my first art journal

   

Welcome to jennerosity creates!  I hope you enjoy your visit.  Pull up a chair, refill your mug and let's get started.  I am really just a novice at this whole art journaling thing, though I've pored over images and through articles in art magazines for years, while my stack of blank canvases and blank art journals keeps piling up.  just never mustered up the courage to strike out and start creating.  I never thought I had it in me to just go wild with paints, being totally uninhibited and "in the zone". I'd been holding back so much, so much emotional and creative energy for years, that once something poked a leak in that water balloon of craziness, the explosion has been going out of control in my emotional life and this art studio/craft room i've long ago assembled from a former dining room, this room that has become the perfect place for me to sneak downstairs at night and find some solace for my neurotic soul.

that said, here's the basics of making an art journal: (the way i do it, anyway..)

start with the following supplies:

blank art journal,

   

 acrylic paints,

 


 foam brushes, clips to hold pages apart while drying if doing multiple pages (optional)

  

 inspiring cut-out images from old magazines, books, junk mail, a pair of scissors, a glue stick, mod podge (or other collage glue, or just watered-down plain white glue..)

assorted pens, markers, stamps, bubble wrap, oil pastels, etc. to add the finishing touches.

here we go!!

Start by choosing about 3 good colors of paint to complement the colors in your chosen photo images. (assuming you've already gone through the leisurely process of casually flipping through magazines, allowing your intuition to decide which images and words pop out at you, begging to be expressed in a finished page, sometime, somewhere, somehow.)

Squirt a few drops of the lightest color first, spread it around in careless, mindless streaks with the foam brush, then add the next color, and the next.  Turn off your brain, let the art flow you.

It's just a background anyway, doesn't need to be perfect. (nothing is)

  

Once you are satisfied with your streaky or swirly or blotchy painted background, decide on how you want your photo images arranged on your paper.  Let the words and images play with each other, dancing in or out of context, till they express what's on your heart.

Then scoop up some mod podge on foam brush or paint spatula (as pictured below) and spread it on both your page and the back of your cut-out images.  

 Goop up some rubber stamps with paint if the images add what you need at the moment.

Slap some paint on a scrap of bubble wrap, pat it down randomly across your piece.

 

Use the clips to keep your wet paper raised up, away from the other pages in your art journal, so it can dry without getting smudkked to the other pages.

 After it dries...(the longest wait EV-ERRRR)... plop down on the couch in front of the tv with your favorite sitcom on, favorite snack and hot drink nearby, and be sure to have your now-dry art journal and your handy-dandy collection of various pens, markers and pastels, maybe even some rubber stamps and ink pads, to finish the look of your page(s).

   (this one to the left is not finished yet, still waiting for more inspiration to hit..but it's close..)

 

I hope you are at least a little inspired to try this yourself sometime!  The fun part is you can keep adding to your journal, just for your own little fun place to express yourself creatively, and it's all kept neatly inside the book, so you can choose to show it off to your friends or just keep it nice and tidy on your shelf...until the urge to create strikes again.  (actually, mine lays open on my art table, to remind me, to lure me in as often as possible.)

 oh and this is random, but just one of my many books that inspire me to use art to inspire me, to heal my soul by getting the colors out, the words, the voices.  So glad I got my hands nice & dirty this weekend.  I needed this!!!