Art Journal as a Storybook
This week, we are looking at an art journal as a storybook, full of fairy tales that are not borrowed but our own.
With this video, I want to inspire you to create whimsical art journal pages that illustrate personal stories. In these pages, mundane things become more fantastical, and there’s no pressure to draw realistic sceneries, real persons, and such.
I say in the video: “As a child, I drew lions without thinking if they were realistic enough. I loved lions, so I drew them, it was that simple. When I cherish the inner child, I don’t expect realistic perfection, neither do I try to control the story.”
Creating a page in your storybook journal can be a creative adventure that gets you hooked on creating.
Art Journal as a Storybook – Watch the video!
In the video, I use watercolors, colored pencils, and fel-tip pens and create a spread in my Dylusions Creative Journal. I start with creating the central heart on a separate paper ( Fabriano Accademia drawing paper, thickness 200 gsm/94 lbs), and then pick one of my boxes of joy to find more hand-drawn collage pieces.
I don’t start with the background, but glue the pieces first, and then combine them by coloring. This vice-versa collage process is fun because we can make odd images work together by drawing and also make them to tell a story.
I also like to start with a simple shape and work from a small detail to a bigger picture. I think this way of creating is exciting and adventurous, and it’s always a joy to see what comes up.
Hearts and Stories – Sign Up Now!
Let’s turn your art journal into a storybook and make the most out of simple shapes!
Hearts and Stories will begin on March 17, 2025. >> Sign Up Now!
Flower for Your Art Journal – Step by Step Video
Let’s pick watercolors and colored pencils and make a flower for your art journal! Scroll down to watch a step-by-step video!
This flower can be a rose or a peony or any round and layered species. For me, it’s not so important which flower it is, but what kind of personality it expresses. Here I aimed for a soft but unapologetic character. Every flower you create will become a bit different, and soon you’ll have a collection!
Flower for Art Journal Page – Watch the Video!
The instructions for the flower and all the inspiration for using it on a page is in the video below! We’ll start with watercolors to make the foundation for the layered look and then add more sharpness with colored pencils. Some patience is required because you need to let the watercolors dry between the first steps.
In the video, I encourage you to adjust the center of the flower, the flower’s sould. Find a look and personality that appeals to you!
Including the Flower in Art Journal
In the video, I also show how you can use the flower with almost any background and make a spread for the flower in the spirit of Freely Grown.
I hope this week’s video and the last week’s blog post about picture prompts inspire you to art journal and create art in general!
Happy Holidays with Video Artwork
This week, I have a video artwork for you. Here’s how the background story goes:
Far away in an unknown land there is a crazy chapel. Your imagination is this chapel. When you’re there long enough, you can see anything, and experience anything, and some of it leaves a mark on your heart and thus on your art.
Art is born when you deviate from the paths and go alone to scary places. When you say: “That bench is just an inanimate object,” but still see it breathing. When you say: “These ornaments are just decorations,” but still see them dancing. Then time goes in a direction you don’t recognize, and you can’t control everything that starts spinning in your mind. This wild and crazy imagination is the source of both creative and spiritual life.
Crazy Chapel – Watch the Video Artwork!
I made this video artwork “Crazy Chapel” digitally step by step. The music was improvised on the iPad. The shapes were drawn in the Blender 3D modeling program. The movement and the generation of the shapes were programmed in C# programming language. The code and the shapes were put together in the Unity game engine. The introductory texts and the recorded scene were combined in the Da Vinci Resolve video editing program. This year was special to me, because I not only drew and painted, but also created animated art. (See more of how I make these animations: From Painting to Digital 3D – Video 1, Video 2)
Happy Holidays!
With the video artwork “Crazy Chapel”, I want to wish you happy and relaxing holidays. There are many ways to create, let’s celebrate it during these holidays!
P.S. This blog will be on a break for a week, but will be back after New Year.
P.P.S. I have often publiched a video greeting near Christmas. For example, check the video “Dreaming and Painting at Christmas” from 2015!
Watercolor Flower Obsession
This week, I have a fun video for you. In the video, I create a watercolor greeting card and talk about my obsession of painting flowers.
The card is A5 in size, so about 6 x 8 inches and I have painted it on watercolor paper.
My smallest brush is very narrow and I could have coped with two brushes. In the course Freely Grown, we use the similar process, but finish with colored pencils, so it’s much easier than working with tiny brush strokes.
Watercolor Flower Obsession – Watch the Video!
In this video I confess how goal-oriented I am about painting flowers but also talk about the importance of play.
This video has a lot of material, you may want to watch it more than once to see them all! Also, here’s the link to last year’s greeting card, watch that video too!
Boutique of the Heart
In the video I talk about a boutique that’s not a commercial thing at all, vice versa:
“I believe that we can create the best boutique out of our own art. Imagine your workspace as a paper shop where you sell hand-painted cards, bookmarks, hand-drawn stickers, patterned papers – everything that is already art as such, but from which you can look for inspiration for bigger works. I have even come up with a name for this kind of personal shop. It’s Boutique of the Heart. There’s only one customer in the Boutique of the Heart – you, and one seller and manufacturer – you! The longer you keep the shop, the more you learn to love the things you draw and paint yourself.”
My message is that the essence of art is in play. Thus no matter how high you want to reach, you can still create art with a playful attitude and have your Boutique of the Heart. I know there are art instructors that solely focus on the techniques and those who are about fairytales and imagination, but I feel I am something between. I want to create art with people who want to move forward in art-making, but who also love imagination and free expression.
We can have obsessions, but there should always be time to play too.
What do you think?