I am super excited to teach two day classes at Pratt Institute CCPS in NYC on the Manhattan Campus in April.
Sunday April 19, 9.30 am – 4.30 pm
Sunday April 26, 1pm – 4 pm
Find the whole Spring catalogue for Pratt CCPS here
You can sign up at Pratt here
I hope some of you can and will join me – that would be awesome!
Some great words to live by.
This art journal spread is one of my faves I did the past couple months – and funny enough it was one of those pages where I was just trying out my new stamps and stencils some other new stuff , and I was using up left over paints and boom – as I was layering and layering I started to really love the grunge and then I dived full force into it and embraced it.
I used some left over Liquitex Super Heavy Gesso from a different project and spread it over the Stencil in my Kaffee Klatsch Stamp Set to tie the background together.
Here are the supplies I used
Have a beautiful day :)
I love all of the layers and the colors you chose. You are one of the few that can load a page up with that many colors and designs and keep it cohesive, clear and so artistic. Great job!!
Luscious background!
Nice texture and colors. I am “behind” on CJS since I’m waiting for the speakers for our new computer to be hooked up. I’m looking forward to catching up!
Instead of a New Year’s Resolution I, amongst many others, pick a word that I try to live by in the new year. Last year it was BOLD …this year it is LIGHT …next year it might be ITALIC… just kidding ;)
Light is indeed my word for this year. It is a good word for many different kinds of lights that I would like in my life. I want to take thinks more lightly, travel light, be light and not overthink everything too much, eat light, and …see the light at the end of the tunnel :) Let’s see where this goes!
Light is also the page spread in my art journal itself and the time I spent on it. I created it very quick on December 31, 2014 – after contemplating with myself, that I a) have no time because I had to work on last minute stuff for Creative JumpStart and b) that I have no time because I should really make myself representable for a little party I was going to. Well…Light helped- little bit of acrylic inks with a brush – little bit playing, little bit of acrylic paint on a stamp …and voila- done. And aren’t I glad I did it…it is in there…in the journal- as a good reminder until I fill the book- LOL.
What is your word if you have one?
Powerful work of art. Our work reflects our thoughts, our environment. This is where our inspiration comes from and rightly should. What you have created reflects the dilemma in Jersey City, as in many cities within this country………
I have never “taken on a word” in this manner before but going to try it out this year so mine is ” reframe” . :)
Mine is ‘grow’ as in expand my mind, learn new things. Reach and stretch myself out to share with others.
Mine is “rhythm.” It came to me while listening to Tam’s meditation on day 1, as in a need to pay attention to the natural rhythms and flow of everything this year.
Mine is focus, for this year I am retiring and embarking on an art career.
Fab pages ,Nat. I am embracing “imperfection” this year!
It has become a tradition of mine and other blogger friends to wind down the year with some Top “insert number”- Lists of work , posts and photos, before the year ends. It makes me go back and look at what I have done and accomplished and it also makes me dwell in memories. Too often we forget about the things we did and accomplished throughout the year- often just bashing ourselves for not fulfilling all the wonderful new year’s resolutions from last year. Maybe this makes you wanna do it too – if so – share 
I did a huge amount of Art Journaling Pages this year. –
In no particular order here my personal faves.
1. Snake Bite
I played more or less with my Stampendous stamp sets and stencils on this page but I do like color combination and how the journaling is part of the background design.
2. The Picture in Our Head
I love the quote and it actually states quite well the process I was going through while I was creating the page. I played a bit with acrylic paint skins here- and I love the out come.
3. Without Art..
I love the texture I created on this page with gesso and paint – some parts and areas are definitely something I want to embrace a bit more on canvas. I also like the bits of pink in the sea of green – not something I had in mind as a color combo- but it speaks to me with the yellow- needs to be more explored :)
4. Melvin was Outraged
I just had fun playing with this vintage photo and making up a story – it is quite dark and actually not much going on texture wise- but still there are a lot of layers – I like it.
5. She became dangerous
I played with brush strokes and colors – very loosely and besides a tiny bit of stamping that is all that there is in the background- I was surprised how much I like it and how freeing this felt. Another way of creating a background I would like to explore a bit more on a bigger substrate.
6. If Not Now
Here I played with dry and wet brush strokes and also texture- and I love the quote. I like simplicity of it …I mean…in the process- hahahaha ;)
7. When the Why is Clear
Another page where I played with brush strokes and acrylic skins. I love the black acrylic paint dots – they tie everything together.
8. Intelligence
this one is a another sample of trying out a color combination which I would have not thought would really work and I totally dig it :) I like this page also because of the texture, the transfer techniques I explored and the materials I used. Again something I would like to explore more on a bigger substrate- but actually this makes me think of a shadowbox.
9. No ONE Way to Art
and yet another page with an unusual color combination for me – I also like how I used the brush to create textured elements- another element I would like to explore a bit more.
10. Not a Battle
I do like the texture and the depth I created in this page playing with the translucency of different acrylic colors – again something that I will explore more in the future.
—-
What I learned:
I really embraced art journaling as a way of creating something that doesn’t require an awful lot of time, a creative push in the morning, and trying out techniques, materials and color combinations. I used it a lot to explore things that I have seen in paintings at MoMA or other museum and that interested me. I also learned a lot about brush strokes, and exploring different opacity/translucencies of acrylic paints.
My goal for 2015:
I want to take out some of the things I learned and explore them more on different substrates. I need to take the time to embrace the things more. I also want to play more with unusual color combinations – it felt good to step away from my usual color culprits ;)
Hope you enjoyed this little art journal journey – and …just a little heads up :) If you want to learn how I do the magazine and photo images, and also see more about how I build up Art Journal Pages– you can see and learn that in Creative JumpStart 2015 – so sign up , if you haven’t yet!
have a gorgeous day
Love the variety of pages, colors, images…I agree, art journals are great for playing with ideas! Fun to see your creative resolutions!
Love all your journals, in different ways!
Wishing you a fabolous creative New Year!
Hugs!
Love your fave art journal creations. Did you hand draw all the girls on these pages? If not, where do you find these girls. They do not seem to be the usual ones you find in mags? It wouldn’t surprise me if you drew them yourself because you are such a great artist, but just in case I could use your inspiration, I could not hand draw much of anything.
Thanks for your response. Sue
No ONE Way to Art just grabs me!
Wonderful grouping of journal spreads Natalie. A varied selection that all have your signature style.
HA- you thought I do nothing else than working for Creative JumpStart and CHA at the moment, right? Well…yes …you are right, but hey- look I had time for a tiny bit of art journaling – it is a good outlet :)
Journaling: Even the nicest people have their limits! #nokidding
Playing with Liquitex acrylic paints, spray paints and markers. The background was already kind of done as a demo page during a workshop- I added a couple of my new stamp images- can you spy them and spray painted over my Batik Stencil.
Here is a list of the supplies I used:
Have a gorgeous day!
Nat
very true!
Back from Germany – what a fun but way too short trip. I took a short moment to play a bit in my art journal – such a great way to deal with things that sometimes are not the most pleasant ones.
Onward!
For this spread I really loved playing with this color combination.
Here is what I used:
have a wonderful week!
Can’t say that I would have thought to mix those colors together but they go nicely. Reminds me of Starry Night. Glad that you made it home safely Nat.
This is truly one of my favorite of your pages ever (and I’ve been coming here for years) I love the color combo and the emotion behind it is really powerful with that focal image. Love it!
Welcome home and hope your trip and time spent were wonderful! xo
Thank you Jackie- it was :) have a great day!
A couple days ago I showed a tutorial on how to create an easy background in your art journal
and I promised to show what I would do with the result later. I just added a bit of stamping over both pages to tie it together, added the image , painted it with markers and then added the journaling. It was a quick but liberating art journal spread.
Here are the supplies that I used after I created the initial background:
I hope you liked seeing the transition :) Have a wonderful day
Today I am showing you how to make a background- actually two different backgrounds – for an art journal spread as easy as you count to 3…or almost as easy ;)
Picking my art journal, my Lily Wallpaper Stencil and Liquitex Spray Paint I start by spraying over the stencil over the left spread of my art journal.
Using the paint on the stencil for a negative imprint, I simply flip the stencil over to the right side and brayer over the back of my stencil
You can use the flip over step of course on a total different spread- because essentially these are actually two different background starters with the same techniques and materials. But I like to work in a double spread on my art journal and I like it when the sides are similar – like here in pattern, but still have some interesting differences.
Using a big brush I spread a thin layer of Acrylic Ink over the spread. I love how the effect – on the left side the lilly design is more bound in
while on the right, by taking some of the ink off with a baby wipe, the blue spray paint color pops even more.
I picked the same blue as a Soft Body Acrylic Paint as I used as a Spray Paint (Phthalocyanine Blue (Green Shade) for the next step. Layering my Ornament Stencil over the empty spaces of my Lily Background I stenciled single ornaments in.
And done is/are my background(s)
Here is the background 1 …and
Easy, wasn’t it? I will show you in a couple days, what I actually did in my art journal with these two backgrounds.
Here is a complete list of the supplies I used
Have an amazing day
lovely work
REALLY Cool!!!
I am going to have to try this. Thank you for sharing and the nice pictures!
thanks so much for sharing your amazing work!!! love to play with the transparences of liquid acrylic paint!
Beautiful Nat!!! Will be sharing :)
Sweet and you make it look so easy.
I love how the layering works – gorgeous technique, thanks for sharing :)
In September I was a featured guest designer for Lindy’s Stamp Gang – and here are the samples I made using the Lindy’s Stamp Gang Spray Inks for their blog.
My favorite way to use Lindy’s Stamp Gang Spray Inks is in conjunction with Liquitex Acrylic Paints. I just love how the two working together make the colors pop.
I used some acrylic paint colors with some of my StencilGirl Products designs for a background.
What product did you use to write in white letters?
Kerry – a signo white Pen http://lm.inlinkz.com/go.php?i=341007&c=121242
Comments (5)
Marjie Kemper
| #
That’s awesome, Nat! What a great venue, and you can introduce art journaling to a whole new crowd. Go, girl!
Reply
sunmoongal
| #
Wow this is great. Congrats on these classes at Pratt. Super cool. Wish I was there!
Reply
nathalie-kalbach
| #
Thank you Denise – oh that would be cool to have you there!
Reply
michelle
| #
WHAT?? This. is . AWESOME!!! Congrats! Killing it in the big city girl! I wish I was there because I would SO sign up!
Reply
nathalie-kalbach
| #
Thank you so much Michelle! Too bad you are not living in the City anymore!!
Reply