Friday, January 27, 2012

Art Journaling

Art journaling is something new to me. I have journaled a lot in my lifetime and have done some calligraphy in a journal but I have never combined my calligraphy, art and thoughts in to one journal.

 This year I hope to do just that and today I wanted to show you what I did yesterday.  It is very rough and I will explain a little about each picture.

If you decide art journaling is something you would like to do, my "art journaling" Pinterest page has some excellent sources for help. My Pinterest button is located in the right sidebar of this blog.


I started the page with some loose watercolor flowers.  Anybody can do these--Martha Lever's blog has a great little tutorial for making "color drop flowers."  I think it is actually a YouTube video.
I added some very loose calligraphy with a brush and watercolor and inks.  As you can tell, I did this freehand and did not use guidelines.  To look really nice all letters should be slanted to the exact same degree.  As I wrote "Dianne," you will notice that my letters got bigger and bigger.  Not a good thing unless you have planned it.  Next time I will work harder on degree of slant and letters the same size.


This is just a little side note to remind me of who was here and what we were doing on January 27, 2012.  Five guys were here from Renewal Ranch working on the house so I listed their names and the work we accomplished.


This is a close up of one of the flowers.  After the water color had dried, I went around all stems and flowers with a Pilot extra five black pen--Micron pens are excellent for this.  When I first started doing this, I made the lines very straight with no wiggle or curves in them.  I decided that I liked it better with a little jitteriness added.  So that is why there are double lines on some of the stuff.

This journal is extra big (about 16" x 12")and the watercolor paper is excellent.  I can't remember where I got it --I do remember I had to special order it for a calligraphy course I took in Santa Fe, NM with Randall Hasson.  However, a plain little sketch tablet will be fine for doodling and light watercolor work but you really need a watercolor tablet if you want to get serious about improving.

Randall's work in incredible by the way.  I'm pretty sure his blog is listed under "calligraphy" on my Pinterest page or you can type his name in the search bar here on my blog and read more about him.

The main thing on this page is Psalm 150.  It is a great praise and worship psalm and I come dancing before my King today and isn't it amazing that He rejoices and sings over us!

Have fun doodling and art journaling if you decide to try.