Blog: Art Journal

How to Catch your Breath

“sometimes the only way to catch your breath is to loose it completely.”

Love the the color combination -this makes me happy. I played with my new Grove Street Pos. + Neg. ArtFoamies and love the texture they created.

I painted the figure with Neopastels  and I love how they look together with the background I painted with acrylic paint.

I am totally addicted to the neopastels and I am hoping that the big set will be somehow showing up in December ;) HINT HINT

Here are some of the supplies:



Nat

Comments (1)

  • Sherry Canino

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    Beautiful and how true is the quote lol ❤️❤️❤️

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Chaos is a friend of mine

Seriously! LOL- how about you?

I love how this page turned out – it was a demo page for a workshop and there were different areas of color and stamping and I thought I will tie it all together buy using the same colors and embracing the chaos :)

I used my brand new Park Blvd Pos + Negative ArtFoamies as well as the Versailles Pos +Neg. and the Manhattan Border Stamp.

Now …off to getting ahold of some chaos in my studio …because honestly it starts to be not so friend’ly’ anymore- LOL.

Here are some of the supplies that I used for this spread:


Nat

Comments (4)

  • karen bearse

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    Oh yes same! My studio is currently being called the monstrosity!

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      LOL- I read first “Monastery” – I like Monstrosity :)

      Reply

  • Sue Clarke

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    Great words for that colorful page.
    Chaos throws me off but it also makes me rise to the occasion.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Sue, depends for me where the chaos is. I am actually in a lot of areas a crazy organized person – but not in my artmaking- LOL

      Reply

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Color Crush Workshop in Coventry, UK for Art Workshops

Last weekend my friend Birgit Koopsen and I taught our 3Day Color Crush Retreat for Art Workshops in Coventry in the U.K.

We had a wonderful group of 34 super talented and sweet ladies creating an art journal from scratch.

Birgit and I both love color but we both have a different style and we set the mood by putting a lot of colorful stuff out.

we started with some color theory and color exercises and some ink drawings and stamping.

so many happy faces – it was such a great group.

Look at all those colors!

Aren’t those gorgeous? The second day we did a lot of gelli printing techniques

Now if you do not call this a yummie color crush!

And we even had a short session for making your own foam stamps outside- the weather was great…who says it is always raining in the U.K?

And a lot of the new Art Foamies were used as well

And of course there was a ton of opportunity to buy some stuff …always love seeing the ArtFoamies, most were gone after 3 days.

It was wonderful to see Tali, Tsila, Iris and Hedi from Israel again -it is so many years ago that I met them when teaching in Tel Aviv. Thanks for coming all the way to the UK to join us.

The third day we started the day off binding the book and adding the covers. I don’t think Hazel and Shirley were really as scared as they look like in the photo when Birgit explained how to add the covers- LOL

After having the book all together we got a treat.

The food for the event was plenty some and so good and on top of that Sue, B, Leroy, Debbie and Pam made all of us feel really pampered during the whole retreat.

And then it was all about finishing up some pages and showing how we layer on top of our backgrounds

 

And…seeing a lot of the ladies with my book “Artful Adventures in Mixed Media”  made me super duper extra happy. I know I am a dork but it really does!

Since I came home this week I feel so energized and inspired- it was such a wonderful retreat. Thank you so much to all of the wonderful students who joined us, for Sue for inviting us and to her and her staff for taking great care of us and to my wonderful friend, partner in crime and very tall co-teacher Birgit! It was amazing.

If you weren’t able to join but would like to take a workshop with me check out my In-Person Classes. I will be teaching at the Queens Ink in Maryland  and at Runaway Art and Craft Studio on November 4-5 and December 2 -3 in Oregon. And if you are interested in taking a workshop with me and Birgit – we are coming back to Syracuse July 20-22, 2018 for a three day fun retreat – so safe the date.

Nat

Comments (10)

  • karen bearse

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    Looks like it was a lot of fun with tons of ink flying!

    Reply

  • Tania

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    I had such an amazing time, and learnt so much from you two,hope to attend another one of your workshops in the future ??

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was so good to see you again Tania- hope to see you soon again <3

      Reply

  • Sue Clarke

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    Looks like y’all had a blast with foamies, food and fun!!!

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was really fun …the food of course helped- LOL- gotta have food !

      Reply

  • Ally

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    It was such an awesome weekend- wish I could do it every weekend!!! X

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was wonderful to have you!!! Hopefully soon again!

      Reply

  • Natalie Jane

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    What an amazing weekend :)
    I cannot wait to finish my book with all the techniques I’ve learned and of course to use YOUR FOAMIES!!!

    Until next time – you and Brigit are a great teaching team xxx

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Natalie it was so wonderful to finally meet you – and you are so talented -rock on with it!!! See you hopefully next year again :) <3

      Reply

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As an Adult…

“She used to think things would be easier as an adult…in a way she still thinks that.” yep- LOL ;)

I played with my new Exchange Place ArtFoamies Stamp. It is a bold stamp with fine lines- I love it.

Very crazy color combination here- but I kinda dig it  – I might not wear it though- LOL

What do you think of the new Exchange Place Foam stamp?

here are some of the supplies I used:


Nat

Comments (2)

  • karen bearse

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    I really like how this all came together- great colors!

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Getting it off my chest

This spread was basically a good background to get some thoughts of my chest. Just things that were on my mind- I did not write very well on purpose …it was more about the act of writing and be done with it. And it really helped- LOL. Done- so much better.

I had a good time creating this. I used my brand new Valley Road Positive and Negative ArtFoamie stamps. I brayered unbleached titanium on top of the stamps and created a circle pattern alternating the positive and the negative design. I let the stamped images dry and then brushed some acrylic ink on top – the acrylic paint resisting the acrylic ink but slightly taking some of the ink which make the background more cohesive. I never get tired of this technique. Then I filled the spaces between the circles with some muted turquoise acrylic paint and added here and there some gold on top of the design in a thin layer.

I splatted some white ink – on top of my writing to obscure the writing even more and blotted it here and there with a rag. I love how this turned out – the color combination is not one what I usually use but this made me pretty happy  – I think I will use it again :)

Here are the supplies I used:


Nat

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Living in Color

“I prefer living in color” – me too David Hockney- me too. I do love Hockney’s use of colors and I was going for it in this art journal spread

I used my brand new Central Avenue Pos+Neg. ArtFoamies . It comes with two designs- are bold one and a more fine lined one.

I love using the paint on top of the stamp also only partly to get some areas more lightly as a hint of the stamps

This was fun and an easy creative boost in the morning.

Here are the supplies:


Wishing you a wonderful colorful day !

Nat

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Beeing Strangers

“How do you get back to being strangers with someone who has seen your soul I ask?”

I was just playing around in my art journal with my new Midtown ArtFoamies Set and some acrylic paint and spray paint. This was fun.

The background was pretty built up with paint that I had scrapped off into my journal during various painting sessions and at first it bothered me a bit that I got all those uneven and flaky areas- but now I like it :) All a matter of adjusting your mind ;)

Here are the supplies I used for this spread


Wishing you an amazing day!!!

Nat

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Juggling but not quitting!

Aren’t we all juggling a lot and try to not drop the balls? This is what my art journal spread is about.

I used my new Broadway Positive and Negative ArtFoamies with this one and I so so love the pattern.

I had also fun playing with orange, pink, blue and purple – a combination that just made me happy :)

Here are the supplies I used:


Wishing you a wonderful day!

Nat

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Darling, Shine! That’s All!

Loved playing with my new Midtown ArtFoamies Set. Using both sides – the solid and the pattern side – and different acrylic paint colors I layered up a city scape.

I painted the lady first with acrylic paint and then went over with oil pastels- I just love the look of those two paint mediums together.

I love this set so much – I cannot stop using it  -LOL- someone stop me ;)

Here are the supplies I used for this spread:


Nat

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