Angels are near Art Journal page

 I have been an Art Journaler for about 10 years now and I think it is one of my favourite ways to craft. What I love so much about it is no one judges, you don't have to show it to anyone if you don't want to. Everyone has their own style so everyones journals will be different, which is a good thing. The best thing though is its all for you, which is very unusual in crafting.     Now if you are a keen crafter, which I am assuming you are, you would of noticed that art journaling has become trendy over the past couple of years. Every craft product producer has jumped on the band wagon and insist you need all the wonderful products to be a good art journaler. The truth is you don't need anything special, as long as you have a journal to work in and something to work with your good to go.        So I thought it would be nice start a series of art journaling pages for The Fruit Pixie to show you how I go about making my pages and so help people begin art journaling for themselves. I will start with an easy page aimed at the complete beginner and working my way through lots of different techniques I have learnt along the way.          To start with you need a journal. For these demonstrations I will be using the IndigoBlu Junk and disordley art journal

This is great for a beginner because it is bound together using book rings so you can take the pages out to work on them.

 

So lets start. The key to a beautiful art journal page is layers and layers and layers. Just keep layering until you like the look.

 

The way I like to work is choose a few paint colours to work with, don't choose too many colours, about 5 or 6 at the most and choose some light and dark colours in your set. I used the Cosmic Shimmer chalk paints. Pour out a little of each paint you have selected in front of you, I work on a glass mat but I have also use a glass chopping board you can get at the Pound shop or other high street shops.

 

I then just get some colour onto the page. I use all sorts for different things for this but my favourite is a wet wipe. These are great to paint with and there is no brush to wash at the end!!! If you are a bit nervous about painting with a paint brush then give the wet wipe technique a try, just scrunch it up and dip,it in the paint then wipe it onto your page. It's much quicker and easier than a brush and blends the colours beautifully.

 

Next I turned to some stamps. Visible Image has some great art journaling style stamps. To start with I used Visible Image Orbital stamp but instead of using ink with them I used paint. Just sponge the paint onto your stamp and stamp as usual. You must then wash the paint off straight away with soapy water. This wont hurt your stamp at all, as long as you wash the paint off immediately. I keep an old toothbrush to use for this.

 

I then used the Angels are near stamp set also from Visible image. I used paint again but this time I wanted them to stand out a bit more, so I used a dark pink paint.

 

I felt they were a bit too visible so I added a bit more paint by dry brushing it on top. To dry brush take some paint onto your brush

but then work almost all of it off by painting backwards and forwards on your glass mat. Then use what is left on your page. It gives you a lovely soft finish.

 

To finish off my page I stamped and heat embossed the feather and quote from the Visible image Angels are near set. I used the Cosmic shimmer pastel blue embossing powder for the feather and a black embossing powder of my own for the quote

 

Finishing with some paint splats. For these water down your paint with water and using a toothbrush pick up some paint and aiming at the page quickly stroke the brush part of the toothbrush with your finger. This is a bit hit and miss so if you need to, protect your work area.

 

Congratulations you have a finished are journal page. Of course you can build up the page more if you like but I thought this was enough for a complete beginner.

 

You can find all the things I used in The Fruit Pixie Shop.

 

You can find the IndigoBlu journal here -

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/indigoblu-junk-and-disorderly-art-journal-26811-p.asp

 

Cosmic shimmer paint -

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/cosmic-shimmer-paints-644-c.asp

 

Visible Image stamps -

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/visible-image-angels-are-near-25123-p.asp

 

Cosmic shimmer embossing powder-

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/cosmic-shimmer-embossing-powders-313-c.asp