Art journaling in progress.

 This months theme in Dragonfly Dreamers Exploration group is '30 ways to fill you art journal'. It's been good to spend so much time in my art journals. I'd like to tell you that I spend some time art journaling everyday but real life just doesn't work that way. So I art journal whenever I get a chance. Sometimes it may be 5 minutes and others it may be hours. It gets whatever and whenever life allows.

If you've followed along with my art journaling at all, you may have noticed that I don't work on one page at a time. Actually I don't even work in one journal at a time. Nor do I work from the front to back of an art journal much to the surprise of a student, I had recently, who just couldn't fathom that was a thing people did. Well yes it's a think people do. At least I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this practice. I like to just open up to whatever page is calling me at the moment and start there or continue if the page is already started.

This page layout was comprised of about 5 or 6 short, 5 to 15 minute sessions over about a week. In that time I probably worked on some other pages but this one kept calling and telling me what it wanted next. Sometimes that's how it works. Other times a page can take months or years before it calls me back to finish it.

Mica spray and watercolour ink

The first layer on the spread was just a quick splash of Cosmic Shimmer Watercolor ink and Distress Mica spray. I love the contrast of the shimmery spray with the matte watercolor ink. A quick background that took less than 5 minutes to do but then needed lots of dry time. It could be dried with a heat gun but the effects are different and my time was up anyway.

Washi tape and stamping

Next I used washi tape. I like to rip the tape length wise to get rid of the harsh straight lines. Using a large stamp without a block helps to give that random stamping look. I used Archival ink for this because I know it will be permanent no matter what I want to add on top of it.

Stabilo all, graphite and embossing powder

A few lines and squiggles with the Stabilo all pencil and graphite stick help bring everything together. Since they are both water soluble I used a wet brush to loosen up and smudge the lines a bit. The gears are a die that I added embossing powder to before adhering them to the page.

Stencil, grit paste and Fude pen

I had to add some grit paste because it was new on my desk and just asking to be tried. The brick stencil just seemed to work with the grungy layout. I discovered that the grit paste will reactivate anything water-soluble that you put it on, so where it is on top of the Distress mica sprays it turned a lovely rusty red. You can see the actual colour of the Grit Paste in the top right hand corner.

To finish off the page I used the Fude Ball pen to darken some of the lines and do some writing. 

If you'd like to see more of my pages as well as other members for '30 days to fill your art journal' you can find us here.

Happy Creative!

Wendy