Art Journal Cover by Karen

For today's post I thought it was time I decorated the cover of my art journal. What to do if you want some texture but without things that will catch and tear? Tissue paper and different texture pastes was my answer.

Manila paper tends to suck the colour out of everything and I wanted to have a bit of white space so I started with a layer of white gesso, feathered out so there were no hard lines. Then I added a bit of light background stamping and stamped my title on to tissue paper.

I painted the back of the tissue paper white so that it would stand out against a coloured background...

and I added Turquoise acrylic paint to the cover, again feathering out to avoid hard edges.

For a pop of contrast and some texture, I mixed Magenta paint in to transparent relief paste (now called Design-It) and stenciled this over the other colours.

To take the title stand out more, I added a light touch of Cadium Yellow and used gel medium to stick down the tissue paper adding a coat under and over to be sure it was well adhered. I added a third lot of stenciling too.

Mixing Yellow and Scarlet paint for a bright orange, I added more stenciling and doodled round the stars and circles with black and white pens. I used Black Acrylic Paint to sponge round the edges of the cover.

For more texture and contrast, I stenciled Black Expand-IT paste on to the cover. I also added lines with the edge of a paint knife to the 'Art' letters, and heated the Expand-IT to puff it up for some volume.

I am sure I will continue to doodle or add to this over time but, for now, it makes me happy that my journal has a decorated cover in some of my favourite bright colours. It gives a hint of what is inside. More of that another day!

Bye for now
Karen
x

Soft Form Relief Paste	EXpandit 3D expanding medium	StazOn Jet Black	Plastic Painting Knives	Golden Matt medium
white gesso	Heat Gun	Golden haired nylon brushes	Eco Acrylic Paint

Fun storage for pens and things

One can never have too many places to store all the fabulous goodies that we collect or that we 'need' to craft - wouldn't you agree?

I just love decorating these pen and ink cases.  I have decorated several already with the gorgeous metallic and opaque fabric paints from Colourcraft. My favourite are the metallic colours as they suit my colour pallette but they are also available in a range of primary colours and pastels as well.

This technique will work well on aprons, costmetic purses, bags and tee-shirts as well as many other items of apparel. Once the paint is dry it can be heat set with an iron which will preserve the colours and the paint.

And it is so very easy. Let's go!

I like to use a piece of 'cut 'n dry' sponge to apply the paint as it provides a good solid base but a stencil brush would work just as well.

The most important thing to remember is  NOT apply too much paint on at once otherwise it will 'leak' out through the stencil. The paint dries very quickly so if you want it darker, it is simply a matter of re applying the paint as many times as you like. Little and often is better in this instance.  

So firstly I secure the stencil with some stencil tape and then put a small amount of paint on my mat.  I ensure that I only have a small amount on my sponge and lightly sponge it through the stencil. I use a different sponge (or different side of the sponge) for each colour.  Because this particular fabric is relatively porous the paint dries even more quickly and the different colours can be applied straight after each other.

In the case where I wanted the image to look as though it was 'dribbling' into each other, I just mixed a little of the paint colours on my sponge and then applied the different colours quickly to achieve this look.

I let the paint dry once I had completed my stencilling and then I ironed it the whole case, taking care to use a non-stick sheet between my case and the iron. 

And hey presto! a pen and ink case for use very quickly.

Aztec eco metallic paint starter paint