Art Journal

Shut the Front Door – Art Journal

Here I was playing around with some sketching and my new Caran D’Ache water soluble graphite pencil set.

I also added some Art Graph for extra color and then made marks with acrylic paint.

I used a small wooden alphabet stamp set for the title and a Sharpie ball pen for lines and my journaling.

I also added a bit of white Heavy Gesso by Liquitex for some texture and contrast as it was getting a bit overworked with the graphites. I’m still practicing the right moment to stop with those :)

The journaling reads, “Every time I start to forget, I open the door and you dim the light and I remember, you are not worth it.”

Sometimes you just have to shut the front door – LOL ;)

Here are some of the supplies I used:

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  • Sue Clarke

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    Oh Nat, I love this so much!

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Awesome Side Effects – Art Journal

“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:

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Follow Your Path – Art Journal

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:

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Last Heard – Art Journal

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:

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Pressing Questions – Art Journal

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:

Comments (1)

  • Sue Clarke

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    Wouldn’t it be wonderful for someone to use one of your letters for art…absolutely a delightful thought!

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Calculated Probabilities – Art Journal

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:

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Don’t be a Litterbug – Art Journal

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:

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Sam Struck Gold – Art Journal

This is another art journal page – like Pre-Pandemic Letters – that sprung from a sentence in an old letter from 1867 where Amanda writes about Uncle Sam “He is engaging perfect health he says and is going to gold mining in the spring.” I like to think that Sam struck gold – lol

This background was rather mucky as I stared out with a lot of left over blue grey acrylic paint on my palette – I wanted to use it up instead of wasting it – but when I added it to the page it was still too much. So I put the Santiago stencil on top and took some of the paint off with a moist rag and then spread it over to other areas of the page. It was way too much paint in any event so the stencils is not nice and crisp but that is ok. I added some yellow acrylic ink here and there and then sketched with black ink “Uncle Sam” on Deli paper and adhered it with a glue stick to the background.

Cutting out the letter sentences like that seems a bit crude but I did not want to cut this further up. If I find more fun letters I might actually just scan in the parts I like and then manipulate them… although… do I really need more collage material? Probably not, and the look of the old letter paper with ink does look cool to me.

Oh well … next page ;)

Here are some of the supplies I used:

Comments (1)

  • Rebeccab

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    I like the color of the Santiago stencil section, it reminds me of an old quilt, the blue is like water, and the grid pattern someone might use when cordoning off a section to pan.

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Pre-Pandemic Letters – Art Journal

I love old letters. When I find them at a flea market I pick them up and use them for collage or background purposes later. It is always a spark in the moment when I pick them up and find a word or sentence jumping out to me. I had used some other parts of this letter before but had not read the whole letter and when I was cleaning up my workspace this jumped out to me: “Spending an evening with you. An evening did I say. I should have said every evening.” And while Oscar was really romantic my first giggle thought was “well that was a pre-pandemic letter”.

I am almost tempted to find more sentences in old letters and make a series hahaha- we shall see if I find more.

For my art journal page I sprayed with MTN acrylic spray paint over the Buenos Aires Stencil, then layered the Santiago stencil on top and added some acrylic paint over it here and there.

I also tested a new liner brush I recently purchased (Princeton Aspen Acrylic brush part of a set) and used Holbein black acrylic ink on deli paper for the sketch.

I cut the sketch out and pasted it along with the letter part with Liquitex Matte Medium.

Here are some of the supplies I used:

Comments (1)

  • Rebeccab

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    That old handwriting is gorgeous.

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