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Thursday 26 February 2015

St David's day and spring is on its way.....Journal HeART 15 - Week 9

Good evening all.

Welcome to week 9 - this one is a nice easy one - a break from all the panic of the last few weeks :-)

Sunday sees the arrival of March and with it St David's day so take it as your inspiration and create a page with a spring like feel....

....for my page I used part of a Sheena flower stamp heat embossed for my take on daffodils before I coloured them and the background with Spectrum Aquas. The dragon is another from Sweet Poppy Stencils and was stencilied in black paint - the image is not entirely clean because of the page reacting to water but I like it that way.

The quotes are all from Dylan Thomas - one of my favourite poets.

So there you have it - let's see what we can come up with this week! If you want you can use one of the quotes as your page theme or a quote from any of your favourite welsh character......what's occurrin'.......

Happy art journalling - crafty cheers for now

Love

Rae

xxx 

Friday 20 February 2015

Chinese New Year - Journal HeART 15 Week 8

Well Hi there gang!! 

Welcome to the weekend and welcome to week 8 of Journal HeART.
This week it is all about the Chinese New Year which was celebrated yesterday....


This year is the year of the goat/sheep - one of the most prized creatures in the Chinese Zodiac and the year 2015 focuses on green sheep!!

This gave me my colour scheme along with the fact that the goat/sheep is the last of the fire signs and the cross over year between fire/metal hence the gold numbers and symbol.

One thing I often do is write on a blank page all my research notes and ideas and feelings before I work over them - its a form of "secret" journalling. 

  
You can see it in this page as I chose to use transclucent acrylic paint for the bulk of my background after I had stenciled opaque paint. I used Fresco paints from PaperArtsy for this project (available here
I love the effect of the scribble underneath but not being able to read it clearly...

I then took some of my fave chinese stamps from Oak House Studio - Lynnda has some aweome oriental stamps and they are even in the sale just now so quick!! Get them here.....and add more layering detail - the trick to not making it too chaotic is to keep your colours in the same family - it builds subtle layers 


When it is all put together with some stencils from Splodgeaway it looks something like this...


It's a positve time of the year and its all about carving out and creating your future and fortune so my new Finnabair stamps and their sentiments fitted perfectly. I added the goat like (ok with the eye of faith lol) symbols to finish

So this week research a bit more about the chinese new year and use that as your inspiration

Crafty cheers for now and Happy Journalling

Love

Rae

xxx



Sunday 15 February 2015

Getting Washi with it.....Journal HeART 15 week 7

Hello and evening all!!!

Apologies this week's post is late but better late than never eh!!

As you have probably noticed I use lots of Washi tape on my pages and although it is a beautiful addition it can be an expensive addition....or not....

It can be used for tonnes of things not just our art journals.....check this out for just some crafty ideas with tape

Traditionally Washi Tape is typically made from natural fibers, such as bamboo or hemp, but most commonly from the bark of trees that are native to Japan — the mulberry, the mitsumata shrub or the gampi tree....but as I say it can be pricey so today I want you to have a crack at making your own


I tend to make it as I go but you could premake some and store it on greaseproof papers.

What I did this week was make a masterboard of home made washi tapes...



Masterboard to me is just an A4 sheet full of designs which I can chop up and use in lots of diff projects. Always handy to have around for last minute cards of a quick canvas.

So to make my own Washi on this one I used Acrylic paints and Archival ink with stencils and stamps on different widths of cheap masking tapes. In this project I kept them neat but you could tear into lots of strips and go crazy in all diff directions :-)

You can use dimensional pastes through stencils too,  if you want but keep them fairly lightweight. I also laid scotch tape across old bookpages which neatly lifts the print - so simple but so cool.

Why not try dusting off your gelli plate too.....check this out :-)

If you want you can keep it simple and dig out your journalling pens and just doodle on to some scotch/masking tape....it really is easy and so much fun!!

Once all my tapes were paid down I added some additional stencil layers and then I got chopping up......


to create my finished page.

So this week have a toots around the internet and create yourself some Washi lurve :-) You can always add to some Washi tape in your stash to for a bit of variety.

It's a great way to customise for a specific project! 

Crafty cheer for now and happy journalling!!

love

Rae

xxx




Thursday 5 February 2015

No paintbrush - No Problem1! Journal HeART week 6!

Gosh these Thursday's come @ quick lol!!

Anyway howdo all and welcome to week 6!

So this week we are straight into it......this weeks challenge is to create an art journal page without picking up a paintbrush!!!


I frequently start pages off with paint/ink/gesso etc from other projects to avoid waste. That includes wiping off brushes, scraping off palette knives or as with this page - smearing baby wipes! 


.....this one was just a baby wipe wiped all over the layout in a very loose circular motion after cleaning, then stencils and punchinella that I had inked through were cleaned off on the page with more wipes. The edges are all second generation stamp offs before I scraped heavy gesso through a stencil and used an alcohol marker to hightlight. The song lyrics were stamped and a mix of washi tapes finished it off!! Now some may say the lyrics are "dark" but thats what journal's and art diaries are for.....capturing a mood or a feeling (they are part of the lyrics to one of my fave Kaiserchiefs tracks n btw the next line is "before I see the Light") - and it's balanced by the bright colours I used on the page

No one is always on a high or always on a low......I find it very cathartic to get rid of negative thoughts on a page

Now this one is totes different......this one is from my art sketchbook...


...still no paintbrush. The inspiration for this was my upcoming trip to Hawaii.

I applied Silk acrylics to my page in the four basic colours - pink, purple, green and turquoise using my finger and a baby wipe. (Really helps that they are trancluscent so blend great with the moisture from the wipe) before adding basic detail with white gesso on the edge of an acrylic block and then fine detail with a pin...Yes a PIN!!! It's a great tool to either add or scratch detail into a page.

So that's it, off you go!! 
Get creative - lets see who can use the most unusual thing to create a page this week ...(oh oh STEADY ;-) !!)

Have fun guys - look forward to your creations!!

Happy Journalling!!

Crafty cheers for now

Love

Rae 

xxx