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NewsletterArt Journal With Me – Randomness with backgrounds
Happy Tuesday to everyone! It’s time for me to share some art journaling pages I’ve been playing with this week. I started with random backgrounds on several pages…collaging in some papers and painting with whatever colors I had lying around. The nice thing about art journaling is not having to plan anything really…just let your hands create and lead you forward naturally. Last week I created a super bright collage of flowers, so this time I went with kraft paper and more muted earth tones, even though I couldn’t help putting in some bright red! I first glued papers onto my pages, then rubbed paint around with my fingers. It’s fun to just put down layers without thinking much of how I was going to finish it up…after everything was dry I could go in with pen and ink for details and journaling.
This first spread still has the flowers and brightness of Spring incorporated…I guess I can’t help it. I was listening to the podcast by Jamie Ridler interviewing Carmen Torbus while working on this…hence all the positivity! You can see the photo of background alone up top and then my random doodles that were added in. I was using a new black pen that turns out to be super super inky, which I like for how true black it is, but the inkiness actually flicks around because of the texture from the paint…pretty weird!
You can also create cool textures on your backgrounds if you use crinkled paper to take away some paint from the surface when it’s all still wet. That’s what I did below to get a speckled wall type of texture all over my pages. It’s pretty rough and crazy looking, but sometimes you can also find interesting shapes in the textures.
I actually made myself a doll template to play around with because it helps me visualize various positions for drawing. I know you can buy one of those real wooden dolls for modeling, but it’s just as easy to make yourself a paper doll and put it in different positions. Feel free to download my PDF doll template for your personal use. This little activity turned into thoughts about not liking dolls in general – they are scary to me! I never played with dolls as a child…never owned a barbie and was much more into plushies or playing with plastic figurine toys. Maybe because I have older brothers and it was easier to just play along with their toys!
In the end, I don’t feel totally satisfied with these pages yet, but I know I can always go back and add to it. Always remember that you can keep working on pages for as long as you like, in whatever order you like…that is the beauty and freedom of having a personal art journal. It’s definitely my place to play with freedom and without the pressure of having to finish. I also started another background…not sure where it will take me yet…
I hope you will experiment with playing in an art journal and making random backgrounds – in fact many people work on backgrounds all the time and fill them in when they feel like it at a later date. It’s definitely fun and liberating when you can just play with color on a page and not have to think about composition or the final layout. I do that often when working on other pieces and have leftover paint to just smear onto pages. There are also plenty of techniques to explore in creating backgrounds…try them out and have fun!
Posted on April 6, 2010 at 1:52 pm | art journal
Hello fellow explorers and creative minds! My name is Linda, aka tortagialla - a nickname my adorable husband dubbed me meaning "yellow cake" in Italian. I'm your not-so-typical Californian girl who took the plunge and moved to the Tuscan hills of Italy. Now I'm living my dream designing, illustrating and crafting full-time. You can contact me via email linda [!at] tortagialla [!dot] com
I love the idea of using a doll template, so nice of you to share!
You are so welcome! I was just thinking about grade school and how we always made doll templates for Thanksgiving and attached them with brads to play with. I didn’t have any brads, so just strung it all together, but it’s pretty fun anyway!
I can’t believe what I saw in your journal page of doll and also what you wrote about the wooden dolls from stores! (I call them artist mannequins.) I just did a drawing using the mannequins and I’m thinking of setting up an art project using them. I’m so excited to see you journal page.
What is it about doll that either scares us and / or inspires us?
I get what you mean by making a doll template to work with and THANK YOU for the free download. I’m absolutely loving it!! I’m going to write a plug of your doll template in my blog.
As usual, you persistence in your art is inspiring. Thank you for sharing.
Haha, you are right that perhaps even something seemingly scary can be inspiring perhaps…I just don’t like the fake little people…maybe a bad horror movie I saw as a kid…eek! I’m so glad you can use the doll template and so honored you would write about it! Thanks a bunch!
LOL, I visited Fresh Vintage after visiting your blog and if dolls scare you this will totally freak you out
it did me anyway
http://freshvintage.typepad.com/freshvintage/2010/03/vintage-doll-parts-masters-johnson-book.html
Oh my gosh…that is scary scary! Doll parts is even spookier…don’t you think!??!
Dearest Linda, it’s so nice of you to share pages of your journals with us! So lovely of you to share your doll template with us! Yipee and hoooray! Have a lovely merry happy week and love to you!
You are very welcome, hope you have a lovely week yourself
Your background textures are really cool and inspiring. I was inspired by the carmen-talk too yesterday when I had a listen and came her from that post.
I love art journaling!
Thanks so much, I’m glad you visited and I hope I can share more…I post my art journaling every Tuesday!
Oh so funny! I thought I might be the only girl in the world who didn’t like dolls. Stuffed animals (most) were ok, but dolls were too creepy. Might have to rethink that…
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who doesn’t like dolls…I agree they are too creepy!
OK- Seriously…. I am so glad you found ME on my blog, or i would never have found you.
I love your blogs and your art journal pages are fantastic!
Oh, Tanya! Thanks so much for checking out my work…I really appreciate it! I totally love to share all this stuff I’m doing…having moved to Italy, even though it’s a fantastic place with wonderful people – I still miss sharing crafty stuff and in English