“I am not everybody’s cup of tea… that’s fine… I am a cup of coffee anyway!”
Kind of a hot mess but oh well – the gold spray paint was still wet in spots and so it muddled with the next layers…
I used acrylic paints and did some stenciling with my new ATC Mixup stencil. I also grabbed my Manhattan stencil and used that with gold MTN spray paint. You’ll also see in the mix my Small Circle Jumble rubber stamps, a Posca marker for journaling, and a postage stamp.
Is it great? Nope. Did I learn something? Only to be more patient. Did I have fun? Yep. It was good to step away from house reno and administrative workshop task for a couple minutes :)
“It only takes a little bit of willpower to see the beauty around us.”
For this page in my vintage ledger art journal I used archival ink with my Stroll Through the Hood 1 and Hydrant rubber stamps. Then I added some color with acrylic markers and collaged in one of the Artist Almanac calendar pages that had my painting on it. As you may know, that super popular Almanac is sold out.
It is fun to use some of my old artwork as a starting point for something new. This painting is called Pencil #2 and is still available here in my online shop.
“Art can confront and raise the consciousness of others in the most plain and gentle way.” -Ai Weiwei
Hold your horses- I finally did something creative ;) It’s certainly been difficult juggling so many things right now but wow it feels good to just spend some time creating.
This was a not so blank page in my ledger art journal as I had used the excess spray paint from my Art Deco Wallpaper stencil (used in my Beautiful Feelings art journal page) and made an imprint on it first. That was a great starting point. I just grabbed a lot of collage material and stuff I had on my work bench – the Lady Liberty which I had used as a mask for my Creative JumpStart class, a page of my artwork from the Artist Almanac Calendar (unfortunately sold out), an ATC I had made with my new ATC Mixup stencil, and I just used the Embroidery stamps and pens that I had laying around.
And the quote – well the quote was on a piece of paper where I had jotted it down when I found it a while ago and it fell into my hand! The whole process was not at all very conscious but I sure felt better to have spent some time playing around and the quote nonetheless is a good one …so it is a gentle way to incorporate it in my creative play.
I used my Art Deco Wallpaper Stencil with golden Mtn spray paint and then a Versafine ink pad with one of the Fanfare stamps. I stamped my LOVE foam stamp with copper acrylic paint and then created an offset print with pink acrylic paint.
Finally I used a Sharpie ballpoint pen for outlining and journaling. Simple but love doesn’t need to be complex ;)
A Look Back – I thought it might be nice to look back at Art Journal pages from 2021 to get a feel for the year. Let’s face it 2021 was a tumultuous year as we continue to struggle worldwide, and a lot of those feelings I got out in my art journaling. Ready for some from this past year?
I actually created this spread at the end of 2020 and shared it at the start of 2021. The journaling reads “Is it over yet? Hanging in there by a thread.” I really enjoyed creating the patterned background and I’ve found that building patterns is a nice zen activity for me. I was using my Chicago and Santiago stencils and then added my Mini Motifs rubber stamp which fit perfectly in the stencil design (smile). Last touch was one of my Fan-Fare rubber stamps in magenta. You can read the original post here.
When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid The new dawn blooms as we free it For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it If only we’re brave enough to be it
-Amanda Gorman
I still get shivers thinking about Amanda Gorman’s powerful poem from the US presidential inauguration. I think it inspired so many of us at the start of 2021 when we needed hope for the future and someone reminding us that we can be the light that the world needs. In the spread I kept things simple to focus on her words, I had to add that yellow coat, and then a pattern using my Fairview Fan foam stamp and my Fan-tastic Small rubber stamp set. Here is the original post.
“What if things get even crazier from now on… the ride never stops …bring it on.” Life rarely slows down and as usual I was feeling the pressure this year and also trying to remind myself to just hang on, persist, and maybe even enjoy the challenge. And I was also trying to use up some of my collage material in a constructive way lol so this page has a lot in there including a cut up painting on canvas, my Batik and Lily Wallpaper stencils, and my Mini Motifs and one of my Triangle Love rubber stamps. Here’s the post.
“Strive to create a world you might never live to see!” – Do it Anyway is what I called this page and again an epic adventure in collage as well as using my Row Houses foam stamp and my Mini Motifs rubber stamps along with a variety of media and layering techniques. Check out the post for some of that info.
“Trying hard to… Love.” was one of those blah day art journal pages that wound up being quite fruitful – it helped me figure out my LOVE foam stamp design which evolved to be a single line. Sometimes even if you don’t feel super motivated about anything, puttering around in your art journal can yield positive results. Here is a link to the original post.
I hope you enjoyed this Look Back at some of my art journal pages this year and if you’re interested in revisiting some other posts from the past, check them out: A Look Back is a blog series to show you some projects and posts that you may have missed – sometimes going WAY back in the archive. I think it will be fun to revisit a few ideas that we haven’t seen for a while. I’m excited to see how a little look back might inspire something new in the future :)
Here are some of the supplies I used in these pages:
“What we don’t need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.” – Brene Brown
This is just a simple art journal page: I had some leftover paint on the ledger and then I used my Amsterdam Stencil with new spray paint – Mtn water-based gold spray paint. I wanted to try it out and was pleasantly surprised by how the metallic spray paint actually created some real texture.
I finished up the page with a Fude pen for the journaling.
“Come Visit” – and then some journaling reminiscing about how little I knew a while ago how much I love to say those words. I miss my friends in Germany and further away. Two little words – so much weight.
The “come visit” were a leftover from an old letter that I had used as collage material and the two words were in different sentences on top of each other and it was like a sign (wwahhhahaa – insert glorious music and sunshine here ;) ).
The background was stamped with my Mini Motifs and Fan-fare rubber stamps. Then I added a piece of deli paper on which I had “cleaned” a stencil that had spray-paint on it from an earlier page, creating a nice textured print of the Versailles stencil. I adhered it over the background with liquid matte medium and then sketched the lady on top.
I actually liked her better in pencil but was afraid it might not be visible enough so I added some color with acrylic paints. I am not too happy with that, as I did not think about how the acrylic paint would be taken by the glossy side of the deli paper. Oh well, it is what it is and a good reminder to think ahead sometimes. Or… just go with it… I can revisit this another time ;)
The Last Straw – There is a difference between giving up and knowing when you had enough.
This goes for many areas of life of course and sometimes you just have to declare you had enough. In this case I declared ENOUGH regarding a painting I had on the easel for a while. I just didn’t like it and it was sitting on the easel and once in a while I would do something to it and it would get worse. Funny enough, one day I looked at it and thought “you gotta go, I had enough.”
So I cut the house part out of the painting (unfinished but for me not worth the effort anymore) and thought, hey, that could be a part of an art journal spread. I mounted the canvas piece onto the background where I had used some acrylic paint and overlaid my Versailles stencil with black spray paint.
Now the page can remind me what not to do …and cutting apart the canvas actually speaks more to me than it did when it was a butchered painting.
All to say, there are a lot of things we artists usually do not show but I thought you would like to see ;)
This could be called “Trying hard to love this page” …but alas I hid the journaling behind the hand carved Love stamp because boy I felt absolutely blah the day I made this page, and I felt absolutely blah during the process too! You know sometimes just nothing works and you wanna crawl under the blanket with a good book and just let the day be done LOL. But I am not regretting the time making it because I love the Love stamp ;)
Now, how did I get here? I tested the stamp using it for the background with black archival ink and colored in some areas with colored pencils. I spread some acrylic paint – golden heavy body – which wasn’t the best choice in the first place to help push the stamping a bit into the background …oh well. Then I sketched the lady and totally overdid her face… which is cool – I am not a good face painter, nor am I particularly interested in painting faces, but I felt like “hey I am uninspired, now is a good time to try something new that you have never done”. Ha. At some point I liked her but then I kept going and she got some real face color issues LOL. I do however like the hair and I do like how the background looks like a pattern in her torso.
So there. I spilled my heart out about my day but because it wasn’t that important for y’all to know ;) I covered it up and that smeared the writing. At the time I could just laugh about it and say “wow …this is going really well but hey, fits her face” So, I just stamped my favorite element of the page right over the screwed up covered painting and called it a day.
Thanks for sharing your struggles with this journal page. We have all been there. For what it’s worth, I absolutely love the bright yellow pattern on her top!!!!
Comments (1)
Sue Clarke
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Love the colors and the sentiment Nat!
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