Polka Dot Art Journal Page

Hey guys! Jordan is back with you guys today, and I've got something that's actually pretty cool to show you. It's this art journal page. Of course. Again. But I know that you guys love art journal posts, so that's why I'm back. I worked on this page a bunch today, and I really like the way that it turned out. I love the colors, and the way that they work so well together on the page, if you know what I mean. Lime green and black. Two epic colors, one epic color scheme. :D So yeah. Anyways, now maybe I can launch a little bit into how I made the page. It was actually really easy. I actually worked over top of another page, which I've been becoming more and more known to do lately. I took the page, and I painted over top of it with my lime green paint and a paintbrush. I had made some really random doodles on the base with a brown marker, and, as the lime dried, it started to seep through. I know that a lot of people might have put another layer of the paint down, but I'm the type of person who just likes to what happens happen. It happened that way for a reason, so let's not mess it up by trying to do it "our" way. You know what I mean?

Okay. So now let's go onto the next part of the page, which is pretty much the only other part there. But there's a little bit of depth that I want to speak to you guys about. First off, I'm obviously going to talk about the black dots all over the page. You guys have probably seen the stamp that I used to make them in the past, because it seems that I am becoming more and more fond of that stamp by the day. Every time I use it, I seem to create an even greater love for it deep inside of myself. ;) I actually made the stamp myself with a piece of cardboard that I found from a cereal box, and a bunch of fun foam tiny circles that I adhered to the box. I never clean it, I like to let the paint build up on it. When it becomes too much to handle, I'll just make a new one. It was super simple to do. Anyways. Now let's talk about the depth I mentioned. That's going to come to you in the form of the upper left hand corner. See how some of the dots are kind of almost white? Yeah. Let me tell you how I got that. I took my stamp, painted all over with the black paint, and then pressed it down onto the page. Then, there was something important that I needed to do in the other room, so I left it. Without even pulling it back up. It was kind of difficult to remove when I returned, but now I love the effect. Yeah. So anyways, that's all I've got for you today, and I hope to see you tomorrow! Adios amigos!!

Paper/Fabric Collage Fodder

Hey guys!!

What's going on with you guys today?

I haven't done much crafty stuff today, but I did take a few pictures for the blog.

I pulled a bunch of stuff out of my pile of supplies, and made a few piles. 

I've now officially decided to start a sort of series on collecting supplies for working in an art journal.

In other words, an series on collecting art journal fodder. 

For now, I think I'll just share with you guys what I've found so far.

Then I'll do other occasional posts about how to find and collect these things.

Are you guys ready for this?

Okay then.

Let's do it then.

Let's look up at the picture above at the first little collection I found.

I just pulled a few of the first things that came to my hand. 

I have a piece of magazine picture.

Some apple stickers.

Some printed black and white borders.

Some color scraped fabric.

Some watercolored book paper.

And a strip of colors.

There isn't as much in this picture, but I still like this selection.

I have a dyed paper towel.

A butterfly die cut.

Some pink polka dotted tissue paper.

A pulled photo paper.

And a homemade stamp that I made using craft foam and a toilet paper tube.

This was so much fun finding all of this stuff out of my stash;

So far I've just stacked it all up in a giant stack,

But I'm planning to start organizing soon.

I'm gonna try sorting by color in some type of horizontal paper storage.

But that's all I've got for you guys today.

And I'll see you guys tomorrow. :)

An EXTRA-LONG Post...

Hey guys! I'm back with you guys today, and sorry I didn't post yesterday, but I had a total volleyball MARATHON yesterday!! I did create a little yesterday though, so I'll just do an extra long post today. Oh yeah. And I did join a volleyball team a few days ago. My first game is Thursday! Wish me luck, we're gonna need it. :) So anyways, now that I've got you up to date on pretty much everything else that's going on in my life (which obviously isn't much) let's get to the crafty/art version. It's like my life is in two different stories. One for art and one for the rest of everything. Anyways, let's get started.

If you look above at the page I was working on today, you'll see that I just finished a page in my art journal. :) I kind of love it, and I think it's really pretty. I'm also starting on a sort of online art journal course (yes another. :P) and I'm probably gonna make a journal for that. This is actually a page in my 21 Secrets journal, and I love the way it turned out. I journaled, and put the title down in the corner. I actually used this same word on one of my index cards that you've already seen, but this just seemed to fit the page perfectly. Normally with art journaling I end up putting the title down first and then journaling what comes to mind when I think about the title. You might do it in some other way, but that's how I work, so that's what I'm doing. :)

Here's just a bit of a close up of the title and a bit of the journaling. Most of the journaling was really light; the gray circles were really textured since I used gesso to lay them down, plus did some lifting which added even more texture. Then, when I went to write on them, the ink in my pen just didn't flow as well. But, for emphasis, I did the last few words with a Sharpie. They go over anything.

Here are my index cards from yesterday and today. I love the one from yesterday; excellent texture, and I am really loving the textures. But seriously. The second one is kind of annoying to me for some strange reason. Don't even ask me why. I feel like it's just overly simple or something. I was considering just trashing this one altogether, never showing it on the blog, and simply counting this as one of the five "free days" we get for ICAD. But when I really started to think about it, I finally decided against it, since this is really about creating, and just having fun. And I did have fun. So that's what I'm doing, and I'm keeping it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Also, today, I worked on making some of my own stamps. I've been having a whole lot of fun making these recently, and I just love the way these two turned out. To make them, I simply cut some pieces out of cardboard (it was actually just a cereal box) and then did some punching on some craft foam. The one on the left was REALLY easy to make, and really quick. The one on the right took a bit longer, but I really love the effect I get with it so it was totally worth it. I love the variety I can get with making my own stamps. I love that I can literally make anything that I want, and it can be as epic as I want it to be. It's really cool. So far I normally just use black paint to stamp, but I've occasionally used other colors. I also used one of these (I'm not going to mention which) on my page for mine and Dede's challenge. I know that I'm torturing you here, but that's all the more reason to check in here on Tuesday, right?

One last thing before I go. This is a single, loose page that I've been working on for a bit of collage fodder. I love the way this turned out, even though it was just made by picking up paint from other pages (you can see the lifting from the circles of the page I showed at the top of this post :P) and a bunch of other colors I've just been messing around with. I love them so much. :) So that's pretty much all I've got for you today, but be sure to check in tomorrow. Okay? Okay. See you guys later! Bye!!

Art Journal Page and Homemade Stamps

Hey guys! First of all for today I just want to start off by apologizing for not posting yesterday. I was just otherwise distracted, and wasn't really feeling the art mood. So yeah. Sorry. But I'm posting now. :) I'm gonna start off with this page that I just was working on today; the blue strips that are on there are actually strips that I cut from a copy of a previous art journal page and glued onto it. I added white acrylic paint over the tops, and then alternating Portfolio oil pastels to each stripe. I finished it off with a layer of stamping of a foam flower stamp.

Here is one of the pages that I sort of have been making as extra collage material. I've been messing around with laying the book paper down on top of non dried paint, and then pulling it up. It creates excellent texture on both pieces. This one has been used on multiple pages and it almost ready for collage work. Probably what I'll do is make color copies in several sizes and use the photocopies instead of the original. And then maybe eventually I'll use the originals when I'm ready, and have made new ones to use. :) You can sort of see the words from the book paper in the background. These pages are from an old dictionary, but you could use anything. You could even use newspapers or magazine pages.

The last thing I wanted to share with you tonight is this picture of some stamps I've made. I made the eraser ones by carving into cheap, dollar store erasers with an exacto knife to create the designs. The swirly one I made by gluing string onto a piece of cardboard. And the other one I made by gluing a foam shape onto another piece of cardboard. :) That's all I've got for you today, so I guess I'll see you guys later! Bye!