I've been struggling recently to make art, so today I thought I'd take a few minutes to browse through my art journal and remind myself that I can!
For this page, I cut out some flowers I'd painted several years ago. The background is just some left over yellow paint I was using on another project. Whenever I have a little bit left on a palate, I just brush it randomly on a page of my journal to use later. I drew a few doodles using a black Sharpie fineliner and dapped a few dots around of metallic green paint.
This page is basically the same thing. The flowers were made with Crayola markers. To make the flowers stand out more, I traced them a few times using a ballpoint pen and did the same thing around the edges of the paper to make a border. I like using felt tipped pens for drawing usually, but they can get messed up if you use them to write over paint. That's why I use a ballpoint pen when I'm drawing on top of mixed media work.
This page was bit more complicated, and it's not one of my favorites. For the background, I wiped a mixture of leftover acrylic paint across the page using a paper towel. Then I drew a few doodles around the page using water based and permanent pens. I painted over the water based pens with a little water to let them dissolve a bit.
For the dark areas, I used glued down some pieces of a paper towel I'd used earlier to clean up after other projects. Over the top of the towels, I drew some swirls using a white gel pen. I also cut out a flower and some leaves I'd painted with watercolor a few years ago. The flower big flower was made using washi tape that was cut into the shape of petals. I also added a few pieces of patterned washi tape in a few places. To make every thing stand out more, I outlined most things with a pen.
The border of this page was made with metallic paint. For the flower, I painted a few petals and leaves on a scrap paper with metallic watercolors. Then I drew lines over them and cut them out. The stem was done using a water based green felt tip pen which I splashed water over. Finally, the center of the flower is a sticker.
This page was a challenge for myself. I normally make a lot of flowers and avoid primary colors, so I wanted to make a page I liked using things I often avoid. The background is acrylic paint. The shapes were made using a black ballpoint pen. It was hard to see them on the dark background, so I traced each of them with a white gel pen to make them stand out more.
Going through my art journal really inspired me, so I decided to make a few more quick pages today. I set a timer for 30 minutes and got to work. The page on the left already had some black squares painted on it, so I just used a white gel pen to doodle over the top.
On the right, I used some stamps and permanent ink to make a background. Then, I sprayed the page with some art journaling sprays I bought years ago but never use. They weren't working very well since they've been so neglected, but I didn't get upset when the nozzles sprayed either too much or too little of the liquid. I just used a brush and one of my fingers to spread the color across the page. To finish it off, I added a few pieces of torn paper and stickers, then traced the stickers and the edges of the page with a pen.
I hope this inspires you to take a few minutes today to just make something! Going back to look at what I made before really helped me get in the mood. Maybe doing the same thing would help you too :-)
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