“Weird is a side effect of awesome”
Here I used acrylic paint and dragged it with a palette knife across the art journal page, added in bits of sewing pattern, and also used Liquitex White Gesso for even more texture.
I created marks with my favorite new supply – Caran D’ache water soluble pencils.
I finished things off with my Cardboard stamps and Embroidery stamps.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me get unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and get new ideas to create something. It is part of my philosophy about Artful Adventures in Mixed Media – which is the subject of my book. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks.
I love my new art deco floor lamp – the colors just make me happy – also green and yellow- a combination to use a bit more often for me.
We found an overmantel that fits great onto our fire place and I love it.
This is one of the oldest houses here in Jersey City – it is from 1740 – it is a little gem.
Lovely view of Manhattan from Riverview Park – we went up their for the Farmers Market and I always love having a little bite for lunch while sitting on a bunch and taking in the view and then do some veggie shopping.
Look at this magnificent facade!!!
Love this little colorful house – the muted green, pink, rost red, and yellow is a fun combination.
Of course Liberty State Park is back on the after-work-bike-ride
As you can tell Lady Liberty is exhausted and needs a bit of a rest – I cannot blame her
This street is just lovely with all it’s brick buildings but I also really love the blue stone-brick sidewalk!
Old Cigar manufacturing building with some graffiti.
Bobby Pretzel and Mingus enjoying our new stair runner. We had this one made by a small company in Pennsylvania – Family Herloom Weavers . What an amazing company! From dying the yarn to the yarn entered into the loom and then being woven, we received videos and photos along the process. The family owned business is doing all kinds of period carpets for museums (for example the Emily Dickinson Museum) and has done work for a lot of TV shows too (think The Guilded Age). I cannot overstate how amazing the quality and customer service was and the price was more than reasonable.
We joined 4000 other bicyclists for the annual Ward tour through Jersey City. It was super fun!
Picked up some art work at Mana Contemporary- always love this building.
And attended an Open House at the Apple Tree House – also from 1740 – which is hopefully becoming the new Jersey City Museum. Look at the amazing medallion! The house may have been the site of a meeting between George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette in 1779 and has been used for decades as a funeral home, then fell almost apart and finally was restored in 2006. I really hope the Mayor will keep his promise and we will have a City Museum again and in this building.
That was it until next month – hope you enjoyed the little stroll :)
The Ward tour looks great! A way to return and visit my hometown at a pace to take it all in. Thanks for the photos of lovely old buildings.
What great photos – so much history & that view of Manhattan! Thanks from the other side of the world.
Such a very cool town. I really need Tom one and see for myself!!!!
Thank you for another stroll. I love every photo and the lamp is so cool. R ppl using that 1700 house? Does someone live there. Here in the Bay Area stately homes have been saved and r now offices of lawyers.
Always love your strolls. I enjoy everything and yes, even the graffiti pieces, it’s the tags that I don’t like, but the artwork they can do out of a spray can! Your fireplace looks amazing as does the rest of your amazing house. The stairway, just lovely. I am very partial to the old woodwork and sometimes I cringe when people paint over it. Enjoy your day!
The resting Lady Liberty is super funny. The first little house you posted is wonderful. Green and yellow are colors that I never use, I’ll have to try them out. Your cats are just too funny. Thanks for another fun stroll in your hood Nat.
How well do you know our Creative Squad? Each week one of our talented design team members shares a project with us and we have come to know and love each of their individual artistic styles. BUT we realized that maybe we could learn a bit more about what makes each of these lovely artists tick. So, we decided to do a quick interview with each. Read on and stay tuned for more interviews!
We are happy to welcome Jordan Hill today! Jordan is from the state of Florida in the US and has been on the Squad since October 2020. We always love to see Jordan’s drawing skills in action and her techniques with collage and layering. Let’s learn some more about her:
1. How old were you when you first started making art? What is an early artmaking memory?
It’s a bit of a cliche answer, but there is no real time I can remember that I wasn’t making art of some sort. When I was younger, I did a lot more fiber arts (think quilting, knitting and crocheting), but I also have vivid memories of being around 7 or so and writing and illustrating my own books. According to my mom, when I was still in a high chair, she would put me in it with crayons and I would be occupied for an indefinite period of time; supposedly, I would cry when she took them away so I could eat.
2. If you are an art journaler, when did you start your first art journal?
I started my first art journal when I was 13 years old, which is over 12 years ago at this point. My early journals were done in standard composition notebooks, where I worked primarily with tempera paints and oil pastels. I used to add quotes from my favorite TV shows, and I often used them as a space to vent.
3. What is one technique you just rediscovered or learned that you are now using all the time again?
Recently I have found myself quite drawn to using oil pastels in my work. In my very first journals, I used these on almost every page, but at some point I started to drift away from them. Recently, I pulled them out again and have been having a lot of fun! I use them in a slightly different way than I used to (more for mark making, where I used to use them to outline stenciled patterns), but I’d still call it a rediscovery!
4. Describe your artistic style in 3 words.
Layered, Bright, Meditative.
5. What are some of the biggest influences on your art?
I am inspired by many different things, but nature (particularly flowers and other foliage) is a large influence of mine. I am also quite influenced by my own life and how I am feeling; much as was the case when I first started journaling, my art is often used as a place to vent and get things off my chest. This affects my artwork more often than not.
6. Favorite color 5 years ago? Favorite color now?
My favorite color for as far back as I can remember has always been blue. I do recall selecting that color intentionally when I was young, and I think at this point I’m too attached to give it up. However, I do still tend to go through phases with other colors in my artwork.
7. Show us where you create.
I create in a corner of my bedroom where I have set up a desk as a workspace, alongside a number of shelves and drawers to keep my supplies that I’ve been collecting for 12+ years. It’s a mess, more often than not.
8. What are your 3 favorite Creative Squad projects that you’ve created?
9. Describe the perfect artistic day for you.
For me, the perfect artistic day is one where I have time to create freely, and the art comes naturally and without too much effort. Some days it is harder to make things than others, and I hate the sense of dread that comes from feeling like I have to make something good. My perfect creative day comes with none of this; instead, it’s all about the creative process itself and is less about the outcome! This is a state of mind I’m still learning to perfect.
Thank you for sharing Jordan!
Learn more about all our Creative Squad artists here on our website and on the Creative Squad Instagram page.
For this page I used some tissue paper with printed quotes and a sewing pattern for the background, all adhered with acrylic paint.
I added stamping with my E-Train rubber stamp…
…and collaged in a piece of an old calendar which had some of my paintings in it – the Path train (my local subway system) was part of it.
For the mark making I used my new favorite water soluble Caran D’Ache Pencils.
The journaling reads, “It often takes funny turns, slows for no reason, skips a beat and always arrives” …well kind of just like the Path Train LOL ;) I hope I didn’t jinx it for my next ride into or out of the city ;)
Here are some of the supplies I used:
Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post and video from Riikka Kovasin who is sharing a batch of ATCs using a unique found tool to create them, as well as my Fan-tastic Small stamp set and our theme: Great Outdoors – The experts agree that getting outside for activity each day is a super healthy thing you can do for your mind and body. Let’s get outside and seek artistic inspiration out there. Find something that catches your eye and then when it’s time to come back in, use that inspo to create.
Hello there! It’s Riikka here today with my take on the monthly theme of “The Great Outdoors”.
While I did go outside to get some inspiration for my project, I stuck with my first idea when I started to think about outdoors in Finland. While we have over 150,000 lakes (if the small ones are calculated as well) and mainland has over 6,300 km of shoreline, I started immediately to think about the forests! And I’ve lived in coastal cities my whole life! But I recall Finland being called “the land of green gold” as well, meaning the vast area of forests that cover over 75% of the land. While the old Finnish films usually always depict birch trees, to me the old coniferous forests are the type that scream Finland. Those murky fir tree forests with lush green moss and thin lines of sunlight seeping through from the gaps in the thick canopy.
In such a forest you can find a delicate flower during the height of summer. In the dim lit forest floor, you see these little dots of the palest pink that seem to radiate in the dark like tiny stars. The flower was also Carl von Linné’s favourite, that’s why the plant carries his name – Linnaea Borealis. Linnaea is after his original last name, Linnaeus and ‘borealis’ meaning ‘northern’. The plant is found in the Northern parts of America, Asia, and Europe.
When I was roaming about in an old forest, looking for further inspiration, I came across some fir tree branches that had fallen to the ground as there had been strong winds the previous day. I packed some with me and ended up using them as a brush and as a patterning tool. They bring that forest aspect to my ATCs depicting the delicate flower.
Now I had my topic and some of the means to create it, but I was still pondering about HOW to create the flower. I ended up deciding to use one of the FAN-tastic stamps to make the flower but didn’t look them thoroughly through before I was making the cards. My original thought was to stamp the fan shape and twist it into a dimensional little cone, but I found something even better. When I then was choosing the stamp to be used for the delicate bell-shaped bloom, I couldn’t believe my eyes as I saw one in the stamps! I couldn’t have drawn or found a better way to depict the flower! The “Park Ave” stamp had a linnaea borealis in it! I’m happy that you can only see my hands in the video so you can’t see my stunned face!
As you could see from the video, I used the FAN-tastic stamps also for another purpose. I added some highly stylized fir trees to the background before adding the plants in place. I picked the “Van Vorst” stamp as it’s thin line patterning reminded me of fir tree needles.
Now you may ask if the flower is called linnaea borealis why my project is named Linnea. There are two reasons for that – first that I misspelled it and second, probably why I misspelled it in the first place, that one my other daughter’s names is Linnea, after her great grandmother. If you want to read more about the flower, here’s a link to Wikipedia.
Thank you for stopping by! Have a great time exploring the outdoors for inspiration! You never know what you may find!
Xoxo Riikka
Thank you Riikka – I love the story behind your project and that serendipitous moment of finding the flower in the Fan-tastic stamp – how cool is that?!
Give it a try: you can find all my Rubber Stamps in my Online Shop and in addition to her fir tree “brush”, here are some of the supplies Riikka used:
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This art journal page began with another one of those pages from the 2022 Artist Almanac calendar. (It’s sold out but the 2023 is in the works and you can join my monthly newsletter for word on when they’re available).
I’m still playing with old letters as well, and I added the sentence “That is the last heard from either of them”. It is interesting to think of the times of no phone or social media or email – you would have to just wait and wait… Again this was from a letter from the 1860s.
I recalled that I had used some sewing pattern tissue for the original art journal page that I made with Frida and so I pasted some down and instead of gel medium I used the actual acrylic paint as the adhesive underneath the tissue and on top.
I also added some patterned areas with my Amsterdam stencil. I like the grungy background – I always find it so freeing to just play with the paint and layer it all up.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
This is another art journal page with some inspiration from an old letter from the 1860s. This sentence said “I want to know if you have seen much of the sun lately?” It struck me as funny.
BTW reading all those letters and creating with them made me think about how much I loved to receive and send letters. I have a lot of letters that I kept from dear friends and family members and it is a funny thought that maybe in 100 years someone will make art with them hahaha.
I used my Art Deco Summit and Art Deco Empire stencils with Ranger distress oxide inks and a blending tool through the stencils.
On top I adhered a piece of Grafix acetate on which I had stamped with my Fan-tastic rubber stamps and Versafine ink. It was a leftover from a project and I thought it would be fun to use. I just added some double sided adhesive tape to the back and pressed it down.
For the letter I used my fav Coccoina glue stick.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
Wouldn’t it be wonderful for someone to use one of your letters for art…absolutely a delightful thought!
I had more fun with old letters in this art journal page – in this case I stumbled across the words “calculated probabilty” and I cut the rest out of the letter to form the journaling “there is a calculated probability you remain where you are planted, affectionately your poppa”.
Now the original 160 year old letter didn’t say anything of that kind but it did have at parts a little bit of a condescending tone to it, and I gathered well meaning Poppa was writing to an adult daughter. In any event, that is what lead to this page.
I also tried my new Caran D’Ache water soluble Graphite Pencil set. I love it – the green and blue graphite pencils are so cool. I did add some yellow acrylic ink on top of the face which I honestly regret, it looked way better before… but that is fine – I learned about the pencils and I broke them in. They might be my new favorite thing.
I finished things off with my Solid Triangle Small and Numerals stamp – just stamping the triangle part of the Numerals stamp.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
In this art journal page I took advantage of some painty grunge on a deli paper piece that I had used to dab off some excess paint from a gel plate, as well as some stamp marks from my foam stamps.
I adhered the piece for a background into my ledger art journal and stamped on top with Versafine and the Lady Liberty foam stamp. Next I stamped the Lady Liberty rubber stamp in green on an old letter and adhered that too. The “Don’t be a litterbug” is from an old road map…a paper road map… wow, what a blast from the not so far past LOL.
The journaling is supposed to read:
“Beauty is not in the face; Beauty is a light in the heart!” The pen died on me though and I made a little mistake, but oh well ;)
Here are some of the supplies I used:
I love the new mantel, and the mirror is gorgeous. I, too, am a fan of all your strolls. I used to live in New Jersey, but only passed through Jersey City, never really got to see all the beautiful spots except Liberty Park.
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