Hey everyone! I’m back with my art journal today! It’s been a while since I’ve done one on YouTube, but I’m excited to dive in.
I’m using my spiral-bound sketchbook today. I like to prep these pages with acrylic craft paint beforehand. Today’s page already has a base color, but I’m going to cover most of it up anyway.
For today’s project, we’re going to play with collage, acrylic paint, and other goodies! I have some watercolor paper scraps, a piece with alcohol ink and water-soluble crayon markings, and even a scan of some old, handwritten text I found.
I’m arranging these elements on the page and decided to adhere a pretty watercolor circle in the bottom left corner. To mute the background a bit, I’m adding some gesso. Gesso is great because it allows some of the background texture to peek through, so you can still maintain some of the detail you put on the page, but push it back a bit.
Art journaling is so relaxing. You get to experiment with different mediums and see how they work together, and you might get something you never even knew possible.
Once the gesso dried, I went in with some acrylic paints, a mix of Liquitex and Creative Inspirations brands. I mostly used purples, black, white, and a deep yellow. I love that the purple and white are transparent, allowing the background to show through.
I grabbed a stencil with a simple flower design and used a mixture of yellow, black, and white to create a greenish color for the leaves. The stencil also has a cute little vase, so I used purple paint for that.
Sometimes I go overboard with adding too many things, but that’s just my style! In this case, I decided to add some tiny flowers next to the big one.
While lifting the stencil, a bit of the wet yellow paint stuck to it, lifting some of the collage paper. I quickly fixed that with some gesso and extra yellow paint.
Next, I used a pen to add some lines and details to the flowers and vase. I was trying to incorporate the green color I mixed earlier and also draw some focus towards the main flower.
Finally, I decided on a flower for the circle and stamped a sentiment to finish everything off.
This was such a fun art journaling session, and I hope you enjoyed watching along! Let me know in the comments what your favorite things are to use in your art journals – watercolors, acrylics, or something else entirely? What do you find most fun and what intimidates you the most?