Explore Art Journal page

Hello everyone and lovely to have you drop in, this is Astrid here with my latest project.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to do more journaling and so I thought I would share a journal page with you. But before I start by giving you a description, I want to say that this page was heavily influenced by some of the fabulous journal artists that can be found on the internet, particularly Roben Marie Smith, one of the artists behind the Documented Life Project that some of you may have heard about. Obviously I gave it my own twist...

These are the stamps and products I used:
Chickenwire Background
Calligraphic Mat 12
Leaves A5 by Katie Fox
Journaling words 3
Gesso
Distress Paints in Broken China,Salty Ocean, Peeled Paint, Ripe Persimmon, Aged Mahogany
Distress Inks in Peeled Paint and Walnut Stain, Mustard Seed
Archival Inks in Jet Black, Library Green and Cobalt, Potting Soil
Masks: Large Sequin Waste, Chevron
Dylusions: Dirty Martini
From My stash:
Faber Castell Gelato Brown
Faber Castell Big Brush Pen black and dark green
Sequin waste, old journal page, old book pages,scraps of card, gel medium matte, glue, pallet knife, make-up sponges, baby wipes

Alright, here is a quick step by step:
Cover your journal page with a coat of Gesso, using a pallet knife, when dry, colour with Distress Paints and spritz with water to let the colours run and marble, add a few spritzes of Dylusions to deepen the colour in places and blend with a baby wipe..

  Tear some strips of an old journal page and adhere to the sides to frame your page a bit. Then add further interest with the help of the large sequin waste stencil: Place the stencil on the page, dip your finger in gesso and dab through the stencil. Dry, then add colour with the help of some Archival Inks, sequin waste and make-up sponges.

Outline your circles with a big brush pen for more contrast.
Next add some torn strips of old book pages and blend them in with the help of some more paint.

Here is a close up:

Time for some background stamping, I used the chicken wire and a journaling stamp.

Right, now to get some focus to the page... I cut a heart shape out of an old scrap of card to create a home made stencil.

I held it down over my page and then added colour with Ripe Permisson and Aged Mahogany Distress Paints and then to tie it in with the circles on the other page, added some more sequin waste dots with  Archival ink. Some of the colour had leaked out from underneath the stencil, so I blended it into the background with a baby wipe and then outlined the heart shape with my Big Brush Pen.

This is what the whole double page now looked like:

Time for the final touches: I coloured some smooth white card with first green Distress Paint and then Peeled Paint and Mustard Seed Distress Inks. I then stamped one of the leaves of the Leaves set in Library Green Archival and cut them out.

I glued them onto the page  and then it was time to complete the page with some journaling and a sentiment stamp from the Journaling Words 3 set, which I had stamped on what was left of the torn up journal page I had used already for the edges of my page. I also cut some strips of that same page and added additional journaling as you can see from the pictures below. Finally I added a few more sequin waste dots in some of the spaces that appeared a bit empty still and some further stencilling along the bottom edges with the Chevron stencil and finished it all by going around the edges with my brown Gelato.

Well, there you have it, page complete.

Hope you like it and that perhaps I have inspired you to do your own journal pages. The Artistic Stamper has a large selection of journalin supplies!

Thank you so much for visiting today and see you next month!