The Crafter's Workshop BlogWhere is my mojo….. Art Journal Page

Hello everyone! Tammy (aka Tambarambaa) here today to share another Art Journal Page bursting with color.

Art journal page filled with colored circles and little black stars

TCW provided me with some awesome goodies to play with but the art and opinions are my own.

Art journal page with overlapping circles in all colors with textures created by using stencils

I’ll be honest……I’ve been in a bit of a creative funk for a couple of weeks, and had no clue where to start for this one. So what do I do when I’m creatively stuck? Well first I add TCW9001 White Gesso to an art journal page and whilst this is drying, I finger paint – I get paint on my skin and just move it around – often this leads somewhere. Just like for this one – I began moving the paint around and suddenly I felt like doing circles – so this is where it began.

Once I had the idea, I grabbed stencil TCW926 Bubble Rebound and began tracing some of the circles, overlapping them as I went.

Next comes the paint – some of the circles I did with my fingers and some with a brush – at this point I’m still just going with whatever I feel like.

I wanted to do some color blending, as I was in the mood to just play. When blending I find adding a touch of a fluro color on top kinda pulls it all together.

You will notice here that some are blended well and some aren’t. That’s because as I did the first few, I suddenly had an idea to add more colors with stencils. So I really wanted a variety of colors and styles. If they aren’t all beautifully blended at this point, don’t worry – this is just the first layer.

Next I wanted to add more textures and colors. TCW539 Patterns is the perfect stencil for this. There are so many different patterns and they are nice and small so will fit well within the circles.

So using a makeup sponge, I began applying sections in each circle, using contrast colors.

adding texture to the circles by sponging paint through a patterned stencil

What was really handy was using the TCW926 Bubble Rebound underneath as a guide, so I didn’t stencil out past the edges of the circle! Handy!

I found this part so fun – I really switched off and just enjoyed the process. I got so involved I forgot to take a photo (sorry!).

Now it’s time to define those circles – time to outline them with a black paint pen. I go around each circle a few times with both a thick paint pen and a thin paint pen – this step forgives everything and really makes the colors and circles pop!

using paint pens to scribble around the circles

I also added a few scribbles and drew a few swirly circles with the pen – this helps it become more artsy and fun.

Now it just felt like it needed something other than circles. I know right! Crazy! But yes I was feeling like adding some stars and TCW2302 Star Sparkle Slimline stencil has the perfect sized stars.

As the paint pen has a bit of a gloss sheen to it, I wanted the stars to have that same effect, so I grabbed TCW9005 Gloss Gel Medium, and added some black paint. This gave me a lovely gloss paste that I then ran over the star stencil using a spatula wherever I felt a few stars were needed.