

Teaching Mixed Media Techniques: Eclectic Backgrounds Class

Good evening!

I hope you all had an excellent weekend! My weekend is Sunday and Monday, so I am just now coming to the end of my weekend, and it has been pretty relaxing!

Before my weekend ends completely, and I get back into the hubbub that has been my filled-to-the-brim weeks, I wanted to share with you how my mixed-media art class, Eclectic Backgrounds, went this past Saturday!

I was very excited about this class! This was my first, for pay, class!! I was also very nervous because I knew it was going to be a small class, which actually turned out to be such a blessing!! My first students were Sharon and Lynette – they were so MUCH FUN to have some play time with!!

Because I was so nervous, I was planned to the ‘T’, however, I have a confession to make…I thought the class was supposed to be 3 hours long, and it turned out I had only scheduled it for 2, which meant we had A LOT to cover in a VERY SHORT amount of time!! Thankfully we not only got it all done in time, we all really had a GREAT time!! That is what I was hoping for most of all! 😉We learned and practiced 6 different mixed media art background techniques! We even had enough time to get all 6 of our samples turned into handmade journals that we can take with us and play with when we got home!I made sure to bring some of my art journals and some of my artwork to show how the backgrounds we had created could be added on to make completed art work either in art journal or art canvas form!
These are some of my whimsical faces AKA “Long Neck Girls”, I am teaching a class on this technique in February and March of this year!I will be teaching a repeat of this Eclectic Background class, on January 21st, from 1-3 PM, at Runaway Art & Craft Studio here in Salem, Oregon. So, if you missed out on this first class, and would like to join us for the next one, please either leave a comment in this blog post below, or e-mail me at beautiful.creatives@yahoo.com to get more information!

Thank you to Sharon and Lynette for being so AWESOME! and for Kelsey at Runaway Art & Craft Studio for cheerleading me on so well, while also taking pics for us!!! This place is really becoming my home away from home!! 😉

As for this week, I am teaching another later this week for a private party! This time I will be teaching a gaggle of teenage girls, which I am sure will be a LOT of fun! I will make sure to share pictures from that fun evening too! 😉

Until then! 😉

Here is to a BEAUTIFUL Creative week! 😉

If you want a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday #13

Good morning!

I am so excited to share that I have finally gotten an Art Journal Thursday video up on YouTube!

The supplies I used are:

Dylusions Ink Sprays: Crushed Grape, Calypso Teal, London Blue, and White Linen
Ranger Black Archival Ink Pad
Recollection Stamp: Tiny Script – Unsure of actual name
Deco Art Crafter’s Acrylic Paint: Tropical Blue
Delta Ceramcoat Acrylic Paint: Pansy
Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint: White
Stampers Anonymous Ultimate Grunge Stamps: Polka Dots, Dates
Stampers Anonymous Grid Blocks
Golden High Flow Acrylic: Dioxazine Purple
Faber Castell Graphite Pencil
Black Stabilo All Pencil
Black Uni-ball Signo 207 Pen
White Uni-ball Signo Broad Pen
Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue
Scissors
Paint Brush

When I set out to create this week’s layout, I knew what I wanted to do! I wanted to have a really cool door, and my sentiment was going to be, “When one door opens another one opens.” Well, that is exactly what happened this week! One door closed and another one opened!! LOL! 🙂

After giving up on my door idea, I realized I was going to have to give my background some more attention! A few spritz of Dylusions Ink Spray was not going to be enough for what I was wanting to create!

So let the fun begin! These are my favorite kind of backgrounds to do! Lots of acrylic, circles, doodling, drips, stamps!! Sign me up!! 😉

I think these pictures speak for themselves!! I just love the scrumdiddly-umptiousness of it all!! 😉

I also LOVE the colors that I used this week! I don’t normally work with blues and purples, but after seeing how this spread turned out, I may have to dabble with these more often!! 😉

I ended up ABSOLUTELY LOVING this spread! I can honestly tell you that it is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITES!!!

So, what do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art journal!

Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!

Until next time!

Here is to a BEAUTIFUL Creative life! 😉

If you want a different life, live differently!

First Soul Book Club!

YEAH!!!

I have been waiting for today for a very VERY long time, and I still can’t believe it actually happened!! I will need someone to pinch me!! 😉

Today was our first monthly Soul Book Club meeting and man, what can I say?? I, for one, had so much fun!!! It was a small turnout, which was both expected since today is so close to Christmas, and much appreciated because it helped us figure out what will work and what won’t work in a small group!

I know I am completely biased, but I thought that there was the perfect mix of art journal techniques taught, personal stories shared, thoughtful conversations had, and laughter had by all of us! Matter of fact, I had so much fun that I completely forgot to take any pictures to share – doesn’t that just figure? Our time together, happily flew by!! 😉

Anyway, I will see if I can do a better job of remembering to capture those memories visually next time!! 😉

Today we learned more about what a Soul Book is and how to get started with different techniques to add color to our pages! It is fun to see how everyone translates all of that in to their own styles!! It is very inspiring!!! 😉

After our first meeting today, there is one change that we realized we would have to make right away! We would either have to get a larger meeting space or we are going to have to limit our groups to 5 instead of 8, which is what we had originally planned on! 🙂 We also, laughingly realized we may have brought a little bit too much in the way of art supplies…that is what happens when you put a bunch of art supply junkies into one room and tell us that we should bring whatever else we would like that might be missing off of the regular class supply list!! LOL!! We brought everything but the kitchen sink!!!

No worries! We had such a good time, I am so thankful to the lovely ladies who made it today!! I am sure I am not alone when I say I can NOT WAIT until our next get together next month!!!

Good times! Good times!!

Here is to living a BEAUTIFULLY CREATIVE Life every day!!!

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Weekly Art Journal #12

Good morning!

I am happy to announce that my weekly Art Journal Video #12 is posted out on YouTube! 🙂

Here is a list of supplies that I used in today’s layout:

Book pages
Ranger Collage Glue Stick
Golden Acrylic Paint: Teal, Naphthol Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue
Liquitex White Gesso
Fineline Bottles: one filled with black acrylic and one filled with white acrylic
Black Sharpie, Fine Point
White Signo Pen
Archival Ink Pad
Ranger Dylusions Numbers Stamp from the Basic Backgrounds – DYR34568
Sentiment printed from computer onto regular printer paper
Scissors

When I set out to get started on this week’s spread, I really only had two things in mind, I had some pages from a specific book that I wanted to use, and I was really excited about using a new Teal acrylic paint that I had picked up from my local art supply store. The book that I had found was a 1915 encyclopedia that I had picked up for a few dollars from my local Goodwill.

Being a self-profession bibliophile, I have a very hard time ripping pages out of books, ESPECIALLY OLD books. However, this book was in such dis-repair with torn pages, a broken spine, and just an all around mess that I felt that by using the pages in some of my art projects would be a great use of this long forgotten little treasure! Plus the cover is a DIVINELY BEAUTIFUL leather that I have hopes for recreating my own art journal from.Anyway, back to today’s spread…In addition to my book pages, and my new teal paint, I really wanted to keep today’s layout quick and simple. With the busy holiday season upon us, we have so much that we are trying to do. I wanted to prove to myself that I could still make time for art journaling even when life is crazy busy hectic!

I love all of colors of this week’s spread, and I don’t usually mute my backgrounds down, but if you watched the video you might have noticed that it was done entirely on accident. I had made marks on my page using white gesso, and because I did not like it I used a heavily watered down brush to disperse the gesso, and in doing so muted the entire page down just a little. I really REALLY like how that turned out…I may have to do that more often!

On a side note, whenever I make a mistake, I like to call it an “OFI” (pronounced owe-fee). This stands for opportunity for improvement! This gesso incident was a perfect example of an OFI!! 😉

I also was having some trouble coming up with a sentiment for this week, so I started to look around my art studio and came across some “Truth Cards” that I had created a few months ago. When I came across the truth card that had these words on it,

“You already know what the answer is…Just trust it…it is right.”

I knew in a moment that that was it! I could stop looking!! I needed to hear this message in exactly that moment!!

So, what do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art journal!

Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!

Until next time!

Here is to a BEAUTIFULLY CREATIVE week! 😉

If you want a different life, live differently!

Beautiful Creatives

Empowering your juicy life!

Category Archives: Art Journaling

Art Journal Thursday #19

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday #18!

If you want a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday #17!

If you want a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday Video #16

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday #15

If you want a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Video #14

Teaching Mixed Media Techniques: Eclectic Backgrounds Class

If you want a different life, live differently!

Art Journal Thursday #13

If you want a different life, live differently!

First Soul Book Club!

Good times! Good times!!

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Weekly Art Journal #12

“You already know what the answer is…Just trust it…it is right.”

If you want a different life, live differently!