Those of you that have followed me a while, know I don’t make pretty art in my journal. I create backgrounds to write on. I write a LOT in my journal and I write over the entire page. Here’s an example of a finished page.
I usually have one element that inspires me to start a page. In the one I’m going to show you it was some new washi tape. You can see it on the bottom right of the finished page.
I starte
d by gathering scraps of paper in turquoise and black (from the colors in the washitape). I glued them down with Mod Podge.
I wanted the background to look more uniform, so I painted the white paper with a teal colored glaze.
Now it’s looking pretty boring. My style is more messy and grungy, so I added some black.
Ah, that’s better! Now what? Well, I found this adaptive tool at the drug store. It is for people who have trouble with their hands. It allows them to write by creating the lines for them. It looked so cool I bought it to use in my art journal. So I used it as a stencil. I dabbed white paint over it using a makeup sponge.
Now the right hand page looks boring. So I used a stencil/mask that I made. I made it by drawing a flower with my hot glue gun on a piece of glass. (Note: if you try this, be sure and spead the glass with thick vaseline first. Even then you may need a putty knife to lift the stencil after it dries.) I sprayed over the stencil with Dylusions ink.
Now I’m looking at the wole spread and all those white lines from the first stencil are looking pretty stark. So, I use some alpha stecils with black paint, applied with a makeup sponge.
Okay, now what? I wanted to draw a girl’s face. But then to paint it is still pretty challenging for me, and I wasn’t in the mood. So I decided to just so something silly. I cut a girl’s face out of a magazine. I lightly sanded it, because the slick magazine paper doesn’t take paint well, and I knew I was going to paint over her face. Then I glued it down with Mod Podge.
To keep her features visible after I paint over her face, I went over them with a Sharpie.
Then I painted her face pink!
While I was doing her face, I forgot to take pictures. But I used paint and colored pencil for the features.For her hat and dress I used paint and gel pens.
What’s funny and pretty typical for me, is that at this point I had completely forgotten abut the tape that inspired the whole page in the beginning! But I remembered and added it below her dress. Here’s the whole spread.
It’s colorful, messy and fun. Just the way I like ‘em!
It’s sold gel and works so cool. They don’t bleed through the page and they won’t smear the ink if you use them over writing. But, as an art journaler I found an alternate use for them. I wrote with them and it looks like colored chalk! But it doesn’t rub off like chalk does. If you are a Bible reader, you will really like these for highlighting. The only thing I didn’t like is that the gel tends to sort of crumble and fall off if you press very hard.
The pen itself – the nib and ink – are like any other Sharpie pen (not marker). But the barrell is so nice! It’s stainless steel and very sleek. It’s heavy which I like and the grip is larger than the smaller Sharpie pens are. I’m taking Joanne Sharpe’s letter class and I’ve used this pen for most of my lettering because it’s a 
Lastly, they sent me a set of 
