Happy Holidays from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post from Jordan Hill who is sharing a mixed media piece that she turns into the cover of a mini journal. She is using my Hydrant and Powerhouse foam stamps and our theme: Celebrate the Season – Many cultures celebrate in December so let’s do some celebrating ourselves with our favorite art supplies and the holidays that make this season so festive.
When confronted with this month’s theme of “Celebrate the Season”, I found myself really wanting to try to encapsulate the holiday season as a whole. Here in the United States where I am located, January 1st marks the start of the new year. Since that day falls so near to other holidays, that is personally where I mark the end of the season. With the new year comes the idea of reflections, and so I wanted to create a little journal that I could use to reflect on the past year as well as prepare for the new! With that explanation out of the way, let’s get into it!
Recently, I created a handful of little journals, but one of the covers backfired on me. The wrapping paper I had originally used to try to glue to it wrinkled and tore, so I ended up removing as much of it as I could. I decided to try to use this as my base for this project, so none of this chipboard went to waste!
Once I had selected my base, I then tore a piece of floral paper and glued it to one of the edges of my chipboard piece using a glue stick. This piece of paper is from a 2021 wall calendar; it seemed like a good choice for a project revolving around the idea of reflecting! Once the paper had been glued to my chipboard, I trimmed the excess and then used a small piece of sandpaper to smooth out the edges.
Next, I used some light pink acrylic paint to cover the remainder of the chipboard. While I was adding the paint, I also used a bit of clear gesso over top of the floral paper. Since the paper was originally from a wall calendar and wasn’t intended to be used as collage fodder, it had a bit of a slick surface. The clear gesso dealt with this and gave me a great surface to work on top of.
I then used Nathalie’s Hydrant Foam Stamp and some watered down black acrylic paint to add some patterning and texture to the left side of my page. I love reimagining stamps and finding new ways to incorporate them; I thought this one would be a great way to add some interesting detail to my background. I also placed the stamp upside down to further disguise the nature of the original image.
It was then time to add my focal image. When painting this particular figure, I tried to keep the background stamping visible by placing my image a little more towards the center of my page. I also tried to incorporate the flowers from the background paper into my character by painting the hair around the flowers as opposed to on top of them. At this point I also decided to add a few words in the lower right to further incorporate the idea of reflecting on the past year.
Next, I wanted to create a paper to use for my figure’s shirt. I started off by selecting a piece of Japanese book paper that I had previously cleaned some of my brushes off on. Then, using Nathalie’s Powerhouse Foam Stamp and a gray colored paint, I added it over top of my painted paper. I again stamped the image upside down, in order to get some interesting bits of the stamp where I wanted them.
I then cut a piece from my stamped patterned paper, making sure to choose an area where the stamping was visible, and adhered it to my page. Using the same colored pencil I used to sketch in the face, I went over the edges of the shirt in order to further blend them in.
Finally, I punched some holes along the side of my chipboard panel and stitched it onto the front of a little coptic stitched journal. I’m very excited to start working in this little journal and I hope you enjoyed following the process of making it with me!
Thanks Jordan – love the idea of using these stamps as pattern elements and especially that Powerhouse turned blouse!
Give it a try: you can find all my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop and in addition to collage papers, here are some of the supplies Jordan used:
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