Finding Inspiration

If you're like many crafters, grand ideas don't always easily pop into your mind.  Many struggle with spending too much time staring at a pile of cardstock, paints, and embellishments.  True, there are times that the light bulb goes off, an idea hits, and I can barely wait to get into the studio to create.  However, due to tight schedules and a mind that is already full to the brim with a large "to do" list, too often I sit down at my table, ready to create, and find that I'm struggling with what to make and what products to use.

I often will start a project by simply putting color down on a few pages and an idea will formulate but when I hit those times of crafter's block (think writer's block) I find that nothing works better than watching some videos or looking through galleries/books of my all time fav artists.

For today's art journal pages I took some of what I learned at a recent Donna Downey class (use masking tape!) and combined that with one of my favorite Donna images...her fun and funky flowers.

To start, I covered two pages with masking tape, being sure to overlap pieces of tape and to make the pieces uneven.  I even left some white space.  After the tape was down, I covered both pages with gesso.

I then used Distress Paint (links to specific colors at the end of the post) to cover the top and bottom of the pages.  A good spritz of water made the colors run together beautifully (drippage!)

The next step was to add a few stencil designs.  I'm really working on trying to get a good mix of images as I find I get carried away with the stencils and I can't stop!  I'm trying to stay with a specific color family, for example, colors in the blue/purple family, and ones that compliment (why is it I can easily pick colors for a card but struggle with paint??) each other.

 

This page got some Seedless Preserves Distress Ink and silver paint...that's it!

Next, I sketched the flowers using a Stabilo pencil (these pencils react with water and then dry smudge free...I adore them!).

 

Once I was happy with the designs (these are totally Donna...I LOVE them!), I used acrylic paints to color them in and then a text stencil to add a little design (again, an idea inspired by Donna).

 

Then I added my pop of color...bright yellow!  And I can hardly live without splatters so I watered down acrylic paint, loaded up my brush, and tapped the handle on the side of my hand...perfect splats!

 

All that was left to do was to add a sentiment, on a manila tag, and the date.  This has to be one of my favorite art journal projects to date!

 

I will say that I'm looking forward to continuing to grow as an art journal artist (I am so in love with this art form) and developing my style.  At this point, I feel like much of my work is too closely like my art heros (Donna, Wendy, Dina, etc.) but I'm ok with that.  For those of us who don't have art freely flowing from their heads and fingers, I think imitating styles (note, this does not mean copying anyone's work and putting your name on it!) is a great way to learn and through imitation and experimentation you will find your own style and the art that most speaks to you.  (Click on the first photo to enlarge and get a good look at all that texture!)

Enjoy and here's to making art!!

Supplies:
Dylusions Journal

Adirondack Paints (Sunshine Yellow)

Distress Paints (Seedless Preserves & Broken China)

Golden Paints (Titan Buff)

Archival Inks (Jet Black)

The Crafters Workshop Stencils (Quartrefoil & Chevron)

Gesso