In my art journaling courses, people frequently seem to be at a loss in creating a background to write on. Sometimes I actually create a painting, drawing or collage on a journal page, but most often I create a background to write on.
I don’t have something in mind when I begin, but rather, the joy [...]
One of my favorite things to make are these frames and crosses that I fill with beads and found objects. Some I make with a theme like a western frame, or one made with toys. But at times I use a color scheme instead.
1. The first step is to gather lots of little items to [...]
There are several crackle products available and art and craft stores. The one I use is by Plaid.
The first step is to paint your page. You will need two colors for the crackle to show up. The bottom coat is what will show up through the cracks of the top color. I painted the first [...]
I didn’t have time to write a tutorial this week with the boys here, but here is one from http://cutoutandkeep.net that I love. You cout these stars out of magazine images, scrapbook paper or whatever you want. Aren’t they great? Here is the tutorial.
Have fun!
This technique allows you to create a faint, grungy masked design under a painted background. It is great for journal pages and collage backgrounds.
The first step is to stamp a design on the blank page with a glue stick.
I made my checkerboard stamp out of fun foam. If you want to make one, save the [...]
When doing journal pages or collages, it is nice to start with an interesting background. After you’ve applied paint, you can add design elements in several ways. One way is to use various objects as stamps. Here are some of the items I use:
Plastic Canvas
There is plastic canvas in craft stores that is used for [...]
Over at Fun Art in the Drawing and Sketching group, I posted this tutorial, and thought my readers might like it so I’m posting it here, too.
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Practice Shading
Materials needed:
Sturdy paper
Watercolor pencils
Gesso
Small or medium brush
A good way to learn about shading is to copy over something that already has the shading painted or drawn [...]
Harlequin Grunge Background
This is another tutorial I wrote for my never-finished book. This may be my very favorite background out of the whole book!
Materials needed:
Acrylic paints in black, tan and beige
Gesso
Black fun foam
White extra thick fun foam
Rubber cement
Black stamp pad ink
1. Paint your page solid [...]
Joss Paper Transfer
This is another tutorial from the Background Techniques book I wrote. This one shows how to transfer joss paper onto a page using gesso.
Materials needed:
Joss Paper – available at Oriental stores
Gesso
Brush
This is how it will look after the transfer. I like the grungy, faded look it has.
