Design Inspiration Through Art Journaling

Another activity I enjoy is quilting, particularly designing quilts.  As of late I've had this idea swirling around in my cranium about a new quilt design but it's still fuzzy.  I can't fully envision it.  So the other day I was playing around with some new ideas for art journaling and I thought of using my art journaling as inspiration for quilting.

My current fuzzy idea consists of having a solid back ground with different colored strips of fabric running through.  This is where my clear idea becomes hazy, so using some artist's tape I played around with what it might look like.  To be perfectly honest, when I started this page I didn't have the idea of using it to clarify my quilt design, but in the end I came to see how my art journaling could be used for this purpose.

I think it will be cool wot create fun and creative art journaling pages but then use that inspiration to jump start my ideas for potential new quilt designs.  Sort of percolating the idea that I may be able to literally wrap myself in my art journaling. 

I'm really excited to see where this leads.  I was feeling a little stuck in a rut when it comes to quilt designs but this could certainly be my new lease of quilt design creativity.  

Successful Image Transfer

Great news all! I have been successful in my quest to transfer an image. As I have mentioned early, my first couple of attempts didn't turn out exactly as planned.  AKA- it was a glob of gel medium and printer ink.  However, following the directions of L.K. Ludwig in her book Creative Wildfire I have successfully transferred an image.

And it really wasn't that difficult.  All you need is an image printed out on computer paper by an ink jet printer, some regular gel medium, an old credit card/brayer, a clean rag, and water.  After you print out your desired image you cut it to size and then spread the regular gel medium onto the background you wish to transfer the image.  You then press the image into the gel medium and using a brayer or old credit card you press the image into the page.  Then you take a clean damp rag and clean up any gel medium that may have squished out on the edges.  Finally, leave the image to dry completely.

Once it has dried using your damp rag press it on the back of the paper with the image you are transferring.  Then using your finger rub the damp area until the white backing starts you roll up and peel off.  Continue to do this until the entire image can be seen.  Be careful not to rub to hard so you don't rub the entire image off the page. 

I have to say I'm very pleased with the outcome and would like to experiment with this process to see what kind of cool effects I can achieve.

Leave your Mark with Home-Made Stamps

Stamps can add a cool effect to art journaling pages, but let's be honest they are expensive if you buy them at a local craft store.  However, I have discovered that it's super easy to make your own stamps. 

All you need is some craft foam.  This is readily available in the local craft store in the kid's section.  The best kind to buy is the one with a sticker backing.  It's pretty thin so you need to by a few pieces of thicker foam without a sticker backing to be used as a supporter.

All you have to do is take the thin foam and draw whatever design you wish.  Then using a craft knife you cut it out.  Peel off the sticker backing a place on the thick foam.  Then just cut the whole thing out and you now have a stamp.  This is really inexpensive and allows you all kinds of different options since you can design your own.  

Adding your own Whimsical Flare

Sometimes you just can't get your creative wheels turning, if your like me it's probably because you are over thinking it.  You need external inspiration to grease your gears to get those creative hydraulics moving again. 

One way to do this is to mimic another's page and when you feel comfortable going on your own, you deviate to make it your own.  I do this when I'm staring at a blank page and feeling like I'm stuck.  I grab Randi Feuerhelm-Watts handy-dandy deck of inspiration cards and flip through until I find one that I like. 

For instance, the page above is one that I did based on one of Randi's works.  Hers included actual photographs and they were all nice and square with the page, but my instinct was to be a bit more whimsical. 

I started with just a magazine page and then scraped orange paint on one side and covered the rest in green or white, but using a light enough coat to let the words show through.  I then clustered stamped circles on the scraped orange paint and finally placed three colorful magazine pictures over the green and white page.

This exercise helped get the ideas flowing and resulted in two more really fun and colorful pages.  This first one was done with old torn up index cards that I painted orange and then stamped with green paint and placed a church at the bottom.  The index cards have fact about the Catholic Church I did for a research paper in college.  Hence the reason I placed the church at the bottom of the page.

This second picture is just a paint scraping but one where I didn't cover the entire page, and decided to add a few lines of bright green color. This was a great way to kick start my creativity, and I have discovered inspiration can come from some unexpected and strange places.

Using Photography

I have always found photography fascinating, but I haven't had much experience.  And besides my iPhone, I don't even own a camera; however, one morning while looking through the app store I found an app call Color Splash. It allows for you to upload a picture which then is automatically turned to black and white and then using your finger you can color back in the parts you want. 

So I took a few pictures around my neighborhood and played around with them in the app. Then I thought that some of them might make a nice addition to an art journaling page.  I printed one of my favorites out and added it to a page that I had painted yellow, added a few black lines, a strip of light blue card stock, and an old used index card I painted a bright blue color.

I have started looking at other ways to use photographs.  One thing that I decide to give a whirl was painting the pictures after I printed them on photo paper, and the effect is kind of cool.  It allows a certain flexibility when using photographs.

For instance, I used a black and white sketch of a woman wearing a bra and then painted the bra a dark teal color, her hair brown, and her lips a classic red.  It was easy to do and had a cool effect.  I've started experimenting with other photos of well and am excited to see how they turn out.

What a Beautiful Mess

As I've already mentioned that everything that happens in art journaling doesn't always turn out beautiful.  But experimenting is half the fun and to be honest even experiments that goes spectacularly wrong can be remedied and result in some cool pages.

A prime example is my first attempt at transference.  The notion of image transference seems simple enough.  This is where you take a image printed on computer paper and press it into a background page covered in either gesso or gel medium.  You rub it down and then peel the image up and ta-da the image is now on your background.

However, it doesn't always work out this easily, for I did as I described above but when I pulled the image up it was a gloppy mess of distorted color and gel medium.  Obviously, I missed something, but I was currently left with a very messy page. 

I scraped as much of it off as I could.  I then doused the page with a smattering of watercolors, but the left over muck was still noticeable, so I pasted a piece of tissue paper over the offending area, then smothered it with blue acrylic paint and gesso.  Now that most of the mess was camouflaged I decided to add something else to re-direct the viewers' focus.

What I chose to add was a purple leaf stamp.  This is a stamp that I actually created from craft foam I purchased at the local craft store.  I then painted  it purple and pressed it onto the page.  The result was surprisingly nice based on how it originally turned out. 

Sometimes mistakes make your creativity stretch much further than you ever knew it could go. 

Getting Stuck

I had been on a pretty good roll with my art journaling.  However, around the time of Thanksgiving I came to a rather abrupt halt.  I don't know why.  The idea of art journaling still exciting me but just sitting down and doing it never happened because I couldn't think of what I wanted to do once I sat down.

I decided to give it a break, but left all my materials out, so when an idea struck me I would be ready to go.  After Christmas I went to Barnes and Nobles because I had a gift card. I decided to check out the arts and crafts section.  Here I found several books on art journaling and a deck of inspiration cards called Wide Open: Inspiration and Techniques for Art Journaling on the Edge by Randi Feuerhelm-Watts.  This seemed to be just what I needed a little boost in my creativity.  I purchased it, and while I was waiting for the train I opened up the package and thumbed through some of the cards.

One card talked about hands and for some reason this tripped an artsy trigger, and I knew I was back in business.  I came home plopped myself down at my desk grabbed some purple paint and gesso and got to work.  I smothered a blank page in my purple paint/gesso combo, then somewhat haphazardly glued pink tissue paper over that.  I then rather savagely ripped some card stock and placed that at an angle over the page.  I then proceeded to add a bit of text from an advertisement.  At this juncture, I planted my hand in the middle of the page and drew around it with a charcoal pencil. I then decided, quite instintual, to add some random stenciled letters to the mix as well as covering the page with a piece of peach tissue paper that was off-set from the page. And I finally ended with a smear of blue paint with a dash of gesso.

I was back, so to speak.  The page wasn't my favorite, but it was helping my creative juices to get flowing and that is all that I really needed.  I was excited to see what would come next.