Empowering your juicy life!
Good morning! I am happy to announce that my weekly Art Journal video #4 has been posted to YouTube for your perusal! http://youtu.be/QUh6p97oz1Y I have a bunch of pictures to show you, but first the supplies I used this week are: Art Advantage Acrylic Paints: …
Good morning! I am happy to announce that my new weekly art journal video has posted! I would love for you to check that out here: Materials used: Acrylic paint colors: Americana: Carousel Pink (DA274), Turquoise Blue (DA268) Folk Art: Wicker White (901) Apple …
Good morning!
As promised yesterday, here is some close up pics and details about my first ever weekly art journal video!
That video can be found here.
As with all of my art journal pages, I always go into the project with no real idea on what it is I want to create. I sometimes have a vague idea about maybe what colors I want to use, or maybe an inspirational thought, but for this spread, I was essentially going in with no expectations of any kind.
I was having a hard time getting quiet, or spending time in any kind of quiet, which meant I had been constantly surrounding myself with random noise; the television, music, the background noise at a coffee shop, etc, etc. I also am a firm believer in signs from my Truth teller, and I kept seeing the message,
Well, in all honesty, I had been blatantly ignoring it. You see, I was afraid that if I were to get quiet I would make the realization that I had completely ruined my life by walking away from my career a few months ago, and that by spending my time doing everything and anything that I wanted to do, maybe somehow I was being absolutely and completely selfish – HOW DARE I???
So, I had started this journal page, with my camera set to record, not knowing what my page was going to turn out looking like, but knowing that it was going to be my very first video to post on YouTube. I had NO IDEA how to do that! I have had no experience recording videos, editing them, how to upload them, or anything! I was pretty scared. However, I wanted to make sure that when I recorded that there wasn’t any background noises that I would have to fight with. (I didn’t know that I could mute all of those out!) So this forced me to spend a few hours in absolute silence, just focusing on arting.
Well, the message of getting quiet so I can hear my voice kept popping up again, over and over. I wasn’t sure why, but by the time I got to the part of my journal page where I needed to wrap it up with a thought – I KNEW that was the thought that I had to get down on to paper!
When I had finished this page, I was so happy with it! It really made me happy, and it said something to me that I knew, from the bottom of my soul, was a truth that I needed to hear right now!
Now getting it ready for uploading was another story all together! I had no idea how I was going to edit it, get music behind it, upload it, or anything. So, I started Googling for help like a crazy person!! 🙂 Little did I know I had everything I needed to do this already in my possession!!
It took me longer than I had expected – about three days longer, to be exact, but I did it!! I did a great big ol’ happy dance, and told all of my peeps to go check it out!!! WHEW!!! 😉
Anyway, I look at this page now, almost a week and half after actually creating it and I realize that it is the exact perfect message that I needed to hear in that moment. Silence is something to anticipate and to fully be present to yourself and your Truth teller whenever you have the opportunity to embrace the silence!!
I hope you like this spread, and if you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the comments section! I would love to hear your thoughts!!
Much love to you!! Here is to a FABULOUS day! 😉
Good evening! As promised during this previous post. I have finally completed my journal project that was inspired by Dyan Reaveley’s YouTube video ‘Creating a Patchwork Quilt with Diane Reavely.’ As I was painstakingly blacking out all of the work that had taken me literally …
Good evening! Tonight I wanted to show you a cool, inexpensive image transfer technique! I am calling this technique Packing Tape Image Transfer. To get started, there are a few supplies you will need to round up: Clear Packing Tape A pair of scissors Water. …
Good evening!
Welcome to my very first ever tutorial Tuesday!!
YEAH!! WHOO!! HOOOO!!!! APPLAUSE!!!! 😉
If you saw yesterday’s post, you would have seen that I am in the habit of writing Morning Pages every morning. I do those Morning Pages in a leather bound book, that has grid-lined paper inside of it. I like the fact that it is not just regular boring lines, in case I want to doodle or draw in my journal, I feel like the grid-lines support me in thinking outside of the box.
However, I am also a big fan of art journals, and today I want to show you how to convert any regular book into an easy and inexpensive art journal of your very own.
What you will need:
To convert your book into an art journal:
The first thing you will have to do is to create room in your art journal so that all of the fun elements that you might want to use to decorate your art pages, such as decorative papers, buttons, beads, lace, fabric, broken jewelry, pictures, etc, have space to go.
To do this, count the first three pages of the book, then count the next three pages of the book. Tear out the second set of 3 pages. Otherwise leave in pages 1, 2, and 3, and carefully tear out pages 4, 5, and 6. You will want to tear the pages out as closely, and as carefully to the spine as you can get, but remember perfection is not necessary.
You will keep repeating this step over and over again until every other set of three pages have been removed.
Once you have torn out every other set of three pages, you will then want to reinforce the remaining sets of 3 pages that you have left.
To do this, you will go back to the beginning of your book, and gather the first set of three pages. Using your paper tape, you will want to either tear, or cut a piece of tape that measures the width of your page.
Once you have the correct length of tape, carefully lay it across the bottom edge of the book, with half the tape hanging off of the edge
Once that has been smoothed into place, turn your set of three pages (treating as if they are now one page, because they essentially will be), and then fold the overhang of tape up and over the back side of your new page.
Do this to all three sides of your new page: bottom, top, and side.
Each set of three individual pages will now become one thick page per taped bundle. This reinforces your pages, and makes them sturdier for any kind of media or technique that you might want to use to decorate your journal pages with.
Repeat these taping steps for all of your sets of three pages.
Once you have your pages reinforced, you are now ready to prep your pages for arting on! WHEW!!! 😉
To do this, you will want to use your paint brush and apply a thin layer or two over each page of your new art journal.
If you are impatient like me, you may want to use a hair dryer, or a embossing heat gun to speed up the drying process. Please note, if you do use an embossing heat gun to dry your pages (like I do) make sure not to leave the gun pointing at one spot for too long, you do not want to accidentally burn your gesso. Not fun, and kinda smelly!!
Once your pages are gesso’ed you are ready to get arting and customizing your new art journal in any way you would like!
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments section of this post! I am always happy to help!
Keep an eye out for more tutorials in the future, including many ideas and techniques on how you can decorate your new art journal! I can’t wait!
If you haven’t already, please follow This Artsy Life by hitting the “Subscribe” button on the right. I would really appreciate it!
Here is to a FABULOUS evening creating!! 😉
If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!