Winter Warmth Art Journal page

Here is my second art journal page that Caroline and I have challenged each other with.
This months challenge theme was "Christmas/Winter"

So lets get to the details.
I adhered some pattern tissue paper to the pages.
After cutting the excess tissue off, I then sanded the edges to get them as close to the page as I could.
The red you see here is left over from last month, when I cleaned off my stencils.
I was a bit worried about this….but I just went with it.

I used Gelatos for the background colour.
Gelatos remind me of a crayon…I just coloured it on the background and then blended it together with a baby wipe.
I wanted a deep blue (as I wanted it to look like a night time sky) so I added some dark blue colour spray on here as well.
See how the red is still coming through the tissue…I'm still going to go with it.
I told myself it looks like the Northern Lights ;)

I also wanted to add some snow to my scene.
I used Gesso to paint the snow.
I then added some texture to the snow with an embossing plate that I applied gesso on and used as a stamp.
I knew as I was doing this, that I should have added another layer or so of gesso to the snowbank, but I was too excited to use the embossing plate as a stamp, lol.

I drew my whimsical house on some scratch paper and then transferred that onto some pattern paper.
Fussy cut the pieces of the house out of the pattern paper.
After adhering the house to the background, I then added snowflakes with some modelling paste and a stencil.

I printed my sentiment out on the computer and then inked the words before cutting them out.
I wasn't sure which sizing I was going to use, so printed the different sizes off at the same time.
As you can see, I made a slight mistake in my sentiment.
I didn't notice until I was totally done with the page….but I fixed it ;)
I changed it to "Winter Night" instead of "winter day".

I then used my Big Brush Pitt Pens to add shading around my elements.
This really ties the page together…I love these things :)
I also added some gesso to the tips of the snowflakes, as the embossing paste dried, it took on the colour of the background. The Gesso helped to make the snowflakes more crisp white.

I wanted to add some highlights to the hearts that are coming out of the chimney, but all of my white gell pens or markers didn't want to work, grrrrrr.
So I tried the Picket Fence distress marker and it gave them a bit of a highlight.

So there you have it my Art Journal page complete :)

I was in a bit of a fog while making this page and this video.
So excuse the dippiness and enjoy ;)
If you would rather watch the video on my YouTube channel…just click the link "Tracy's Treasures24"
I am so excited to start on my newest challenge.
I think I may give Caroline a heart attack if I finished it early…and I wouldn't want to do that, teehee.
Now go over to "Caroline's" blog and see her masterpiece to our challenge.
So much texture on her page :)

I am linking my project on "The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #8. Something new for the New Year".
I am also linking my project up to "Paper Issues "Say it isn't Snow" challenge.
I am new to art journaling, but using Gelatos was a very first for me :)

I hope you all had a very Creative Thursday :)

Tracy :)

Grateful Art Journal pages

Here is my completed art journal page :)
If you remember Caroline and I came up with a challenge to each other to do an art journal page.
We were both intimidated by all the products and techniques out there, that we both were hesitant to start on our own…I had some of my art journal products for a couple of years.
As you can tell, I am not a jump right in there type of person, teehee.

Our theme was Grateful with Autumn colours.
I knew I was going to do my family, and I love rich, deep autumn colours…but how to go about putting them together.

I started by adding some tissue paper to the pages.
The tissue paper bubbled a bit as it was drying, so I added another coat of matt medium to the top of the tissue paper, hoping it would smooth out the tissue..it didn't.

I then added some acrylic paint.
The colour was a deep burgundy colour, but because of the matt medium I added to the page, the paint seemed to lighten in colour.
So instead of it being a deep burgundy, it seemed to take on a deep pinky colour.

I added some orange and browns to the pages, working out to the edges.
But I was mad at myself for forgetting to blend the paints with a baby wipe or wet cloth as I went :(
I did not like the look of the out come at all!!
I was going to just gesso over the whole page, but thought….just work with it.

So I took a baby wipe and rubbed the heck out of the page.
Of course I knew that the paint wouldn't blend as I had painted it days before, and it was totally dry.
But what it did do was take off some of the paint.
I kind of liked the out come :)
In some spots, I rubbed it to the tissue and no paint was visible.
So I added some tea dye distress stain to the whole page to blend throughout.
Background done…time to add my elements :)

I wanted to use a photo of my family.
See scrapbooker at heart, teehee.
I printed out my photo and adhered it to the corner of my page.
I also wanted to play with some molding paste. You can use dry wall compound for this as well.
At this point I don't know what I was thinking, because what I was planning to do would never work out with how I did it, lol.
I wanted my photo to blend in with the background, and have hearts around it.
I didn't work out as planned the first time around…but that is how it goes sometimes.

To get the photo to blend in more with the background, I just smeared the hearts that I made with the stencil.
I then added some spray mist with a make up sponge.
But I still wanted hearts around our photo.
Grabbed the stencil again after the molding paste was dry and added some spray.

I also drew around the hearts as when I sprayed them, they bled a bit on the paste.
It was at this point that I forgot to keep taking photos…but I will have a video to the process at the end of my post.

You all know I love to journal, so I had to add a bit of that to my page as well.
I printed the words up on my computer on regular copy paper.
Then I cut them into strips and added 3 different distress ink colours to the papers so they would blend nicely with the background.
I forgot the "the" on the last line, so I had to re-do the last strip when the page was all completed.

This is the second page.
When I first started these pages, this page was going to hold the journaling…but I wanted to add my leaves.
I didn't use my "real" leaves that I shared in a earlier post as they didn't want to stick to the page, but they stuck to my fingers, lol.
I like the colour of these leaves. I added some shading to them as well.

Wow, this was a long post.
I hope you stuck with me through it all, lol.

Oh look, I'm not done…
I have a video to share with you on how I put these pages together in more detail :)
If you would rather watch it on my YouTube channel just click on the link "Tracy's Treasures24"

I would like to say thank you to Caroline for joining me in this challenge into art journaling, and I am looking forward to our next challenge :)
If you would like to see Carolines take on our challenge, just click on the link "Grateful Challenge"

I hope you all had a very Creative Day
I am going to spend the rest of mine eating munchies and drinking a nice glass of ice-cold Coke…and most importantly, watching a marathon of the Walking Dead :)

Tracy :)

Journal Sneak Peek ;)

I finally finished my journal page…but this isn't the completed page.
I am uploading a video on it, that should take most of the night, but I wanted to share something tonight.

I wanted to blend the paints, but guess what….I totally forgot to do that as I was adding my paints.
I was going to scrap the page and just add gesso to the whole thing.
But then I thought what the heck….what do I have to lose.
So I took a very wet baby wipe and rubbed the heck out of the page.
I actually like the worn look to it.

Here is the page before I rubbed the heck out of it…see why I wanted to cover it up.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for the big reveal, lol.
Now I need to go and tidy off my desk….I sure know how to make a big, big mess, teehee.

I hope you all had a very Creative Saturday :)

Tracy :)

Come Learn with Me…Art Journaling…Glue

I wanted to find out what is the best glue to use in my Art Journal.

I had Matt Medium, Gloss medium/Varnish, glue with water (so it spreads more easily) and Mod Podge
First I used tissue paper to glue down, as it is light weight.
All of the glues, worked great for this.
When I used thick paper (it was water colour paper) all were okay, but when I started to pick at them, the best one was the glue with water. The rest of them peeled up, except the glue with water and the Gloss Medium/Varnish that I added a top coat to.
The reason I added colour to the paper, was to see if the colour would bleed. It did not bleed on any of the glues.

I have more detailed information in my video :)
If you would like to watch my video on my YouTube channel just click on the link "Tracy's Treasures24"
I hope you all had a Creative Tuesday :)

I am so close to completing my art journal page….so close ;)

Tracy :)

Come Learn with Me…Art Journaling…Gesso

When I first heard of gesso, I had no idea why we would even need it in our journals.
Then once I thought of it like primer when painting a wall…then it made perfect sense.

There are different types of gesso in the market.
There is a thick bodied gesso, clear gesso and even black gesso…but you can also colour your gesso yourself.
Gesso can also be used as a cover up.
If you don't like the page you are working on…just gesso over it.
If you want to tone down or cover up the papers you are using…just gesso it up.

I wanted to see the difference in having gesso on a page as opposed to not having gesso on the page.
The left hand side has gesso, the right hand side is plain art paper.
From the photo you may not notice the difference, but in the video it is more clear.
What I did notice is that with the gesso on the page, the mediums I used seemed to go on the pages more smoothly.

There is so much more information on my video.
If you would rather watch my video on my YouTube channel (as my blog doesn't show the full view), just click on the link "Tracy's Treasures"

Onto My Day:
Because me video was longer than 15 minutes, it didn't upload at night.
I had to verify my account, which was odd as I was posting it on my account.
So after I verified my account, I had to re-upload my video, which took another 5 hours..grrrr.
Because of this I ended up reading a novel most of the morning.
But later in the afternoon, I headed to Chapters Bookstore for another journal…yes you read that correctly, lol.

I hope you enjoy the video and hope you have a very Creative day :)

Tracy :)

Art Journaling…Come Learn with Me…Journals

This is the second video in my series of art journaling.
To check out my 1st post, click the link "Art Journaling"
I mentioned I was going to start with Gesso, but I figured we should start with journals, as that is the most important art supple we will need :)

There are many types of journals.
Some are coil, spiral or ring bound and some are stitched or glued in their binding.
You may think it doesn't really matter, but the more you work with each type, you will figure out with type you prefer.
The bound journals lay nice and flat. They are great for working on each page individually.
The journals that are bound by stitching or glue are great for working on two page spreads…can you tell I"m a scrapbooker ;)

Also what to look for in a journal is the type of paper that they contain.
I personally like water colour paper because the paper is quite thick and takes mediums very well.
But then again you can use thin paper or any type of paper if you treat it with Gesso first….but lets not get ahead of ourselves ;)

I made a video where I explain my findings in more detail :)
If you would rather watch my video on my YouTube channel (as my blog doesn't show the full screen) just click on the link :)   "Tracy's Treasures24"
I hope to inspire you to try art journaling, where we can all learn together :)

I hope you all had a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)