More of Using Backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day

I am now onto a sketch book with ready to use watercolour wash backgrounds that I did some time ago.
I am doing a swap on ATCsforall.com on  Everybody Loves A Parade so I thought the wide format of this book was ideal for getting some ideas down. I like the idea of doing more of these to march across more of the pages.
This year's Britain's Got Talent  had a wonderful act called The Circus of Horrors - I love them! - so this was the starting point for my own Circus of Shudders...

I used the Inktense pencils.

I have now got to decide which ones to use to make articulated dolls to send off, or whether to make some more acts first.

Moleskin Journal - using backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day

This is a return to my moleskin journal of ambiguity (in an earlier post) using pre-prepared backgrounds...

I have used image transfers, collage and stamping for this page, which is an introduction to some pages about  mazes and labyrinths.
I am also interested in the "green man" - a figure of a head emerging from greenery which appears in churches and is suspected to hark back to the imagery of pre-Christian/pagan times

Mixed Media Techniques Journal - Image Transfers

I am still using the ready made backgrounds I made for Art Journal Every Day

This one is in my ongoing journal of mixed media techniques.
I made a page as an aide memoir for one kind of image transfer,showing how the end product appears,

This is the packing tape/bookfilm technique. I hope to demonstrate some other techniques in future posts...

New Pencils!

Mixed Media Techniques Journal


We were in the Lake District last weekend,to climb up above the Honister Pass to see the rare butterfly the Mountain Ringlet.

En route we stopped at the Keswick Pencil Museum shop. It is like an Aladdin's cave of different art pencils and sketch books. With a birthday this month I did go a bit crazy... but there were lots of  discounts!


I used my journal of techniques to record the colours and effects of the pencils.

Inktense pencils have a waterproof outliner pencil, and then numerous colour pencils which create an intense ink/paint effect when they are wet.Once dry, the pencils are waterproof so you can add extra layers...

There are some drawing pencils which turn into a monochrome wash when dampened and then Graphitint pencils which have a subtle tint to them,again when water is added.

Aquatone are watercolour crayons,which work like watercolour paints when water is added, and are good for controllable washes.

Then I bought a set of  tinted charcoal pencils, again blendable and water soluble.

I also have a box of metallic pencils - these work well on dark paper and again, they are water soluble... I am making articulated dolls for a swap so I played with one of those on one of my ready made backgrounds.

And finally I bought a panoramic sketch book, with 12" x 5.5" pages - it is quite a different scale to work with, so I am looking for some ideas now....

Art Journal Every Day - using my backgrounds

This is the second little journal using my backgrounds I prepared earlier - this journal is for recording mixed media art techniques, where I found them, and what I did with the idea... and also for keeping a record of instructions, paint colours etc. 

It should be a very useful reference book when it is full and it will encourage me to try out techniques I have not used before...

A Journal of Journal Prompts

More ~ Using Backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day; A Journal of Journal Prompts

I have a series of lovely little journals that I received as part of swaps on atcsforall.com and I have been making  backgrounds for them.

This is my "Journal of Prompts".

I have used one of a pack of Tim Holtz journaling tickets for the title page.

The first prompt page is for my journal of emotions, "Emotionally Challenged".

I have used a label for  listing some ideas and collaged lots of 'emotional' words

Prompts 2, 3 and 4 are "Openings"

Pathways

Windows

Doors

I used cloakroom tickets, a wages envelope and some collaged and  stamped details

I might add something to take out of the envelope...






And the final spread I have completed - so far -  is a spread for prompt 5 which is about my ongoing interest in Medieval imagery and text .

I am planning to do my own "Book Of Hours" in an altered book I have prepared....

 I shall be adding more prompts, including some lists of prompts off the journalling thread on atcsforall.com, courtesy of the inspirational smokeysmom!!
As I want to keep a record of all the prompts I have seen -  and this little journal will be the perfect place to store them.

More of Using Backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day

I am still trying to "use up"  backgrounds for Art Journal Every Day - I was planning on doing an ATC swap on atcsforall.com on the subject of "mermaids and friends" so I did some backgrounds on watercolour paper and in my Strathmore watercolour Journal to be nicely watery with an under the sea feel.

I wet the paper with a mister spray and added watercolours directly from the tube then splodged them around with a big brush and I also tilted the paper so the colours ran into one another...

In the end I did not use the paper for the swap as I drew my mermaids directly on to my atc size paper instead - but I did have a nice double page spread in my journal all ready to go.

I had a prompt I liked from the art journalling thread on atcsforall - "mermaid tales", thanks to smokeysmom!  Plus I had a head full of mermaid imagery and I also had a poem I wrote about Dahud, a Celtic mythological figure, which gave me my story.

I used some ready made stick on lettering for the title and some Dover alphabet letters for the Dahud name; these were black and white so I coloured them with water colour crayons.

I did an image transfer of the hippocamp sea horse, then I used the top of one mermaid and a tail from another in a book of Dover medieval images which again I tinted. I found the black and white musical merpeople from a copy of an old engraving and added them, and then I drew Dahud and gave her a pretty (but maybe a bit spiteful) face.

The poem is covered in layers of organza cut in wave patterns, while the text of the story is tinted with watercolour crayons.  Then there is some journalling in black pen and last of all a key sticker.

I have called it Mermaid Tales Number 1 - because that way I have to do some more!