Art Journal Page: Spontaneous

How to solve struggles when creating art

Hi everyone, Heidi here, today I would like to show you a different sort of art journal page: at least, it’s different for my! If you have seen any of my other projects then maybe you know already that I’m a planner, I have a vision in my head of how a project in the end could look and that’s what I try to create, usually it works out pretty good.

But sometimes I see those video’s where people seem to almost randomly apply paint and other supplies to their page and it turns out wonderfully (really loose, lots of layers, great doodling and so on!). When I try to work that way, because it really looks like a lot of fun, I always come to a road block (as with today’s page), I don’t know how to go further with my project ….

Then I try to say to myself, it’s not a problem, just try something, dare to take a risk (loosing the beautiful page you already have), enjoy the journey and just play!

And that’s what I would like to tell you today: be spontaneous in your art, go with the flow, plan a little or a lot (whatever you feel like), but most importantly: enjoy and play! It’s only paper!

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The Crafter’s Workshop provided me with some product to create this project. The opinions I share are solely my own. This post also contains affiliate links.

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So let’s get started:

How to solve struggles when creating art

Step 1:

Today I’m working in my 13 x 21 cm Art Plus Moleskine Sketchbook (I keep an empty page between two used pages, when the project is finished I glue them together, this way anything bleeding through won’t damage a previous project and when you want to poke a hole in the page you can).

I started my page by randomly applying The Crafter’s Workshop Heavy Body Acrylic Paint in the colour “Raspberry Sorbet“ to the page using a brush and mixing on the page with The Crafter’s Workshop Heavy Body Acrylic Paint in the colour “Spun Sugar“. Then I let that dry, helping with my Heat Tool.

When this first layer was dry I used a dry stippling brush to apply the same paint colours that I used before over a The Crafter’s Workshop stencil called “Celtic Design“ (TCW732s) using the pink on the white parts and the white on the pink parts. So far so good, a little busy for my liking, but I liked what I had!

How to solve struggles when creating art

Step 2:

My next decision was to ad purple to my project: for this I choose The Crafter’s Workshop Heavy Body Acrylic Paint in the colour “Grape Jelly“ which I applied with a palette knife (this is a really fun technique, that you can’t do with nice crisp results using other then heavy body paints (they are thicker then regular paints)) over a The Crafter’s Workshop stencil called “Scalloped Mandala“ (TCW775s), gorgeous stencil by the way! I liked the added purple but the edges towards the middle part of the page where a little harsh for my liking. So I decided to apply some white paint, that I used before, over the purple using the same stippling brush and the same Celtic stencil that I used before and let that dry!

And there it was, the road block: no vision in my head where I was working towards, no idea what to do next …..

How to solve struggles when creating art

Step 3:

How did I finish this page in the end?: I let it sit for a while and started working on another project! I know myself well enough that I shouldn’t do that to long, because otherwise I will not finish this project at all, but I wanted to let my mind go over it for a couple of hours (not weeks!), and see what it came up with!

The funny thing about today’s project is that the new project I started didn’t turn out the way I had envisioned it in my head (sometimes you have that, the idea is good, the steps are in my head, but the supplies don’t do what you would like them to do, but that’s another story) and I ended up using what I created, on this art journal page!

I love this Scalloped Mandala stencil and that it the reason I wanted to use it on another project: I applied some Deco Foil by Therm-O-Web “Liquid Adhesive“ over the Scalloped Mandala stencil using a palette knife and let it dry over night. Note: take the stencil of directly after applying the adhesive or otherwise you will damage your paper!

Then I applied some Gina K. Designs Inks by Therm-O-Web, in the colours “Jelly Bean Green“ and “Grass Green“ over the applied Liquid Adhesive using a foam applicator tool. The adhesive will react like a resist, and, by adding the ink the adhesive will somehow get sticky, which makes the next step easier!

How to solve struggles when creating art

Step 4:

Like the directions on the package of the Liquid Adhesive say I’m now going to ad the Rebekah Meier Designs by Therm-O-Web Mixed Media Transfer Foil in the colour “Vintage Tin“ to the design I created: I put the foil coloured side up over the adhesive and start rubbing, first with my fingers and then with a scoring and folding tool, until I noticed that the foil is loosening from the carrier sheet. This was the moment that I realised I didn’t liked the result as much as I had hoped, at least not for a card design (because that’s what I was going for) and then I thought, what if I ad the mandala’s to the art journal page, because they were too pretty to throw away!

So I decided to create a circle die cut shape from the foiled mandala. This way I created two circles.

How to solve struggles when creating art

Step 5:

Next I’m adhering the die cut foiled circle shapes to my art journal page using Therm-O-Web “Mixed Media Adhesive“. After the adhesive had dried sufficiently I cut of the excess using my scissors.

I like how this page turned out in the end with these foiled circles, it’s probably not something I would normally have come up with! This is what the road block in this project brought me, a result I wouldn’t have reached otherwise!

Now I only have to finish my page: I doodled around the foiled circles using a white Sakura Gelly Rol pen and a black Faber Castell PIT Artist Pen (s). Then I added my title to the page using a couple of stickers from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology “Small Talk“ collection and I doodled around them with the same black pen. And then I edged the page with first Gina K. Designs by Therm-O-Web ink in the colour “Wild Lilac“ (to bring back in some of the purple) and then with Archival Ink in the colour “Jet Black“ (for a more defined edge)!

Some detail pictures:

How to solve struggles when creating art

How to solve struggles when creating art

And that’s it for today’s craft journey!

We would love to see what you create and hear about your craft journey with The Crafters Workshop Stencils and Mediums. You can share it with us on our Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest using hashtag #tcwstencillove.

Heidi Jakobs

The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team Member

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