Sparkle Art Journal page - Never Let Anyone Dull Your Sparkle

Here is the 3rd installment in my (apparently) Prima art journal.  This little beauty is Shay and she's from Julie Nutting's Prima Doll stamp selection.

First, since this is in an altered composition notebook, each page is actually 2 pages that are sealed together with matte medium.  I then laid down two different napkin layers.  On the left is a peacock napkin, on the right is a pice with the Eiffel Tower and french things.  I accidentally ripped the page at the top, so I put some Tim Holtz tissue paper (Melange) since that stuff is stronger than ... well, it's strong!  Way thicker than your typical tissue paper.  Anyway, then I pained a thin wash of blue acrylic paint. 
I added a border and leave design from cardstock and decoupaged.  It's difficult to see the petals, but I took an old book page and painted with some metallic acrylic paints (gold and bronze) before decoupaging.  You can see from the center of the flower I did the same thing, only I didn't use a metallic paint.  After they were dry, I did some doodling.  The magenta flowers are just sponged paint and doodling.

The quote was printed onto cardstock and then layered on the same old olive Stampin' Up cardstock to tie in the colors.  I used the Dylusions stamp set for 'Sparkle'.  I've got some diamond Stickles 'sparkles' leading away from the word, as well as a dot on the top of each of the letters.

 

 Shay was paper pieced from different card stock (dress) and Neenah paper (flesh/hair) then decoupaged onto the page.  I then colored/shaded with Copics before adding her own BLING with platinum Stickles.  The heart is also a piece from that book page that I used for the flower petals.  A little doodling later, and the sentiment was added with a few more Stickles for sparkly effect.

I am really loving these Prima dolls by Julie Nutting - So perfect ... Alas, I don't have enough of them (don't we all say that about our supplies?) and will have to get more if I'm going to keep this book a "Prima Book".

Thanks for popping in ... Have a wonderful day!

Collette

icads x 3

Okay, here's a couple of Index Cards a Day samples ... Officially one month in the bag, one to go ...

Day #29 - the prompt was California ... I asked Tay give me 2 things/words/themes when I say "California" ... She said palm trees and sunshine ... Since I've never been, I couldn't come up with something that wasn't just an outline of the state ...

I had a piece of script DP collaged on, then painted w/acrylics the sand, ocean and sky ... I freehand drew the palm leaves and palm trunk onto old book pages that I then washed with thin layer of acrylic before I decoupaged them onto the card.  I then shaded with inktense pencils, added the acrylic sun & wrote in the sentiment - Don't get me wrong, I'm sure California's nice, but I've only ever been to the east coast, and I'd much rather brave the humid wet air of Florida than the drier air in California (said 'tongue in cheek').

 

Day #30 - The prompt for this card was 'RED'.

I painted card with a thin wash of red acrylic then wiped off with a baby wipe - almost pink now, and card is bumpy from destroying the paper fibers.  Anyway, slogged on - paining red random stripes and then going to town with the black and white doodling.  Since I was just having fun ... that became my motto.

Day #31 - The prompt here was 'Bouquet'

About two weeks ago, Michael Carnuccio posted a card that he did with colored pens inside a circle template.  I thought it looked awesome, but wanted to see what the Copics looked like with a similar technique - I love how the brush stroke is wider at the edge, gives it an almost built-in shading.  Once that was done, I sat looking at it for - well, probably the last 2 weeks?  When this weeks prompts were posted, I knew IMMEDIATELY what I was going to do ... make some of those circles flowers.  Each of the flowers I doodles has one of those circles underneath.  I doodled the flowers and then colored them in with a thin acrylic wash in various colors.  I just love the way this turned out.  Some of these flowers are seen along the sides of my homework notes - since I'm often doodling in the margins as I'm contemplating the current chapter.

Thanks for stopping in ... Have a great day.

Collette

ICAD #28 - Robot

As soon as I saw the prompt for robot, I thought, this might be one I missed out on.  However ... ever since I saw it, the kid's version "It's about time ... It's about space ... it's about time to slap your face!" kept going through my head & I kept seeing Will Robinson & his trusty robot, so I figured I'd give it a go. 

I tried drawing the robot, but I guess I'm not a mechanically minded gal, so ended up collaging him onto the card.  The background is metallic silver acrylic paint.  I then took a Pitt fine point pen to draw in the seams and rivets of the metal background.  Once that was done, I went in with a couple of shades of brown and black Inktense pencils to age the metal a bit ... After all, the Robinson's have been lost in space for quite some time now ...

Thanks for popping in and have a great day!

Collette

Index Card a Day 2014 updates

ICAD updates ... I jumped ahead a couple of days because I'll have homework Thursday and Friday.  If you're interested in checking to see what all the fuss is about, click on the Index Card a Day for June & July link for more details.

This first one is a take on an album cover - I chose Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA album.  I colored him in with Copics while I used Inktense pencils for the flag.

 

For this next one, the daily prompt was to use a magnifying glass - I took it uber-literal ... see that candy heart on the table?  I used acrylics, Copics and inktense pencils for this one.  Hard to tell, but I used glossy mod podge for the glass in the magnifying glass to make it shinier.

 

For this next one, the prompt was a maple leaf.  I had the background already collaged onto the index card, I just added a blurb of book text that I had crumpled and inked and then a maple leaf I snagged from the internet & decoupaged it down.  I then shaded with an inktense pencil & added a little blurb on the side.

The prompt for this next one was ... wait for it ... "BROWN" ... I was sitting here wondering how other countries say the same color, VOILA!  If you look close, below each color is the name of the country that the word comes from.  Finished it off with some linear doodling and dots.

 

Okay, now this one, I'm not so proud of ... I'm huge Star Wars fan (not uber-fan, but close) ... and I just could NOT think of anything clever to make ... Sooooo ... I colored the back with blue acrylic wash and then wrote with a Pitt liner & added the stars. 

 

I'm on a roll - that's 27 cards (almost in a row, taking into account the couple of days a week that I need to jump ahead) ... I'm having loads of fun being creative again.  I'm sure I'll be sorry when the 61 days are over.

 

Thanks for popping in ... Have a great day!

Collette

 

 

icad #22

Here's my #22 ICAD.  If you're interested in jumping in, you can go to Daisy Yellow.com for details.

I used Neocolor II's for everything (except the heart) and then painted designs on the umbrella with white acrylic paint before writing my special memories of St. Augustine.  After I had put the Neocolors away, I decided I wanted to add some love, so reached for my Copics.

Having a weird moist, green June here in Chicago, so I'm missing the beach even more!

Thanks for stopping in.

Collette

 

Couple of Art Journals featuring Prima Dolls

Okay, so I've been reclaiming a composition book that I bought for homework, but never use.  I pulled out about 1/2 the pages (every couple of pages, I'd tear out 2 pages & pulled the other half out through the backside) to thin the book out.  Then I used a matte medium to adhere the pages together two at a time for thickness & then gesso'd them in either clear, white or black.  I kind of like that the lines show through ever so faintly on some of the pages.

This is my first spread in the 'new' journal.  While I know they're not new to the rest of the world, since I've only been working for real in art journals since April, these Julie Nutting Prima Dolls are new to me.  I love that they're just the right size for this book ... the 1st three layouts have one of these beauties on them - thinking this may be my Prima Princess Portfolio, lol.  I love that I can paper piece or color with my beloved Copics. 

I don't know what I was thinking - I'm not a fan of orange, yet - what the heck happened here?  I made the stamps in the corners, the stars and the ones that hang down (kind of like beads).    I paper-pieced "Mia's" dress then colored her in & shaded with Copics.

In between homework assignments and doodling around with art journaling and painting ceramics (need to do more of that), I've been saving my favorite quotes.  I'd like to save these quotes in my journal pages to flip back through later on and think about the meaning behind them.

This next page was all about pink, can you tell?  The name of this Prima doll is "Four" ... did Julie Nutting run out of names?  I also paper-pieced her dress and added book text to her skin before shading with Copics.  Stamps used were from Stampin-Up.  If you look close, you can see the drywall netting I laid down under the layers.  I had fun with this one, thinking of outrageous ways to describe myself, lol.

This next one was in my smaller homemade journal.  I was feeling a bit down, and forced myself to think of bright colors.  I'm glad I did.  By the time I got done with this page I was feeling decidedly better.  Burlap & Harlequin stencils were used, then I painted the simple flowers at the bottom.  I used my Cricut for the first time in 2 years (maybe the 10th time in all?) for the larger words.  This one actually is making me smile all over again - I guess it accomplished it's purpose?

Anyways, thanks for popping in for a look-see ...

Have a great day,

Collette

 

ICAD's catch up

Okay, I knew the weekend was going to be busy with catch up homework, and the same holds true for this week ... While I posted last weeks on the Facebook site, I'm posting them here to keep them on one place.  Working on most current I've done to oldest ...

#21 - Repeating pattern
I'm loving the mandala designs I see and it's so much fun and easy to do while sitting in front of the boob-tube.  After drawing this one out, I colored in with gelly rolls and copics ..

 

This is #17 - Polka Dots - if you look close, you can see I used orange tinted modeling paste with a polka dot stencil, as well as dooling the hanging polka dots ... I made the chevron stamp as well as the corner lined stamp.

Here's #16 - "Roll of the Dice" ... don't know why but the song "Luck be a Lady Tonight" by Frank Sinatra came into mind, so I had visions of Vegas ... 

ICAD #15 prompt was to use stickers ... Hmm ... I opened my GInormous sticker booklet & what should be on the first page but some oldies from Mrs. Grossman ... and the stripes were from Creative Memories when I was a consultant.  Stripes were kind of 'sky-ish', do you see it?

 

ICad prompt - this was for ABC's ... I haven't used my Zig pens for some time and was trying them out to see how many are drying up & ready for the dustbin ...  

This is my ICAD homage to the Beatles ... Love 'em ...
I happened to be doing laundry at the same time I Dylusioned the background with yellow and orange ... and dropped a fabric dryer sheet (had been through dryer cycle 2 times, so 'dead').  I thought how cool would that texture look?  Yeah, don't try it ... was a nightmare ... Took forever to get it to stick down with gel medium - and then took even longer than forever to dry - 24 hours, like.  Still - texture is pretty cool.

Here's another Mandala in color - some of the gelly rolls were light (light blue) so hard to see unless you zoom in, but the colors were very soothing to me.

Thanks for popping in for a look-see ...
Collette

ICAD #11

Day 11 of the Index Card a Day challenge for June and July ... I'm really loving this 61 day challenge - getting back into the creative world after studying for nursing last couple of years.  This challenge is perfect, because the 3x5 or 4x6 size isn't as overwhelming as some projects could be.  There's some amazing new techniques that I see every day and plan on trying.

Anyway ... this is what I came up with for Day 11 - Mandala:

I used a couple of stencils and sprayed lemon and sunshine Dylusions.  I scanned some videos on YouTube for 'how tos' on doing Mandala and ended up with this ...

Don't be afraid to try different things is going to become my new motto.

Hope you enjoy.

Collette

 

icad day #10

Here is my 10th card - WOOT - feel like an anniversary party or something, right?

I wanted to do a lot of collaging on this one, so I started with digital paper from Bearly Mine in a steampunk pattern.  Then I layered a paper doily (on left, it pretty much blended into the back) and another white doily from one of my die cuts.  Had a couple of flourishes sitting on the table, so "why not?" ... Also had a Good Housekeeping magazine here (from December), and found some star sugar cookies that I added to the mix.  The stamp was made by myself.  Then a little doodling, very little.  This one took all day (well, I'd work on it for a few, then walk away for awhile in between medium coats).

Enjoy!

Collette

The Sky's the Limit

This journal spread was very relaxing - not sure if it's the color blue, the thought of floating along in a hot air balloon, or what, but it was very soothing to the soul.  I'm coming down with some kind of sinus thing or head cold, so I needed the soothing part - helped forget about the headache.

I started off with laying down some script paper - pretty thick and it really sucked up the gel medium.  Then, I layed 3 different shades of blue acrylic paint down

 

Then I smudged some white acrylic for the clouds and outlined them with white gel pen.  The balloons are from Paper Trey that I colored in with Derwent Inktense pencils.

 

After adding some modeling paste tinted with some blue acrylic paint, I painted the white hatch-marks in white.  Finished off with black acrylic for the sentiment and some cobalt Archival ink for the edges.

 

Gladly accept any constructive criticism on doing something different -

I've only been "officially" art-journaling since April 18th.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day,

Collette

 

icad # 9

So, it's day number 9 for the Index Card a Day challenge ... Only 61 day committment, and you can do as elaborate or as simple as you'd like - just create something every day.

I wove the two papers (although the 2nd one here looks white, it is a pink floral print).  When that was dry, it looked so crisp, I didn't have the heart to do anything grunge-y or shabby to it, so kept it kind of clean w/stamps and doodles.

I'm going to add my journal page that I just finished in a little bit ... Thanks for stopping by.

Collette

 

icad #8

Here's a quick card I made with some magazine pages ...

Na na na na na na na ...

I knew that I could ...

 

I decoupaged the purple floral background then finished the edges with some purple acrylic paint.  The "I" is moulding paste that I pounced with a toothpick for the texture.

Thanks for stopping by - for more information on joining this 60 day, make an index card a day from June through July, stop in at Daisy Yellow Art here for more informationon ICAD 2014.  If you're late, it's okay, just jump in where you are.  Simple is the idea - just get 60 3x5 (or 4x6) index cards, some art supplies and you're OFF ...
 

icad #7

Here's Day #7 for Index Card a Day 2014 ...

Throw-back to lettering I learned 15 (?) years ago with brush pens and doodling, then re-discovered it with Copics in the last few years.

Have a great weekend ...
I'm off to finish up some last minute homework.

Collette

icad #6

Day 6 ...

 

icad #5

Was late finishing this card up last night, so here's what I came up with yesterday, Day 5 for the Daisy Yellow Art's Index Card a Day 2014 challenge:

I painted a swirl in purple and then sprayed Dylusions Calypso over the top.  I then added drops of water, which is what created the whiter blooms, which immediately looked like these flowers that I doodled around.  I am committed to "Create"-ing one of these cards a day ... It only takes a few minutes (or it did me), so join in ...

Collette

 

Art Journal June 6, 2014

Finished this page layout late last night ...  the sentiment means a lot to me right now ... I need a reminder not to give in to weaknesses right about now.

Underneath I layed down tissue paper that I stamped with various images using Archival potting soil all over.  I then crinkled it & decoupaged both sides.  Once that was dry, I painted different shades of yellow to gold to brown & did some stenciling with potting soil ink pad and then stamped with the black. 

Products used:  various vintage/script stamps for tissue background

Bo Bunny wall to wall textures stamp

Inkadinkadoo meadow stamps

Flourish die

stencil made from my Silhouette cameo



Thanks for stopping by for a look-see ...

Collette

 

Collection of Art Journal pages since I started 2 months ago

As referenced in a previous post, I've recently begun art journaling - in actual books instead of doodles and drawings all over my nursing homework with my pencils, highlighters and sharpie fine writers.

April 8th, to be exact ...

This is going to be a long one, since I wanted to just group all my pages I've done so far here to "catch up".  I'm not going to go into much detail about them at this point, like I see on other sites because, quite frankly it would take me too much time ... as well as no one wants to hear about 30 pages of a newbie ... but I will make a few comments here and there ...

My 3rd Journal:

This journal was handmade with a box I snagged from my pantry (note to self: recycle) ... I painted it with a lavendar color and then applied Tim Holtz' Melange tissue paper for strength on the inside and outside.  The book has 5 signatures of 4 pages each, and the pages measure 5x6 inches (because the box was shorter than I thought).  I may add a bit more to it, but I'm not huge on too much texture, have I said that before?  I'm just afraid everything will get smooshed and out of place or come loose.


And here are the pages in it so far ...

This second journal was started in the middle of the first one,

so there's a bit of back & forth going on. 

This journal was made with 140lb watercolor paper cut 9x12 inches.  I used the backing of the pad of paper for the covers, which I also covered with Tim Holtz tissue paper.  So far, I've only applied "art" with modeling paste - not sure on colors yet or if I want to embellish more.  I'm one who's not a huge fan of too much 3D on cards, books and the like, so I tend to go with flatter embellishments.  I used my Bind It All to bind the book ...  I tried to keep it fairly thin, knowing I might be adding some dimension, and with only 6 pages in it so far, it's already near as thick as the rings.  I may have to get a larger set and re-bind it before it's done.

She's one of my favorite actresses,

and I stripped the movies that I love her in.

One of my all time favorite songs, "Brown Eyed Girl" ...

This was for a challenge

(I'll try to remember exactly where and post the link).

The challenge was about what refreshes you.

Heavily inspired by France Papillon ... what a beautiful artist!

This quote is from her husband.

Not huge on pink, but I really like the way this one turned out.

 

This is a big favorite of mine ...

I'm liking the larger pages for certain things, but I seem to plan them out more,

which takes a couple of days from start to finish.

 Okay, here's the 1st album ...

There are a few pages that I really liked, but keep in mind,

I was (am) very new to this, so some are pure crap -

there I said it - but we all have to start somewhere, right?

This album was a moleskein (5x8-ish ??) that I covered with scrapbook paper.  

I'm sitting here trying to decide if I should post the original first

or reverse the order so the last thing you see is the first one I did ...

what to do, what to do? 

Nope, I'll do it in chronological order

starting with the one that I broke my cherry on ...

This is THE ONE - MY VERY FIRST ART JOURNAL PAGE

Lots of acrylic painting

I made those stamps that hang down as well as the corner stripe pieces. 

Another one of my all time favorite songs, "Imagine"

I had some trouble with the pen I had JUST bought - not a happy camper AT ALL!

I like the way John's glasses sit in the corner.

Again, lots of acrylic - with a poem I like ... working on my lettering in the journal.

I've got nice handwriting, but you'd never know it

from looking at these, lol.

Using more stencils here with acrylic - I've discovered that I need MORE ABC stamps

Okay, so I have a lot of songs that I really, really like ...

"I Hope You Dance"

I didn't anticipate that this one was so wordy. 

It almost took over the pages,

but I still had room to decoupage a ballerina dancing.

This is a TOTAL "case" of Vicky Papaioannou's

Take Life One Cup at a Time

only hers looks better. 

I didn't have my Pitt big brush pens at this point,

 so the shading looks a bit 'wonky' to me around the pieced squares.

Tried all of my cameras and couldn't get a shot that showed

how pretty the metallic gold paint looked on this

Ugh, not a fan of this one, AT ALL.  Think it might have been my first attempt

with Dylusions - there's definitely a learning curve.

Here's another "Ugh" ... also using Dylusions. 

What I DID like about this page was the way the eyelet stencil looks.

I have some paper eyelet that I could have decoupaged,

but I sealed it instead and used it as a stencil.

I had an egg-shaped cut out of a coneflower,

and then I extended the petals out with paint and whatnots.

This one I like, with the exception of the homemade stencil

 in lower left made from hot glue

Hey, I'm trying a little bit of everything I see.

Hearts had modeling paste through an old brass stencil, then shaded with watercolor.

I LOVE this quote!

Here is where I started watching France Papillon's YouTube videos ...

 

Okay, this is one of my favorites ...

Perhaps because it pays homage to my Rockstar

I'm certainly not a fan of orange AT ALL,

but this turned out pretty good ...

I DO like the message behind the quote

and the old stamp I have of the little girl.

Had a thought in mind of the path leading up the page ...

but not super happy with the outcome.

Another favorite of mind. 

Love my munchkin, can you tell?

  The heart is made of designer paper cut in strips and then woven

before cutting out the heart shape

(It killed me to ct out all those woven edges)

Circles are inspired by France Papillon as well.

 

I really liked this one - could it be it's purple?

Love the quote I found, too

Not sure if I was in a hurry to finish off this journal or what ...

Once again, I tried the Dylusions sprays ...

I'm determined to master them, lol,

even if you see lots of glitchy work until then.

 

As always, thank you for stopping by - Any constructive criticism is welcome ... any thoughts on how I could have gone about some of these pages differently ... feel free to say something, but don't be mean about it.