Good morning!

I am happy to announce that my weekly Art Journal video #4 has been posted to YouTube for your perusal!

I have a bunch of pictures to show you, but first the supplies I used this week are:

Art Advantage Acrylic Paints: Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Cerulean Blue, Permanent Green Light
Lumiere Acrylic Paint Pearlescent Magenta (573)
Folk Art Acrylic Paint Neon Pink (2850)
Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint White (20403)
Liquitex Acrylic Ink Vivid Lime Green
Ranger Stickles: Purple (SGG20615), True Blue (SGG29052), Waterfall (SGG20639)
Hero Arts Wood Mounted Stamp: Painted Circle (E5784), Old French Writing (H2365)
Inkadinkado Wood Mounted Stamp: K-Paper Artsy Tre’port Postal
Cosmo Cricket Wood Mounted Stamp: Cluster Border (PS0647)
Ranger’s Black Archival Ink Pad
Golden’s Gel Medium
Liquitex White Gesso
Black Stabilo Pencil
Water Brush
1-1/2 inch brush
Pink tissue paper (I had gotten in a birthday present gift)
Silver Butterfly wall decal – I am not sure the brand, but I found it in a set on clearance at Wallmart for $1
Aleen’s Tacky Glue

I had a lot of fun doing this spread this week! Unlike most weeks, where I am just winging it, this week I had a vague idea about what I wanted to do, but had really no idea what my thought was going to be, or how to pull it all together. It wasn’t until I was finally spending time arting in quiet, while I was actually doing these art journal pages, that it finally seemed to come together!

Did you notice how much gesso I used? ACK!!! I was very heavy handed, which means it really took forever to get that layer to dry! Matter of fact, it never did completely dry until the next day!! Too much gesso + an immediate layer of gel medium + another layer of thick body acrylic paint = mamma-has-no-time-for-this-drying-craziness-so-I-had-best-be-careful-not-to-mess-this-up!!! 😉

I don’t really have any hard and fast rules for art journaling, or for mixed media in general, except for one, always ALWAYS let your layers dry thoroughly!! Unless you want them to blend together, smear, run, slide off, or flake off, than that is a different story, but I was having a heck of a time sticking to this rule for this spread! What can I say, patience is NOT one of my virtues! 🙂

As you may have probably noticed – I have a heck of a time getting drips to look right! I think I know how to do it, but when I am in full on “art mode”, the proper way to do this seems to slip my mind, and I find myself struggling to get the look right! Not to worry, though, this is all a learning process for me, and I know I will continue to get better! That is the point, right??? 🙂

I also have been wanting to find a really good quality neon fluorescent paint set! I did purchase a cheapie set this past week, but it was not a high quality brand, so there isn’t much pigment in the paint, which means I have to use A LOT of it to get the rich pop of color I am wanting, so I will keep looking! If I find a really good one I will let you know! ( I should’ve known – you get what you pay for!)

So, when I was stamping, to get more texture, I stamped right into a big glob of wet green thick body acrylic paint. This happens, and it is fine, and can add a lot more texture because it causes peaks and valleys in your acrylic paint if you let it dry that way, but make sure you stop what you are doing and clean your stamp thoroughly, right away! II have an old toothbrush on standby for just such occasions.) If you leave the acrylic to dry on your stamp, it will ruin your stamp, because it changes the shape of the stamps ridges. NOT what you want! I’m just saying’! 🙂

Anyway, although this may not be my favorite layout – I am not sure how I am digging this silver butterfly decal – it was a learning process, which is the point, as well as stopping just to listen to what your soul is saying to you, so in that way I LOVE this spread!!

Now for your input, do you have any questions, or comments for me? Is there any kind of mediums or techniques you would like me to use in future videos? Just let me know in the comment section of either my blog, here, or at my YouTube channel, and I will try and get a timely response to you! 🙂

Until next time!

Here is to a FABULOUS day!! 🙂

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

Good evening!

Tonight, for Tutorial Tuesday I thought I would share one of my favorite texture techniques, and that is texturizing with spackling paste! I know, that may sound crazy, but hear me out!! 🙂

What you will need for tonight’s project is:

Some spackling paste from your local hardware store.

Various stencils. I have a bunch of different styles that I enjoy using! 🙂

Various random tools for marking up AKA texturing the spackling paste.

You will need a palette knife, as you can see I have many different sizes, styles that I can choose from.

Some acrylic paint. I used some inexpensive craft paints for this, but you could use high pigmented paints such as Golden’s fluid acrylic, or other tube paste. Either would work just great!

and finally, you will need some acrylic gel medium, or Mod Podge will do too!

For this sample project, I started with an inexpensive plaque that I picked up at my local craft store for a dollar. I painted a solid color – any color will work!

I used sequin waste for my texture on this project. Position the sequin waste at the top of the plaque. Note: I had covered the holes of the plaque with painters tape before I started, so I would not fill the holes with the spackling paste.

Place a dollop of the spackling paste out onto your work surface – mine just happens to be freezer paper for easy cleanup.

Using a palette knife, spread some of the spackling paste over the top of the sequin waste.

To create a gradual gradient design, I decided to add yellow acrylic craft paint to my spackling paste.

Mix thoroughly.

Reposition sequins waste to cover the middle section of the plaque.

Apply the now yellow spackling paste, making sure to blend in with the overlapping white.

Do the same thing again, but this time adding orange acrylic craft paint to your yellow spackling paste.

Mix thoroughly.

Reposition sequin waste to cover the lower portion of the plaque.

and remove sequin waste.

Remove the painters tape that was covering the holes – do not worry about the areas that have no spackling compound. When I knot the ribbons that will be used to hang this plaque, those blank areas will be hidden! 🙂

Cover the whole thing with the acrylic gel medium, or Mod Podge, to seal it and there you have it. Isn’t that easy?? And really economical too!

Can you see a theme in all of my art tutorials??? Let’s just say mama doesn’t have a lot of patience!! 😉

Here are a few other examples of how I have used this technique in the past:

This is white spackling compound used over one stencil.

Here is the spackling paste, turned blue, over a painted and torn paper background (another one of my favorite techniques!)!

And finally, here is a project where I basically frosted the plaque with white spackling paste, and drew in the still wet paste. Once it was completely dry, I painted blue over the top of it, and wiped the excess off with a paper towel, leaving more paint in the recesses.

This “create” was created using the tip of a butter knife, the stripes were made using the tines of a fork.

Here are more of those fork tine lines, and the swirls were created with the blunt end of a skewer! 🙂

There you have it! I hope this inspires you to go to your local hardware store and give this simple, but fun technique a try!! Please make sure to share your results with me, I would LOVE to see how you put your own spin on this fun technique!!

Here is to a FABULOUSLY ARTSY evening! 😉

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

Art Journal Every Day: Torn Paper Collage Tutorial (balzerdesigns.typepad.com)
Basic Acrylic Paint Palette for Beginners – Just the Basics Ma’am (katcanpaint.com)
How to Draw and How to Paint Eyes for Beginners (katcanpaint.com)
Patterned, Painted background Explorations with LK Ludwig (bebebutler.com)
Mixed Media Monday (cassandramadge.wordpress.com)
Making the most of your supplies (octoberafternoon.typepad.com)

Beautiful Creatives

Empowering your juicy life!

Tag Archives: Stencil

Weekly Art Journal #4 Video

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

Tutorial Tuesday – Textures with Spackling Paste!

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

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