2023 is the Chinese Year of the Rabbit so I've made another art journal page following on from my 'Year of the Tiger' page last year. I love doing art journal pages of the Chinese zodiac as it is animal based and there is lots of colour and nature symbolism.
Nope! I am no football woman; I’ve never really ‘got it’. But the women’s football team has been truly inspiring. I think it is amazing that this previously male dominated…
Introducing my handmade resin pins. . . Last year I developed my own process for making pins as I want to be able to turn my art into pins/brooches but the cost of having enamel pins made was too high. In this post I want to share some of my process and introduce my first range of pins: [br]
Pinimals
Welcome to another wonderful art journal page post :)[br][br] I say this with a chuckle because the quote for the page is:[br]
You don’t have to be perfect to be wonderfulOf course being wonderful is subjective so there may be various reasons why something is wonderful to you. In this case the page is wonderful to me because it is finished and a mistake was successfully corrected. I’ll explain more about that later . . .[br][br]
This easy art journal page is fun to make with Inktense pencils, gelatos and a cool stamp masking technique. This is another page I have created to give an example of a response to a quote on one of my courses. The quote that I chose was:Everything is hard before it is easy.and I chose it because I find it a good thing to remember on difficult days. It applies to learning a new skill or understanding a concept or even getting over a bereavement or even a breakup. Arguably some things never get easy but what I take from this quote is that there is the possibility of something being easy eventually. I hoped this would also give a sense of hope after working on this idea.
In this post I will share 3 fun watercolour techniques you can combine with washes of brilliant colour. The quote that inspired this page is:Every moment is a new beginningThis quote doesn’t immediately conjure imagery so I had to think of what imagery could represent this idea. What came to mind was a game we used to play as children which involves picking dandelion seed heads and blowing on them whilst counting 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, etc. In this way the dandelion represents moments going by. Every moment can be a new beginning as they are all seeds which may grow into new plants.
It’s time for some art journal pop up fun . . . Pop ups are a great way to add some fun to your art journal and I will show you in this post how to make a pop up ‘booklet’ from a page in your journal. When you start thinking of pages in a 3 dimensional way it hugely expands the possibilities for creativity. You’re no longer limited to getting your feelings across in a flat image but can now employ movement, surprise and height to show your thoughts about a topic.
Art journaling with mosaics is always fun and means you get to play with your lovely patterned papers. So the quote for this art journal mosaic page is:[br]
Keep facing the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you ~ Walt Whitman[br] I think this a lovely, positive encouragement and I wanted to illustrate it in a bold way. After sketching a few ideas I decided on one that showed the visual metaphor most clearly. I just knew that working graphically with mosaics was going to be great way of depicting the sunshine versus the shadows.
The quote for this wabi sabi inspired art journal page is: "You are never too old to set another goal or dream another dream" ~ Malala Yusafzi
In this textured art journal page I will show you 3 ways to add texture.[br][br] The quote for this page is:[br]
The bad news is time flies, the good news is you're the pilot.[br] It reminds me that although time on Earth is limited you get to make decisions about how you spend it. Even if you are stuck in bed with illness or have a lot of things that you have to do every day you can still choose what to think about. All the great human inventions we have to be thankful for started out as an idea in someone’s thoughts so who’s to say that you can’t have an idea that changes the world? I loved the idea of celebrating this freedom in an art journal page and the techniques of adding texture that I have chosen hint at the depth of the unconscious mind and the process of revealing what is hidden there.[br][br]