Journal cover process with Crafter’s Workshop Stencils

Welcome back to the Crafter’s Workshop Blog today,  Lydell with you again, sharing a Journal cover I have been meaning to get to.  I always squirrel away old books and childrens board books in case I feel like altering something.  I am a little partial to books, and have several journals on the go.  Some I tangle in, some I add loads of paint to, some I use watercolours and some are just for play, but I love each one.

This one began life as a microwave cook book.  I don’t ‘cook’ in the microwave so when I found this tall thin book, I knew I could not wait to try the different sized pages to art journal on.

I glued some pages together, and cut out some others here and there with a scalpel blade to reduce the bulk, and I primed the cover with gesso.

Sometimes things dont go to plan though and I ended up not liking several layers, so gessoed over and added some more.  Something I need to remind my self of, is that one needs to know when to stop.  But….the layers create depth, and it is the process that is important to me.  the playing, the experimenting, the finding what doesn’t work and what does……I enjoyed the process…..and I like the final result in the end, even though I was unsure at several stages through the process.

I used LOADS of stencils. You can find them all HERE.   I will try and remember which ones and list them as I go.

Here’s a bit about the steps I took from start to finish.

So you can see below the primed cover on the left …..I then tore up pieces of Book paper and adhered that over the entire cover with gel medium, and primed it again with another light coat of gesso.

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I used Letters Collage TCW336s  and Coffee Splotch TCW458s with several colours of Shimmerz Paint, with a coat of fixative between each layer to stop the colours going muddy.

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I swapped between the front and the back, adding more colours and more Stencils.  You can see Life Months TCW367s, Numbers Bits TCW2003  and Dartboard TCW 422s

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and you can see some of City Grid TCW 438s with distress ink in Mowed Lawn.

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When I am using sprays and paint on my stencils, I keep a book handy and just throw in the stencils between the pages and shut the book on them.  It transfers all the residual paint onto the pages, and most often cleans off the stencil.  I cut a heart from one such page torn out of the book and added it to my back cover with gel medium.

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Here’s the finished back cover….That came together nicely without too much effort!  I added some black texta to the spine.

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Now back to the front cover.  I added some Shimmerz Dazzlerz with a palette knife through Tiny Circles TCW 361s.

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I used the number stencil again with white paint on a sponge.

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Next I drew a bird on some of the book paper and used inks to colour him in.  Just wetting the image and dropping droplets of ink using the pipette in the bottles.  I carefully added the colours I needed and let him dry off naturally so the colours dried as they were, without moving with the air from a heat tool.Art-journal-process-11

 

and here is the finished Cover.  A little different to how it started out, but it turned out ok in the end.  I added distress inks, gelatos, big brush markers and lots of white paint to blend.

Finished-cover-TCW-Lydell-Quin

So keep all your old unwanted books, they might be perfect for your next journal!

Thanks for stopping in today.

See you again soon.

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The Crafters Workshop Design Team Member

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5 thoughts on “Journal cover process with Crafter’s Workshop Stencils

  1. Wow Lydell what a brilliant turnout! Your bird is so very beautiful too! I’m so inspired to try my hand at altering a book cover of some sort. Thx!

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