How to Art Journal when you're too scared to start

So it might surprise you to hear this but I wanted to start Art Journaling for about a year before I actually picked anything up and made anything inside of a journal. I was scared, scared of so many things but mostly of not being good enough. It's so funny all of the silly things we think inside our heads isn't? Well let's get over whatever is stoping you from starting together ok?

1. Go get a journal

So it might sound really obvious, but you need something to work in when you sit down to create right? Assuming you've not started yet it can be quite daunting to try and figure out what kind of journal could be right for you, too many choices!

I felt the same when I was looking at journals so you know what I did? I jus went ahead and bought a cheap and cheerful one. My reason behind this was that I didn't care that much about it so I didn't mind if I messed it up a bit, I wasn't to afraid to get started in a super fancy journal.

My reasoning went something like this... 

"I'll buy an el cheapo book and if I like it and it's something that sticks I'll invest in something better that I can grow in"

Many, many, many journals later I would say it worked! 

2. Use what you have

Don't go out and spend piles of money on a whole load of art supplies right off the bat, you have no idea if you're going to love it (spoiler alert, you will!) and you might even go buy things you have no idea how to use or feel intimidated by.

When I first started out I had a bit of a collection of scrapbooking supplies and some really old acrylic paints. So I bought a couple of cheap brushes and I started from there. I built my collection gradually over time, one Liquitex Paint Marker at a time! 

Some great supplies I am sure you have to hand or can get for very cheap are;

- Felt tip pens - these can often be used with water to create really cool effects

- Magazines / Catalogues - These are everywhere and are a great source of color inspiration and collage material

- Children's Art Supplies - if you have kids you have everything you need in the house already to get going I am sure. Glue sticks, glitter, paints, gel pens to name but a few. If you don't have kids there is no reason you can't go to the store and pick up one of those large art sets made for them. These are a great inexpensive way to try out a whole range of supplies.

3. Don't get sucked into the Pintrest black hole

Ok, we are all SUPER guilty of this one (double hands up for me!) and it's so easy to do. We type in "art journal ideas" into Pintrest and then six hours later we emerge from the black hole 

Having a style doesn’t come quickly

I know I said I wasn’t going to use that quote but you have to give your style some time to develop and you can only do that from making, making and making some more. Trying on different styles you like and taking things from it that work is so important.

Let’s dig a little deeper!

What if there was something that could help you work though identifying your style and give you some great ideas of ways to grow it? Wouldn’t that be great? Well my friend, I got your back! I’ve created the “Map Your Style Workbook” and you can get it for free from me right now!

The workbook is broken into two sections. Firstly we look at your style and how to identify it with a series of excercises. The next section takes the elements of our style we already have and works on ways to grow it more, to push you (gently!) outside of your comfort zone!

So what are you waiting for! Join me and help Map Your Style right now!

Stamping and Painting and Inking Oh My!

Sometimes when I sit down I just can't help myself and I have to throw everything but the kitchen sink in it. I try to restrain myself but then I remember it's my journal to do as I dang well please. I had a lot of fun with this spread!

Stamp it up!

I'm using Roben-Marie Smith's Mixed Media Essentials stamp set for this spread and I have to say, it's one of my favourites. I may be a little biased though! (Love you Roben-Marie!) This stamp set has a great collection of small and larger hero image stamps and you get some great options in the sheet.

New Favourite Supply

It seems like every other week I have a new favourite supply but I am really in love with this new ink I bought from Windsor and Newton. The color is Carmine and it is the most amazing shade of pink magenta and it is super saturated. Blending it with water on this page did nothing to dull it's vibrancy, totally in love!

Don't forget to subscribe!

Please don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven't already. That way you can be sure to not miss any tutorials that are coming up this month and many more to come!

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You can sign up right now for my free online class, Play with Black!

Black is often a color which is overlooked when working with our mixed media projects. With so many other amazing colors available, it's easy to do.

Join me as we delve into the dark side of mixed media! Working with only a few supplies, let’s explore a variety of ways black and its values  can be used to create a gorgeous, layered art journal page.

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more tutorials to enjoy

How to Save an Ugly Art Journal Page

We've all been there right? A page starts out OK but then very quickly decends into pure ugliness. This happened to me recently when I picked out one of the worst colors in my paint repertoire and there was a lot of work to get it somewhere I was happy with.

just keep going

I think that the most important thing to remember when working through the ugly phase is to remember that it is just a phase and you can reach the other side. There are lots of ways to work through it and for this time around I relied on my old friend, gesso to dilute the color and push it back again before moving on.

start over again

Remember, this is just paper and paint, everything can be fixed. Either by adding layers of more paint on top or even by painting over completley with gesso and starting from scratch. This is YOUR journal page and you can do what you dang well please.

Don't forget to subscribe!

Please don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven't already. That way you can be sure to not miss any tutorials that are coming up this month and many more to come!

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You can sign up right now for my free online class, Play with Black!

Black is often a color which is overlooked when working with our mixed media projects. With so many other amazing colors available, it's easy to do.

Join me as we delve into the dark side of mixed media! Working with only a few supplies, let’s explore a variety of ways black and its values  can be used to create a gorgeous, layered art journal page.

more tutorials to enjoy

Get your fingers messy!

There is nothing I love more than messy, painty fingers. There's something about getting your hands right in there when creating and this art journal spread is the perfect mix of this!

Gesso gesso gesso

I use a lot of gesso in this journal spread but not just to prepare my pages for paint like you would expect. I use it as a white paint here for sections of the page and also to blend my sections together. Gesso is a great medium, so versatile!

scribble your thoughts

I love adding in snippets of journaling to my pages but it can be hard to share anything too personal online. So I like to make sure that I write things in a really messy and hard to read way. I can just about make it out but often it's just a feeling or whatever ever is going through my mind at the time of creation. Give it a try next time you're creating!

Don't forget to subscribe!

Please don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven't already. That way you can be sure to not miss any tutorials that are coming up this month and many more to come!

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You can sign up right now for my free online class, Play with Black!

Black is often a color which is overlooked when working with our mixed media projects. With so many other amazing colors available, it's easy to do.

Join me as we delve into the dark side of mixed media! Working with only a few supplies, let’s explore a variety of ways black and its values  can be used to create a gorgeous, layered art journal page.

Photocopies and Art Journals

Ah the humble photocopy. I don't think that there is an more overlooked and underrated mixed media art supply out there! There is just so much that you can do with them! Play with the toner levels and contrast, photocopy a photocopied coy (say that five times fast!) the possibilities are endless.

Copy Cat

I've taken the simpler route today in my altered book (have I already said how much I love this book??) and just copied a flower illustration to use in my spread. I fussy cut around the edges and then used masking tape to give it a bit of texture and to make it almost look like a pressed flower stuck into the book.

Mark it up

When I am putting down paint onto my journal spreads it may look like a totally random process but I promise it isn't. Well most of the time it isn't! I like to think of the colors that I am putting down as almost like a patchwork quilt. In the video you'll see I use these patches of paint to define where a particular color of mark or type of mark making is going to take place. This way there is always a kind of plan in place for when I come to the next layer.

Don't forget to subscribe!

Please don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven't already. That way you can be sure to not miss any tutorials that are coming up this month and many more to come!

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You can sign up right now for my free online class, Play with Black!

Black is often a color which is overlooked when working with our mixed media projects. With so many other amazing colors available, it's easy to do.

Join me as we delve into the dark side of mixed media! Working with only a few supplies, let’s explore a variety of ways black and its values  can be used to create a gorgeous, layered art journal page.

how to art journal when you are too scared to start

So it might surprise you to hear this but I wanted to start Art Journaling for about a year before I actually picked anything up and made anything inside of a journal. I was scared, scared of so many things but mostly of not being good enough. It's so funny all of the silly things we think inside our heads isn't? Well let's get over whatever is stoping you from starting together ok?

What is a style?

Ok so let’s look at what the official definition of the word style is;

Style - noun

1. A particular procedure by which something is done; a manner or way.

2. A distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed.

What I find so interesting is that some of the synonyms that come up when you look at style are things like technique, method, approach, system, form and practice.

When I think of the word “style” in terms of art work I think of something that makes someone’s work stand out from the feed as their own. So when you’re scrolling through the feed on Instagram or facebook you know it belongs to them.

But where is my style?

It’s so easy to to feel like we just don’t have a style because we see all these other people out there who so clearly do. You know the people I’m talking about, the ones we see posting all the time and you know straight away it’s theirs.

Looking for your “style” and lamenting about it is one of the main things that I hear about online, especially with people who are just starting out. It is easy to look at people who have been creating for longer than us and who have what we feel is a style already.

And don’t worry, I won’t be telling you “don’t compare your start to someone else’s middle” because that’s just not helping anyone really is it?

Look at your work as a the whole body, not individual pieces

So if we look at some of the synonyms again associated with Style we can start to find some areas to look at in our own work.

Is there a particular technique that you reach for again and again? Gelli Printing, watercolours, acrylic paint or stamping?

Do you always start your page in the same way? What approach do you take when you open up a blank page? If you start to look at how you create from this point of view perhaps you can see a little bit of a tiny baby style beginning to emerge.

Having a style doesn’t come quickly

I know I said I wasn’t going to use that quote but you have to give your style some time to develop and you can only do that from making, making and making some more. Trying on different styles you like and taking things from it that work is so important.

Let’s dig a little deeper!

What if there was something that could help you work though identifying your style and give you some great ideas of ways to grow it? Wouldn’t that be great? Well my friend, I got your back! I’ve created the “Map Your Style Workbook” and you can get it for free from me right now!

The workbook is broken into two sections. Firstly we look at your style and how to identify it with a series of excercises. The next section takes the elements of our style we already have and works on ways to grow it more, to push you (gently!) outside of your comfort zone!

So what are you waiting for! Join me and help Map Your Style right now!

Creating with Digital Printables

I am so excited to create this tutorial for you because I am actually using my own supplies for a change! Creating my digital downloads has been a dream of mine for quite some time now and they are finally ready to send out into the world!

Grab your altered book journal!

I'm creating today inside my altered book journal and I have to say, it's fast turning into one of my favorite places to create in. Starting off with text already on the page means that you don't have to worry about breaking that pesky blank page.

Shop my supplies

I'm creating using my very own supplies here and they are available here in my Etsy Shop! Creating digital supplies means that you get access to them straight away, no stalking the post man! Plus you can print these supplies again and again and print them onto anything that will fit through your printer!

Don't forget to subscribe!

Please don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven't already. That way you can be sure to not miss any tutorials that are coming up this month and many more to come!

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You can sign up right now for my free online class, Play with Black!

Black is often a color which is overlooked when working with our mixed media projects. With so many other amazing colors available, it's easy to do.

Join me as we delve into the dark side of mixed media! Working with only a few supplies, let’s explore a variety of ways black and its values  can be used to create a gorgeous, layered art journal page.

Image Transfer with Packing Tape

In this tutorial I am going to be sharing how to do an image transfer with packing tape. Using image transfers can be a lot of fun in your art journals and mixed media projects and they are a great way to achieve an easy, no bulk, layer to your work.

Packing tape and spoon

The supplies for this tutorial are pretty small. You need your packing tape and you need a spoon. After that you just need a magazine image to work with for your transfer.

Layer it up baby

The packing tape has very little stick left in it once it has been soaking so you'll need to apply some extra glue to adhere it to your page. I'd recommend something like a glue stick (I used UHU) Wet glue can cause the tape to buckle.

Don't forget to subscribe!

Please don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven't already. That way you can be sure to not miss any tutorials that are coming up this month and many more to come!

---

You can sign up right now for my free online class, Play with Black!

Black is often a color which is overlooked when working with our mixed media projects. With so many other amazing colors available, it's easy to do.

Join me as we delve into the dark side of mixed media! Working with only a few supplies, let’s explore a variety of ways black and its values  can be used to create a gorgeous, layered art journal page.