Art journal collection

So, I recently finished an art journal! I love/hate finishing journals, I love that feeling of success and completion, but then I miss the journal, I miss that familiarity, the paper I've gotten so used to, the pages I've gotten accustomed to flipping by. I've made journals out of books, composition notebooks, I've done watercolor in sketchbooks with thin paper that doesn't absorb right, I've used a variety of mixed media journals,some handmade watercolor journals. I love the Strathmore  mixed media paper but somehow my most loved journals are the difficult ones, the ones I have to adjust to, to step away from my beloved watercolor (with tons of layering and wash after wash after wash) ...they stretch my skills and abilities and teach me new ways of using things I already love. Aannyway! to celebrate my finished journal I looked through my previously completed journals, and the half filled ones I go back to from time to time. I have a journal with half started image transfers, and several with filled gessoed pages waiting on some acrylic or oil pastel or whatever mixed media I decide to do. I took some pictures to share some pages from each journal with you guys!

This one is soo old, showcasing my love for neon gelly roll pens.

Watercolor and collage

This was a fun image transfer project, I love my image transfer journal so much! sweet freedom. 

This is mixed media in my image transfer book. 

All my books 

There you go! what do you do with your old journals? I am thinking I need my own artsy bookshelf to showcase them on. 

Mixed media art process photos, The girl with rainbow freckles.

So the other day I was sitting around in the middle of a huge spurt of creative energy, and I thought I wonder if you can make splatter, painterly style rainbow freckles. Now in your head I imagined taking a larger brush with a rainbow of paint and splattering it all at once. This wouldn't work, I didn't try.so for fear of failure buto also because my favorite place to experiment is in my journal, I got my journal out and made up a face and tried it out. I have no idea how the girl in my journal ended up so.... red. I intended to create a rather dull greyish face and add the rainbow of freckles as contrast. But honestly, I'm awful at keeping things neutral. The spray of colors turned out.... ok? But not what I wanted, so I added some neon pen freckles to brighten her up.

This is my journal page practice! 

Today I made it my mission to recreate her, in small form, for my wall or to sell on etsy possibly with the other 6 by 6 paintings I'm doing. I have never recreated anything before, I'm not a planner, I tend to work intuitively, and it's hard! So I opened up my journal and set the first one next to me. I opened up my photo inspiration board on pinterest and found a face I liked and I got to work. I started out again trying to make a grey face, which didn't work in the end. In this face I only used three paints. A premixed red that had a couple different tones, paynes grey and black. I used a rainbow of color for the splatters and a red, grey and black colored pencil for details, white pen and green for her eyes. That's it!

First is the outline. All my paintings look like this right away, I don't add eye details until later 

Then I add some color. Before I added that red it was all paynes grey, I just couldn't still with it! I should have taken one more picture between this one and the next.

Next I added her hair. Usually hair is after skin for me but I didn't want to overdue the red on her face. I add shadows and lips and struggle with white space.

Eye details, I added the freckles, adding all the black lines at this point. 

And adding white!it's simple but it takes so many layers of watercolor! Here I add all the colored pencil, shade extra with red and grey pencils, I look back at the picture to see if anything looks wonky, try to straighten things up. 

Aren't the freckles cute? 

It's been awhile! Art Journal Fun!

I have been neglecting my poor ole blog! Lots of things have happened. I moved, I opened an etsy shop! I stopped running the art group :/ I developed a sort of style, inspired by tons of artists and creative technique. I found my favorite supplies to use (watercolors, yummy) I still work every day on progressing my style and also my ability, practicing features and composition and pattern and detail. I still have so far to go! I've been enjoying destroying a small sketchbook with watercolor and pen and other fun stuff. It hates the watercolor, it doesn't absorb right, it kills the paper, but for some reason I really love it. Here are a few examples, I'm enjoying testing out new supplies and techniques in my journal, I should really invest in a nice watercolor art journal but ehh, I will just beat this one up for a while longer.
 


Anyway,  am thinking of doing some art challenges but I want to know where to find them! Let me know if you have any warm up art exercises, fun techniques to try, art challenges to partake in!