Good morning!

I am so happy to share a new mini-series of art journal how to videos with you! I am calling this series

8-Layer Journaling

Back in February of 2015, Shannon Green put out a YouTube video series, called Journaling by 5s. It took the fear and guesswork out of art journaling. I would highly recommend you go check that process and her work out…Shannon is truly inspirational!!!

To quickly paraphrase her process is that you create 20 art journaling pages in 5 – 15 minute sessions, by layering 2 pre-determined media types per session.

Shannon’s Session are as follows:

1. Background – Paint, Ink
2. Texture – Collage, Recycle
3. Pattern – Stamps, Stencils
4. Focal Point – Words, Images
5. Details – Pen, Pencils

Although, I really do love this process, I modified it pretty early on, because I was nowhere near able to get my sessions completed within the allotted time, which drove me BANANAS! I felt like I would do better if I limited myself to one medium per session, and to limit my use of mediums to only 5 options. For example, for the paint layer, I limit myself to only 5 tubes/bottles/jars/etc of color, to cut down on my need to overthink the process. Doing this allowed me to finally get all 20 pages done within the allotted 15 minutes. SUCCESS!!

I have used this process for creating my Soul Sister Cards, and for something I like to call Doodling books that I find super fun to play on while I am on an airplane or waiting someplace!! Every time I have done this process the pages end up looking so different from each other, and I am always so amazed at how cool they turn out!!!

So my modified version, which I am calling 8-Layer Journaling is:

1. Paint
2. Paper
3. Washi
4. Stamps
5. Stencil
6. Focal Image
7. Words
8. Pen Work

So, with all of the logistics out of the way…

Let’s get on to Layer #2

Paper!

1. I have a selection of papers: Bible pages, music sheets, math pages, novel pages, graph papers, and ledger paper.
2. I am using a sponge brush, for my gel medium. They are super cheap and because gel medium is so difficult to get out of brushes, I just use a sponge brush and toss it when I am finished (since if you try washing a sponge brush – they just fall apart)
3. I grab some Jane Davenport Gel Medium
4. Set my timer
5. and got to playing!!

If you do decide to do this 8-Layer Journaling process with me, I want to highly encourage you to not purchase anything new…use whatever you have in your stash. (This is probably something we could all hear a little bit more of!)