Sketches in my handmade artist journal

Last week my sister came for dinner and we made an artist journal / sketchbook each. I made mine from Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper. I bought 25 sheets on sale.

The journal is about 5 1/2" x 7 1/2" and because I did not want to spoil it... I made another one. And this weekend I made a bigger one as well (double the size).

I will be travelling to California in a few weeks time and want to sketch and paint every day. This is my practice run, trying to create every day.

A watermelon still life for the WDE (Weekend Drawing event) on Wetcanvas

And a fish with blue lips for the WDE

Poppy seed heads with pen and ink

And a sketch from Pacific Grove, where I will be staying a few weeks

Unruly PaperArts blog

Today on the Unruly PaperArts blog my second article this month on image transfers. This time I am showing you image transfers with gel medium. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't... for my second attempt, I used images from a travel brochure in my art journal and I love how it turned out.

Check out the Unruly PaperArts blog for the full article.

This Weekends Drawing Event

I just love the WDE (Weekend Drawing Event) on WetCanvas. Every week (on Friday) someone posts 16 images and you can choose one (or more) to paint, draw, in every medium you like. Then you post your result to the thread. This week the image of the geese is very popular. I chose this image as well, making a quick pen and watercolor sketch in my Moleskine Watercolor Journal.

Watercolor painting

This week I have been painting with watercolors. I made some journal pages with little paintings of California. I will be going on a trip to the US, to California in 10 days time and I want to make a smashbook/art journal/journal from our trip. And I know that sometimes time to create is limited during travelling, I already prepared some pages ;-). I will be flying to Los Angeles with my sister and we will start our vacation with a few days in Laguna Beach. Then we will go to Irvine, we both will follow some mixed media art classes at CREATE. Then we will move north, to LA, to Monterey and we will fly back from San Francisco. I am really looking forward to it!!

In between I painted this Tuscany ATC. For sale in my Etsy shop.

Painting for the WetCanvas Drawing Event

Today I have been painting a reference in the WetCanvas Drawing Event (WDE). This reference picture really spoke to me, but I found it hard to get started. The original plan was to paint it with regular watercolors, maybe use some salt to get the old rusty look. I know when I find it too challenging I kind of block. So I switched over to deli paper. I drew the truck first with my Pitt pens and then added color with my aquamarkers.

The black and white pen drawing is after about 1 hour, the colored version after another hour.

Journaling

First of all; this week I had more then 1000 views of my art video's on YouTube. WOW.... more then a 1000 views, that is a lot!! Thank you all who watched (and hopefully enjoyed) my video's. For the readers who have not yet watch the art video's, here is the link to the latest video:

http://youtu.be/INw8R-5h7rg

And this week I have been working in my art journal. I saw a quote on Pinterest; words that matter. Love the quote and I made a page using the quote, it took me almost a week. I started with gesso, some selfmade paper (paper sprayed with Dylusions ink and stencils) and another layer of gesso. Then I made the cirkels, with markers, but also with ink. And added some more color with my Neocolors II and added some more cirkels before putting the words into the cirkels.

Art journaling workshop Saturday April 13, 2013

Today I was in Deventer. Teaching my art journaling workshop for 4 enthousiastic ladies. We had a great time creating lovely backgrounds and marvelous pages. Thanks Marjan, Saskia, Annemieke and Anita for the fun day. I hope you will / can use all the techniques in your own journals. Have fun!

 

 

New art journal pages

I hope you all had a lovely Easter with lots of fun and chocolate of course! The weather was not that great, very cold, but sunny and I had a great time.

I have been working in my art journal the last few days. This double page is made with a heart stencil. I cut out 2 hearts from a piece of cardstock and used both the hearts and the stencil to make the page. I attached the 2 hearts later to the page and stamped Love makes the world go round.

New journal page

This week I started with a new art journal, my Strathmore mixed media journal is almost full and I want to show this journal to some students that will participate in my art journaling workshop. I want to show the thickness of the paper, but this means I cannot work in it anymore...

BUT what a great excuse to start a new art journal :-). This art journal is 18 x 18 cm, with a spiral binding. The paper is not very thick, but with a little gesso it works fine. I have been making some backgrounds and today I finished the first pages. Fly fly little wing, fly beyond imagining (from the Celine Dion song).

Fish art journal page

Two new pages in my art journal. I started with covering the pages with gesso and adding acrylic paint when the gesso was still wet. With my fingers... Anyone who knows me will raise their eyebrows. I am the only person they know who eats chicken with knive and fork. So, ok, I do not like to get me hands dirty... except when I am working with pastel. But anyway, I did paint with my fingers to created the effect I wanted for these pages. And with pressing my finger into the paint and stamping with my finger I made these lovely oval shapes.

The background reminded me of an underwater world. I went to look for some fish pictures on my computer and printed a few bigger and a few smaller ones. I collaged 'weed' and the fishes and went to look for a 'fish quote'. I finished the page with some shading, some white dots and the quote of course!

Two totally different art journal pages

The last few days I have been working on two totally different pages in my art journal. The bright one is made with scraping several bright colors on the pages. Then I made some cirkels with white gesso and made flowers out of the cirkels. Finished with some colors, shading and lettering. Oh and the white dots are made with a Posca white pen (love this paint pen!!).

The second page is made with rubber stamping as a border, a light wash with Neocolors II and with a collaged cup. Finished with some ink and stencils and lettering.

Such a lovely day

The inspiration for this page in my art journal came from the text on a piece of scrapbook paper 'such a lovely day'. I searched the internet and found a lovely poem from Haripada Halder:

When the night breaks
to hug morning light
the first ray gives me
a wonderful sight
A transparent world
appears to say
get up dear
have a good day!

And I wish you all a beautiful day!

Journal pages with my new stamp.. ;-)

I made 2 journal pages with my new Swallowtail butterfly stamp from Stampin Up! I created the background with different kind of papers, gesso, Neocolors II and some circle stamps. Then added the stamped butterflies and the text. The text: 'Fly, fly, little wing, Fly beyond imagining' comes from a song from Celine Dion. I has been playing in my head since I ordered the butterfly stamp ;-).

Mixed Media Art Journal pages - video

I just uploaded another video on YouTube. This time I show you how to make 2 mixed media pages in your art journal with white and black gesso, stencils, acrylic paints, rubber stamps, ink and images.

Backgrounds in my art journal

I have been feeling very anxious the last few days. I am a freelance interim manager and have been out of work for a few months now. The market is very bad... and sometimes that eats away my self confidence. I am sooooo glad I have my other life, my art life, to make me feel better!

This time, I have been working in my smaller art journal. Making very quick and easy backgrounds with my Neocolors II, stencils and ink. From the first one I took photos of the process, I might turn it into a little video for YouTube.

For the blue backgroundI made my own stencils from a butterfly image and transparency film. I used Neocolors II, stencils and ink and Dylusions spray. I love how that one turned out, I am going to make more in these style and turn them into lovely cards.

Lazy day

I have been making some more ATCs for the Valentine athon on ATCsforall and traded almost all of them.

And I have some other news. The polymer clay tiles workshop from March the 14th is full! If you have not gotten round to register, let me know. I am planning another one later this year, besides the one I will teach at the Volksuniversiteit Soest in November. The workshop for the Volkuniversiteit Soest is a 2-evening workshop and preliminary scheduled for the 7th and 14th of November.

And I am also working on a new video on how to create some art journal pages. Watch my channel!

Second video is uploaded!

Hello there! I just uploaded my second video to YouTube. Another video on how to create Mixed Media backgrounds, this time using acrylic paints, Dylusions ink spray and gesso. I hope you like it!

Week 6 Life Book 2013 - Courage

This weeks lesson of Life Book 2013 is COURAGE. I just love dragonflies... and I only recently found out that they are the symbol of change. So I created my courage page with some dragonflies. Courage to change!!


The background is done with Dylusion spray inks. I love the colors in these spray bottles, but yours hands get dirty... and will be for the next few days LOL. The lady is drawn using a vintage poster as example and painted with Neocolors.


I just love how she jumps without any fear!!

Working on a new video

Today I am working on a new video. On how to make the lovely background as shown in these ATCs.

My first video

I have uploaded my first video on YouTube. I am showing how to create lovely mixed media backgrounds for ATCs, journal pages and other creative projects. In this video I show how to use a mask or a stencil. Take a look and let me know what you think!