A new journal page

I have started working on a new painting project so I probably won't be making too many small items in the next month or so but I will try to show a few older things I have made. Today's post is about the most recent pair of journal pages I have completed.

It is another one of the techniques demonstrated by Journal Artista. I will outline the steps:

1. Cover the page with gesso. I did this very quickly so it was a little uneven.

2. When dry spray the page with water then drop on various colors of watercolor paint. I used blue and green Golden brand paints. They have a lot of pigment in and spread over a large area. Use a paint brush to quickly spread them over the whole page, taking care not to blend them too much. The  paint brush marks will disappear in the next step.

3. Scrunch up a piece of plastic lunch wrap (you could also use a plastic shopping bag) that is big enough to cover the whole page. Spread it out over the painted page while the paint is still wet. You can move the paint around a little underneath the plastic if you want to blend it a little more. Do this by rubbing the plastic so the paint moves. Leave the plastic on to dry overnight.

4. The next day peel off the plastic and admire your wonderful background. It may need a little further drying out if the plastic kept the page too wet.

I then finished off my page by brushing on a little gesso in a couple of areas so I could write on them. I used my shell drawings I had done as an experiment to decorate the pages. You can see the first page was one of the flocked papers. The flocking picked up most of the paint but there is still some of the plastic textured background there too.

New journal page

I wanted to make a couple of journal pages so I started with some scrapbook paper that I didn't think I would use. The colors were very bright.

I used two colors of acrylic paint to give the pages a light coat of color. I didn't mind the original colors coming through.

It was when I was at this stage I found some videos from Journal Artista on You Tube. After watching her demonstrating a layered technique for making journal pages I was inspired to give it a go. At the same time I received a quote of the week email from the Where women Create website that I liked and wanted to include on my page.  

It is probably best if you watch the videos to learn the techniques but I will try to list the steps here:
1. Use a credit card to spread paint randomly over your gessoed page. (She always spreads gesso over her pages first).
2. Stamp images randomly with a waterproof ink.
3. Add more gesso to lighten the page and more paint if desired.
4. Stamp again with a different stamp and a colored ink.
5. Glue torn strips of decorative paper over the page.
6. Use an ink pad to add color to the paper and also on the page.
7. Stencil on gesso randomly.
8. Glue on collage items and pieces of border strips, Journal Artista likes groups of 3 items together.
9. Use a little brushed on gesso to make the items blend a little more. Spray the whole page with glimmer mist and let it pool and drip down the page.
10. Stamp again if you want the images to stand out more.
11. Use distress ink randomly over the page to add color and blend. Ink the edges of the page.
12. Write on the page using a ball point pen. I chose not to write on it.
13. I stitched over my page because some of the items were not sticking down and I didn't want them to fall off.


I only took 1/2 an hour to get to the stage where I could write on the page. I think it works better if you don't think about each step too much and just do it. I like the look of the finished pages. Journal Artista calls this the grafitti look and I think it fits. I will probably develop my own style of this technique as I continue making journals.

Page 6

Page 7

More book covers

I have finished drawing the new covers for my recipe folders. One is for 'desserts' and the other is 'mains'. The desserts folder is blue so I backed those pictures with black card instead of the white I used for the other folders.

Recipe book covers

I have had some little folders for recipes that I collect out of magazines for a long time now. They are white with pockets on the cover to hold a picture. I have been meaning to paint something to go in there for a few years now. The other day when I picked up the wrong book for the umpteenth time, I decided I had to finally get around to finishing off the covers.

Front Cover

I went through some magazines looking for some pictures of food that I could use. 
I used watercolor canvas for the surface because that was in my cupboard. I am trying to use up a lot of my stash at the moment. I painted the background with acrylic paints but it looked a little flat so I then sprayed them with glimmer mist. I then drew on the pictures and colored them  with pencils. They didn't blend as much as I would have liked but for some reason it looks worse in the photo.

Back cover

I had to stitch the finished canvases onto cardboard before slipping them into the pockets because the canvas warped when I painted it.  It adds a little texture to the edge so it turned out okay in the end. One cover done, two more to go!

Inspiring Artists

When I was at my local art store I picked up these postcards of upcoming exhibitions. I really liked the paintings so didn't want to throw the cards away. I decided to put them in my journal as inspiration.

I chose two scrapbook papers for my book. They were a little brighter than I wanted so I sprayed them with adhesive and stuck on some tissue paper.

It came out a little blotchy and too much of the original color could still be seen so I gave it a light coat of white gesso. I still kept it blotchy but less of the original paper could be seen.

I then painted on two shades of blue Daler-Rowney pearlescent liquid acrylic. I thought it looked great and showed up the texture of the paper. I then rubbed on some green Viva InkaGold paint. It highlighted the original embossed paper. I stamped on some words using the liquid acrylic. It was just after doing this that I knocked over my brush washing water, completely saturating my work. After cleaning up the mess I had to give the paper another coat of paint and when it dried the tissue started to separate from the background. I stitched around the edge to hold it all together. I restamped the words and finished off the pages.

Emma Hack takes very intriguing photos. She paints the background then body paints a model to stand in front of it. She poses them with a real bird before taking the photo. You can buy prints of Emma Hack's amazing work at her website. Just search her name.