When I do art journal pages, my main purpose is to write.  I love doing art to create a page to write on, but I don’t create a piece of art in my journal. I create a page that allows me to write because writing is the way I document my life. I write about my experiences, my gratitude and I write about problems and issues I’m dealing with.

What I want to share through Creative Clown is both the art I do on pages and the writing process.  I want to share this because it truly has made my life much, much richer and has helped me move forward and have a much better life.  The problem I’ve encountered in being able to share this with you, is this: my writing process is intuitive so it’s been difficult for me to know how to share this process.  But this morning as I was writing in my journal, right in the middle of writing about an issue, I could see the process I was using.  I was able to break in down into explainable steps. I’m excited that I can finally share it with you.

Here is the basic idea, but you need to keep in mind, that it is a process, so as you are going through the steps, things will arise that will affect the flow, so go with what comes up for you.  You may get off on another thought or have other things you need to write.  This is a guide only.  Below the guide you will see where I have shown an example of how I used the guide.

1.  Write out the problem in a few words.

2.  Who does it affect?

3.  Who is responsible for finding a solution?

4.  Who might help me find a solution?

Before you go on to step 5, go back to step 2 and under each person you listed, answer “How?”
Go to step 3 and under each person you listed, answer, “Why?”
Go to step 4 and under each person you listed, answer, “How?”

5.  Possible solutions.

By the time you get here, you probably have thought of some solutions.  Write each one out, but leave space under each one.
After you’ve written each possible solution, go back and  under each one answer “Is this a good solution?” and answer it yes, no or maybe.
On the ones you write maybe or no, answer the question “Why not”.

Again, I want to stress that this isn’t nearly as linear as it appears in an outline.  It’s an intuitive process and if you can just follow the guidelines, while allowing yourself to go where it takes you, you will find solutions. That is why it’s important to write the first four steps, before you go back and answer the questions under each area.  By the time you’ve written those first four things, you will already be getting answers, but it’s not really a question and answer type process.  Just write out the problem and who it affects, etc without stopping so that you will already be naturally seeking solutions.

Here is my example of how I used the process with a particular problem:

PROBLEM:
I can’t find my style in art – I like too many different styles to settle on one.

WHO DOES IT AFFECT?
Me
How?  I spend more time worrying about it then painting.
It keeps me from selling art.
It takes away my confidence.
I am not making money.

Randy
How?  He doesn’t have me as a happy partner when I’m worrying about this.
I’m not selling art and bringing in money.

WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS IT TO FIND A SOLUTION?
Me
Why?  It’s a personal thing. No one can tell me what my style is.

WHO MIGHT COULD HELP FIND A SOLUTION?
Artists I admire
How?  I could look at their anrt and see how they incorporate different looks, colors and media into one style.
I could write them and ask for guidance.
Randy
How?  Tell him what I’m struggling with so I’m not dealing with it alone.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
View the work of artists I admire.
Is this a good solution?  yes

Write artists I admire and ask for guidance.
Is this a good solution?  Maybe
Why?  I feel silly and intimidated.

Talk to Randy.
Is this a good solution? yes

Spend more time painting.
Is this a good solution?  yes

Put art up for sale whether I have a style or not.
Is this a good solution?  yes.

If you use the process I’d love to hear from you.  I’m happy to discuss it with you if you get stuck or need help with it.

Lastly, I”m going to show you an image of a journal page where I’ve worked out a problem.  You’ll see that I don’t use an outline, I just write in a natuaral way that takes me through the steps.

Click to see larger image

Paint

Heavy Bodied Acrylics – these are paints in a tube and they are creamy and cover well.  They are quite expensive but occassionally I’ll splurge and buy a tube.  The brand I can get here that’s least expensive is called Amsterdam.
Liquid Acrylics – Golden has a lot of colors but they are expensive and they are slick and sort of shiny once they dry on a page.
Craft paints work well for me and they are very inexpensive.  There are several brands: Delta, Americana, Apple Barrell and others are available at craft stores and even Walmart.
I like having a lot of colors and don’t like to worry about wasting paint when I’m playing in my journal so I use these.  They sometimes get gobs in the paint, but you can just pick them up and get rid of them.
Gesso – Again, Golden has some wonderful, creamy gesso but it’s very expensive.  I buy the cheapest I can find.  The brands vary, but they are all offbrands.  I buy a large jar or tub then take a small amount and put in a jar so that the large tub doesn’t dry out from opening it often.

Brushes

I have tons of brushes, but here are the ones I use the most.

1 in flat brush - for applying paint or gesso to large areas.
1/4 in. flat brush – the one I like is rounded.  It’s good for shading and filling in smaller areas.
Round brush - I don’t know what the size is, but the bristles are a little longer than 1/4 in.  It’s good for filling in smaller areas and doing details.
Liner brush - this is a brush with long bristles that’s good for writing with paint or painting lines.

Paper

My favorite paper is 120 to 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper.  It’s usually expensive but I buy  it when it’s on sale or when I have a coupon to Michael’s.
For journals I usually use a sketch book with regular drawing paper.
For printing images to paste in my journal, I use regular copy paper.

Journals

I cycle through using different type books to journal in.
Sketch books – the 9 x 11 spiral bound are the easiest to use.  I usually get the ones on sale or the cheapest ones which sometimes don’t have real sturdy paper.
Sketch books- right now I have one by PenTalic called the utility book.  It have wonderful paper but is bound like a book so it’s hard to write on areas on the page since it won’t lay flat.
Old Books - these are my favorite except that they wont’ lay flat.  But if you get one that isn’t too thick and has been used a lot, it will lay flatter than most. I like them because the text on
the page makes a wonderful background for painting and for writing.  I like to put a watered down coat of gesso on so the text barely shows through.  I have used science books that
have photographs or drawings that can be incorporated into the design of the page.
Comp Books - These are the cheap books you can buy at dollar stores or discount stores.  They usually have a black and white marbled cover.  If you gesso the pages first, they work great.
Magazines - If you find a well bound magazine that has nice paper it is fun to use.  You can use whatever is on the page for a prompt for that day.  Pick a picture or a headline and then gesso over
the rest of the page and create whatever you’re inspired to do.
My favorite paper for journaling is watercolor paper.  But I have found that it is always in those tear away pads.  I found one that was spiral bound and it was about 5 x 14 inches.  It was fun but an awkward
size to use for journaling.  I keep thinking I’m going to bind my own journal with w.c. paper but haven’t done that yet.

Transfers

Gesso – you can paint an image with gesso then lay it on your page and rub the back and it wil transfer the image to the page.  I’ve found that the cheaper the image in terms of ink, the better it transfers.
Gel medium – the one most people use is matte gel medium and it does work well.  But I have also used mod podge and decoupage glue with some succcess.

Two surfaces coated -
1.  coat the image with medium and coat the surface it’s going on.
2.   Lay the image on the surface and rub with a credit card, spoon, bone folder or something similar
3.  Leave it there  a couple of minutes (you will have to play with this time, because it depends on the humidity in your environment).
4.   Spray the image with water – get it pretty wet.
5.  With your fingers, rub the paper away.  Rub gently so you don’t remove the image itself.   The idea is to remove the paper from the back
of the image, leaving only the ink.  You will need to spray water again during the process – keep it wet.

One surface coated -  This method doesn’t lay down a complete image.  It only leaves part of it so it makes a cool, grungy look.

1.apply gel medium to the image only.
2.  lay the image on the surface
3.  rub the back of the image with credit card, spoon or bone folder
4.  leave the image only about 20 seconds.
5.  pull the paper up gently.

T-shirt transfer paper - This is paper you can buy at craft stores, office supplies and discount stores

1. Print images that will look cool with the background showing through.  I always print several images on one sheet so I don’t waste the page on one image.
2. Cut the image out
3. Pull the paper backing from the image
4. Apply gel medium to the surface where you want to place the image

DO NOT rub the top of the image, because the gel medium will lift the ink off.  Once it’s dry it will be okay.

“I value …[choose one to three values]… because …[reasons why these values are important to you]. Accordingly, I will …[what you can do to live by these values].”

“To develop and cultivate the qualities of …[two to three values/character traits]… that I admire in …[an influential person in your life]… so that …[why you want to develop these qualities].”

“To live each day with …[choose one to three values or principles]… so that …[what living by these values will give you]. I will do this by …[specific behaviors you will use to live by these values].”

“To appreciate and enjoy …[things you want to appreciate and enjoy more] by …[what you can do to appreciate/enjoy these things].”

“To treasure above all else …[most important things to you] by …[what you can do to live your priorities].”

“To be known by …[an important person/group]… as someone who is …[qualities you want to have]…; by …[some other person/group]… as someone who is …[other qualities]…; …”

Pens

Ahhh, any journaler is always on the lookout for pens that write over paint and elements.

Jelly Roll by Sakura

I love these pens!! The regular ones write so smoothly and write well over acrylic paint, and over gel medium. The regular white one is very opaque and write great on dark colors.
I bought a set of the Souffle ones.  I don’t know if they come in different sets (colors), but mine has two teals, two pinks, purple, yellow, orange, white and gray.  The white one isn’t
nearly as opaque as the regular Jelly Roll white.  But the gray is awesome!  It looks just like pencil. It’s flat and works so well for shading letters.
There are metallic ones that have very bright colors for writing on dark backgrounds, and come in lots of colors.
They also have some shadow ones.  They come in colors and when you use them on absobent paper each letter is outlined with either gold or silver, depending on what pen you buy. For
example, if you buy green/gold, when you write it’s green letters outlined in gold.  If you use them on a painted surface the gold (or silver) overcomes the color.

Uniball Signo 207

These are clickable pens that come in about six colors.  They have a fairly fine point but will write well over acrylic without skipping.  The way you can recognize them in the craft or discount
store is the package says something about preventing check fraud.  When I write with black, this is the pen I always use.  The pink and green ones are vey light colors which I dont’ care for, but
the blue and purple are nice dark colors.

I have tons of pens, but those are the two I use the most.  I use Sharpies a lot, and any opaque pens or markers I can find, because I like doing dark journal pages and regular pens don’t show up on dark colors.

Adhesives and Sealers

Gel Medium - this is an expensive product but works very well for gluing papers in a journal,  doing transfers, and sealing pages.
Liquid Medium – this is similar to gel medium but is liquid.  It is fine for gluing and sealing but not as effective for transfers as the gel medium is.
Liquid Decoupage Glue – this is like Mod Podge or other brands, sometimes called decoupage glue.  This is less expensive and works fine for
gluing paper on pager and sealing, but isn’t very effective for transfers.
I buy the gel medium just for transfers, and use the less expensive glue for gluing and sealing..

Other Supplies

Watercolor crayons – I have NeoColor II crayons.  They are very versatile.

Color with them and then spread the paint with water on a brush or with baby wipes
Dip the crayon in water and paint with it
Rub a wet brush on the crayon to pick up the paint
Rub wet crayon on a rubber stamp
Use them without water, just as a regular crayon

Watercolor pencils – There are several brands and all work well, even the cheap ones.  I have a large Derwent set that I love.  If you like them , you might want to also invest in a set of Derwent Inktense pencils. They have very strong pigment and when water is added the colors are truly intense just like ink.

I mostly use these pencils to color and shade my drawings.  I’m better at drawing with pencil than painting.  With these you can draw then use a small brush with water and get the effect of painting.
You can use them to color a background, or color in blocks on a page.
Anything you’d do with a colored pencil can be done, then if you want to smear the color around, use water.

Oil Pastels – These are similar to crayons but are creamier with more pigment.  They are short and stubby so you don’t have as much control as you would with a brush.  They come in water soluble type too that are used in a similar way
to using the watercolor crayons.  I don’t remember the brand of my oil pastels but my water soluble ones are by Portfolio and they are sold at Staples and Office Depot.

Pastel Chalk I like using chalk because it gives a subtle color.  You can buy the little sticks at craft stores rather inexpensively.  But the new thing is “Pan Pastels”.  They come in yummy colors but are expensive. I don’t have any yet, but am
dying to try them!

• • Backgrounds in pastel are very soft and subtle
  • Outlining images or areas to make them shaded
  • Going over a page or area to make it look distressed

There are all sorts of things I might use at different times such as credit cards to scrap paint, rulers, compass, rubber stamps and the like.  But the supplies I’ve listed are what I use day to day in my art journal.

One of my readers left a comment saying she has trouble finding pens that will write on backgrounds done with acrylic paint in her journal.  I have heard this question often, so I’ll answer it here.

My favorite pens for journal writing are the UniBall 207 by Signo.  I have never had any trouble with them writing on acrylic backgrounds.  They come in several colors and are available at office supply stores and discount stores.  I also like Jelly Roll pens (link below).  They come in all sorts and lots of colors including neon and metallic.  I especially like them for writing on dark backgrounds.  They are very smooth and write fine on acrylic.  For a white pen, I like the Sakura white pen (link below).  They seem to run out of ink quickly, but they are smooth and write well on acrylic.  For a larger tip, I also use the Sharpie paint pens in white.  I have also used white out pens if they have a small tip.

I use other pens but sometimes they do clog up with paint and take some babying.  One tip I can give you is when writing, try to sort of glide the pen tip over the page, rather than digging into the paint.  It’s hard to describe.  It’s like pulling the ink along the surface.  Hopefully you can play around and figure it out.

Here is a link to a very extensive article by Kelly Killer on pens she uses in art journaling.  The links I referenced above are in her article.  It’s much more comprehensive than mine, so I’m sure you’ll find some pens to try there.

I spoke yesterday about the style of journal pages I create.  I received some responses asking how deep writing and art can be combined on a page.  The answer depends on what you want your page to look like.  If you want it to be a work of art suitable for framing, maybe it isn’t possible.  But my aim is to create a visually pleasant, or expressive page that allows me room to write as much as I need to write.  I might add that I write 8 to 10 pages every day.  Obvisoulsy, if took time to create wonderful art on every page, I’d have time for nothing but journaling.

I will share some scans of some of my recent journal pages to give you an idea of  they type of pages I create in my journal.

1.  I painted the sun on the left page with liquid acrylic paint and a thin liner brush.  I used a paper plate to create the half circle on the right page, then painted the area outside the circle.

2. I painted both pages with pink for the background.  I glued a magazine picture of lady’s face on the right page, covered her with gesso, then filled it in with watercolor pencils.  With white liquid acrylic (or gesso, not sure which) I painted the wings.  Then I used bubble wrap and acrylic paint to “stamp” the circles on the background.

3.  I painted the background with a goldish yellow, I think it was yellow ochre.  The image on the upper left was an inkjet print printed on t-shirt transfer paper and glued on with mod podge.  I made the vertical red stripes with watercolor crayons.  I used a rubber stamp to make the checker design.

4. I painted the background a pale pink.  The images were cut from an old journal where I had been playing with geometric designs in graphite pencil and watercolor pencil.   The jan is rub on letters.  I didn’t have numbers so I had to write in the date.

5.  Painted the background brown.  Cut the rough shape of a dress from a dictionary page and glued it in.  Made the angel head and wings with a white Sharpie paint pen.  The checkerboard was made with a rubberstamp and white liquid acrylic.

6.  I love this sort of seafoam green color so I used it on the background and wanted to see how it would look with red.  I saw the border technique that Teesha Moore uses and just grabbed a magazine and cut out anything that was in the red group.  I cut small strips of these images and glued them around the edge.

I added a page to my site with a gallery of a lot of my art journaling pages.  I had hoped to write captions on each one explaining what I used to create the page. Well, after writing captions on over 100 images, the service I was using didn’t work on the page. So I had to upload all the photos again, only to discover that the only way to write captions was to load each image individually.  ARRGGGHHH!  So, I’ll try to write the captions later when I”m not so tired.  In the meantime, if you want to see the pages, go here.

I mentioned earlier in the month that I am participating in the National Nonstop Journaling Month.  The goal was to do something, either write or create art of some kind, in my journal every day.  I have gone crazy and been doing so much journaling. It has been a great month!  This challenge got me writing regularly in my journal and now I know why I need to do that.  And by creating art in my journal it inspires me to paint and do other creative things, too!

So far I have already done 80-something pages!!  Many of them are just writing.  I did painted backgrounds and just wrote on them.  But I will share a few of the pages where I did more than just write.

Create a poster promoting you on your journal page.  I found a rock concert ad in a local paper that inspired the style of this page.  Create boxes and fill them with colors and designs that represent who you are.  They don’t have to be great drawings or even make sense to anyone but you.

I am so honored that Karen at Square Peg People asked me to do a guest post on her blog.  She’s doing a summer long “Body Part Wednesday” party.  Today she featured my thoughts on journaling to work through issues with your body.   Check it out here and join the party by posting your comments on your own blog!

This course was my first journaling course and it has been enjoyed by hundreds of people over the past four years.  This course is great for a beginner to art journaling.  If you’ve been journaling a while but need some inspiration or creativity sparks, this is a course for you, too.

The 12 week course provides two lessons each week.  One of the lessons focuses on an art technique.  The other teaches about self-exploration through journaling.

Examples of the lessons:

Making rubber stamps

Coptic binding

Mandalas

Naming ceremony

Dreams

Gluebooks and Grunge

Lettering

Doodling

Background techniques

Symbology

This course introduces many art supplies and unusual items that can be used in your art journal.  The lessons include pictoral tutorials with step by step instructions for all techniques.

Most importantly, this course encourages you to make art journaling your OWN process and have fun.  There are no rules for journaling and this class will help you jump right in and feel free to explore.

All classes are presented in a special group on my Ning site.  You will be invited to the group upon registration.  In the group all members will interact and be able to ask questions and receive encouragement throughout the class.  If you want, you can post pictures of your journal pages and share your process while taking the class.

What some students said about the class:

This is the first class I ever took, pertaining to Art Journaling, and I can’t recommend this class enough, especially if you’re a beginner.  I know how overwhelming it can be, to want to start an art journal, and not be sure of where to start.  Zura is a gentle guide and teacher, in teaching you just what you can do with that sketchbook or journal you just bought.  This class will teach you some wonderful art techniques to use in your art journal, and I love how Zura teaches you to just play with all that wonderful paint and ephemera you have.  I think the most important thing she teaches, however, is how your art journal can be such a creative and fulfilling tool in exploring who you are.  Her class reminds me a bit of Lucia Capacchione’s book “The Creative Journal”, in that an art journal can be the place where you work out your life.  And really, with the prices of online classes these days, $40 for 12 WEEKS of 24 lessons, for a class that will jumpstart a practice that will serve you and your life, is just nothing.  I can’t recommend this class enough.
Kristina Winnett

I have taken all of Zura’s art journaling courses, and I highly recommend them! Each lesson is packed full of information and inspiration galore! Whether you’ve kept a journal for years or you’re just getting started, there is inspiration for everyone! These courses are a tremendous value and the information you learn will have you creating wonderful journal pages before you know it! So, rush over to the sign-up button right now and take fun art journaling, you’ll be glad you did!!!
Lynn

I

The next class begins on July 9th.

$40.00

I have just updated all the classes on a page, with new descriptions, and new starting dates.  All my classes will be offered at various dates in July, so take this opportunity to have some summer fun.  You’ll learn some things and meet some other artists in the online class groups.

Schedule of Classes:

Happy Feet begins July 1st

Creative Ways to Pray for Those You Love begins July 1st

Fun Art Journaling begins July 9th

Fun Art Journaling Continued begins July 9th

Happy Feet begins July 1st

Waking Up to the Real You begins July 15th

Journaling Prompt Cards begins July 15th

Find Your Personal Symbology begins July 22nd

For detailed information on each class, including price, go to the Classes page.