Hey everyone, it’s Elsie here and today I thought I would share my first ever completed art journal page with you! Whenever I get some free time I really love to throw some paint down into a journal, but I’ve never actually made a page that I felt was finished and I ended up liking… until now!
I think this page was all made possible because of the amazing mixed media goodness from the Vicki Boutin collection. Let me talk you through everything…
I decided to create a page in the Junque Journal, because I think it’s way less intimidating to use than a bound journal especially if, like me, you’re new to this art journal “thing”!
The medium I feel most comfortable using is watercolours, so I used the watercolour paper refill pack for this page. What’s awesome about this pack, is that some of the papers are folded so you get more paper to work on, but they fold down to fit perfectly in the journal.
A blank white page can be really intimidating, so I decided to start with something easy and use the circular stamp set with the colours from the warm and cool tones color wheel ink pads and stamp loads of the circles over the page. These ink pads are awesome because not only do they stamp so well and are highly pigmented, but once the ink is dry it’s permanent! Which meant that I could apply my watercolour over it and it wouldn’t react.
As I was making this page, I was in the mood to experiment and use loads of colours. One of the easiest ways I think you can use lots of colours without making your page look like a hot mess, is to create a galaxy. You won’t believe how easy it is!
To create the galaxy, I used the art crayons as watercolours by scribbling them onto a piece of acrylic, spritzing them with some water and then using a paintbrush to pick up the paint and use it like a regular watercolour paint!
I first taped down my paper to my desk (this stops the paper from curling up) and spritzed the page with some water as this helps the colours flow and bleed together so you get some really cool effects!
For the first layer of paint, I simply plopped (I can’t think of a better way to describe it!) colour down in patches to my page and let that dry. I then did the same thing again to build up the colour and vibrancy. I chose to use the purple, blue and green crayons as they are my favourites, but this method will work well with any combination of colours.
Once the paint was dry, I grabbed the pigment inks and script stencil and used the blending sponge to dab some ink through the stencil in small patches for even more texture. I think the key to this design is adding layers, that way you can create lots of depth.
To finish off my background I used the black art crayon, spritzed it with water to make it into watercolour and painted it in patches onto the page. This is the scariest part of the process because at this stage it doesn’t look much like a galaxy and more like a hot mess. But once the black paint is dry you can add the stars which magically transforms it into galaxy!
To do this I diluted down the gesso with some water and splattered it with a paintbrush over my page to create the stars. I used different sizes of paint brushes to get different sizes of splatters, which helps create lots of depth and interest.
To finish off the page I created some planets using the circular dies and the ‘Soul Food’ paper which has an awesome watercolour pattern and ties in nicely with my watercolour background. I also stitched some rings around some of the planets for some extra detail and cuteness!
I used the black script pattern on the ‘Pretty Words’ paper to create two crescent moons and I cut a silhouette of a fairy with some black cardstock twice. I did this so I could stick them back-to-back on the paper, so when you open the page you can see the other side of the fairy, the planets and the other half of the quote.
And some final details: I used some of the enamel dots to create the look of some extra planets, I used the coordinating alphas to create my title and I stamped the butterflies with some black ink onto white paper and fussy-cut them out.
Thanks for stopping by everyone, I had a blast making this page with the awesome Vicki Boutin supplies, so I hope you’re inspired to give this painted galaxy a try!
Elsie x
SUPPLIES: Vicki Boutin Mixed Media Junque Journal (#343927) – Watercolor Paper Refills (#343929) – Gesso (#343912) – Blending Sponge (#343911) – All The Good Things Stencils (#343895) – Mister Bottles (#343907) – All The Good Things Stamp & Die sets: Set 3 (#346453), Set 2 (#343894) – Color Wheel Pigment Ink Pads: Warm Tones (#343902), Cool Tones (#343901) – Art Crayons: Warm (#343908), Cool (#343909), Neutral (#343910) – All The Good Things Finishing Embellishments (#343896) – All The Good Things Chipboard Alphas (#343890) – 12”x12” patterned papers: Soul Food (#343541), Pretty Words (#343534) – Fairy cut file (Silhouette ID: #133115)