Saturday, October 26, 2013

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!!

Adirondack Paints (Sunshine Yellow)
Distress Paints (Seedless Preserves & Broken China)
Golden Paints (Titan Buff)
Archival Inks (Jet Black)
The Crafters Workshop Stencils (Quartrefoil & Chevron)

10 comments:

  1. Gorgeous pages Kim ! I love how you've drawn the flowers. I so agree with your thoughts on inspiration, I have on many occasion walked in and straight out of my craft room ! Sue C x

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  2. I think we can all relate and take advice from this post Kim! These pages are lovely. I really like the way the flowers pop on that glorious drippy background x

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  3. Oh, the texture...sigh. Love these pages: the colours, the lumps and bumps, those cool flowers, everything about them. Your words are so true as well. I think that part of the process of developing your own style is trying out ideas and techniques from wonderful and generous teachers and then keeping the ones that resonate with you. That combination makes each person's true style unique. Very cool, Kim.

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  4. The masking tape sure turned out to be a fabulous source of texture in your layout! Love the flowers, and had you not told us how they were created I would have guessed that they were pieced from paper. Just fabulous! :) hugs
    Kimberly

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  5. I know exactly where you're coming from - block with deadlines is hard. Love the colours on this and that tape base. Jenny x

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  6. Kim, this is just GORGEOUS and truly inspiring! I can't WAIT to try this technique! LOVE the texture the tape creates! LOVE the running paint and the splatters, too! Just BEAUTIFUL!

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  7. This is awesome, Kim! I love that you described your thoughts as you designed. I struggle knowing when to stop too. Great post and great pages!!

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  8. I love art pages but have never tried!! This is just lovely...
    Thanks for visiting my blog and the nice comments :-)
    xxx
    Riette

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  9. Beautiful Kim!!!! Wonderful sketched blooms and yes, they do remind me of Donna. I love the drippage!!!! and of course the texture. Cool spread!!!!

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  10. This turned out GORGEOUS!!! Yes I agree...we struggle with what to do but your finished projects always look like you totally intended it that way!!

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