Finished Art Journal
In 2012 I bought a pink Smash book. Two years later, it’s now finished. With this video, I want to encourage you to continue art journaling. Whatever a single page looks like, it will be pretty and meaningful when being part of the full book.
Finished Art Journal – A Thick Book!
I love handling full books, the thick, filled pages just temp to open them again and again! Smash books have a lot of pages and I had to remove several of them when my book grew thicker page by page.
See the blog posts written during the years about this finished art journal:
Pretty Art Journaling
the first pages and introducing the concept of the journal
There’s a Little Girl in All of Us
drawing faces
Smash Book or Handmade Journal
using Smash book as an art journal
Homemade Happiness
creating more pages
Art Journaling about Imagination
a spread celebrating imagination
Would You Try That
playing jewellery designer
You may also recognize some artwork on the video that has been shown in this blog. I often use art journals to save them.
Here’s the back cover again which I finished on the video. I create decorated elements (like the centerpiece of the flower) now and then. They are stored with hand decorated papers and when I create collages they often work as jump starts. It always looks better if all the elements are not made in the same day! The same is with the journal itself – keep on decorating, day by day, one piece at the time!
Let me be your art teacher: Subscribe to my weekly emails!
Creating Collage Mandalas
If you like cutting papers with scissors, create collage mandalas! And if you need more inspiration for cutting, read this post first: 5 Reasons to Enjoy Cutting Paper with Scissors)
Circles Are Everywhere
For some people, mandalas have spiritual meaning. They usually represent universe or unity. As the word “mandala” means “circle” they can be almost anything and seen almost anywhere. I am often inspired by the circular shapes that I see in nature. Mandalas are usually symmetric, so they are surprisingly fast to make. The mandalas that I made are very straight-forward, yet eye-catching.
Basic Instructions for Creating Collage Mandalas
1) Cut a centerpiece and other pieces (3 to 5 different shapes, 6 to 12 pieces each) from decorated papers. I cut the pieces freely with scissors not worrying too much about their similarity.
2) Glue the pieces on the solid background paper. I used Golden Soft Gel Gloss gel medium, but you can use almost any glue. Measure the middle point of the background paper and start attaching the pieces from there.
3) Draw some more shapes with color pencils.
4) Doodle the finest decorations with a white gel pen and a thin black marker.
If you study my mandalas carefully, you’ll see how carelessly I have cut the shapes. They are not identical or perfect. I think that the result is more human when using scissors instead of cutting machines or shape cutters. Look at that photo of the daisy flower again, doesn’t the flower look more like hand-cut than machine-cut?
I made my mandalas as greeting cards. I think they would make great gifts!
Create more luxurious collage art: Buy Doodled Luxury!
Can Rubber Stamping Be Art?
I love to explore the fine line between making art and creating crafts. One morning I woke up questioning myself: “Could rubber stamping be art?” I posted the question on Twitter and got one answer. It was “I would think so.” Yes, I would think so too! The only problem left was: how to stamp so that the result still has my style and does not look too mechanical.
Rubber Stamping without Repeats
I decided to create flowers that have stamped centers but hand drawn pedals. I used each stamp only once. It is so tempting to stamp one more time with the same stamp! But if you avoid repeats the result looks much more genuine! The only stamp that I used more than once was the leaf stamp. Even the leaf could be different each time, but I ran out of the different shapes.
I used black ink and doodled the pedals with a thick black marker. That way the doodles looked pretty similar to the stamped images.
Then I colored the stamped areas and hand doodles with markers. And finally, of course: added even tinier hand drawn details with black markers and white correction pens!
The result is a decorated paper with plenty of flowers but with this concept: using each stamp only once and adding doodles by hand you can create even complex illustrations – something that could be called art!
Here’s another example, made in 2013. In this project, I have used corner stamps that I have borrowed from my friend. They are not placed in corners but stamped to all directions. Then I added doodling. Thin black pen goes well with stamped motifs.
Let me be your art teacher: Subscribe to my weekly emails!
When Pens Replace Needles
I confess: I am constantly thinking about textiles. I often try to hide my love for fabrics, quilting, sewing, embroidery, knitting, crochet, yarn, and wool. It is like I married paper but have a secret relationship with textiles. If you look at the collage, can you see it?
Creating Textile Inspired Art
When attaching the pieces on paper, I feel that whatever glue or medium I use, the pieces still look like that they are floating. Then I pick a pen and add a stitch line here and another there. And soon I am lost in the details!
When people try to find their own style, they often deny what they know best. It is probably too mundane, something they take for granted. Often, it is easier for other people to see where our strengths are. Anything genuine touches people.
I want to thank Denise who pinned the last week’s horse themed collage art to her Pinterest board called “Clever Stitch Artists”. I got curious about what she saw in the collage. She had written in the description: “Embroidery inspiration”. I tried to hide my love for embroidery but she saw it! So this week I decided to create a project that is a celebration of felted fabrics and hand stitching.
The concept is very easy. Just add some shapes on the painted background paper and then: take your markers and stitch your heart out! Here pens really replace the needles!
Let me be your mentor in art: Subscribe to my weekly emails!