Fearless Art Journaling, Part 6: Creation of a Page

I have been blown away by the number of hits my Fearless Art Journaling series has received, especially considering I haven't added a new post in the series in over a year. What this tells me is that a lot of folks out there are very interested in art journaling, with making backgrounds being at the top of the list, at least as far as my own page views are concerned.

For this part in the Fearless Art Journaling series, I thought I'd show you the construction of one of my own pages from start to finish. I hope it gives you some ideas of your own as I show how an art journal page goes from blank paper to completed page.

In the past year, I haven't been as prolific in my own journaling. In fact, until the other day, I hadn't even opened my art journal since last summer. I wanted to change that, so a couple days ago I decided to do a quick page and just play around. No pressure, no stress, just play, which is how I always encourage anyone to work in their journal. 

I knew I wanted to make use of my new aspen trees template, but other than that, I had no real goal or outcome in mind. I started the page by sponging on Antique Linen Distress Ink, then I stamped this nifty newspaper background using Frayed Burlap DI.

Next, I pulled out the template. I used blue painter's tape to keep it in place, and using a Ranger ink blending tool, I rubbed on some Rusty Hinge DI. 

Working in the same way, I rubbed on Wild Honey, Crushed Olive, and Broken China. After removing the template, I used a toothbrush to splatter Transparent Raw Umber acrylic ink. 

At this point, I felt the area where I'd used the template needed to be framed out more, so I grabbed some paper scraps (I have a plethora of scraps and am thrilled anytime I can find a use for them) and glued them down to create a frame. I also added some washi tape in a couple spots. 

This is the point where I sat back and looked at the page, trying to decide where to go next. I felt like I wanted to add the image of a woman's face in the trees, so I picked out one of my rubber stamps for that purpose. I wanted some focus on the woman's face and felt that just stamping directly onto the trees would be too busy, so I brushed on off-white acrylic paint where I wanted to stamp the face. I also dry brushed this same paint in different areas all over the page, and then rubbed on some Broken China where I planned to stamp the face. It was then I remembered I'd wanted to flick water onto the page to make use of the water-reactive properties of Distress Inks. I love how the water droplets look with the ink and paint together. 

Once everything was dry, I stamped the woman's face in Ranger's Archival Ink in Sepia. This is a permanent ink that works pretty well on glossy surfaces, but it does need time to dry on any glossy or painted surface, so at this point, I walked away to have a cup of coffee as I let the ink dry. Once the ink had dried, I stamped the tassels and outlined the face in Broken China using a blender marker. 

I like how this page turned out and feel it's pretty much complete and ready for my writing. I might add something later, as it seems usually I tweak pages some here and there if I feel later it needs something more. 

I hope showing the steps involved in creating this simple page gives the beginners out there a little insight into how a page can be constructed.