Art Journaling Process

One of the problems I have when thinking of things to create is that fear of wanting everything that I finish making to be 'right'.  It doesn't have to be perfect, but I do really like to be proud of the items that I make.    They need to be (in my mind) finished and 'as good as they possibly can be.' This view was changed for me when, amongst other things, I came across this video by Tammy of Daisy Yellow.  

What she says, that makes a great deal of sense, is to just enjoy the process.  When you are making your Index Card a Day (ICAD) (a Summer art venture run by Tammy that I have done for two years running in the past and highly recommend) you don't need to get hung up on the end result, just immerse yourself in the exploration of your materials, the technique you are trying out, whatever it is, just enjoy carrying out whatever the creative activity is.

So, I thought I'd have a go at it and what better time to try it than with my latest 'Art Technique to do NOW', Art Journaling.  I happened to have bought myself a small art journal from Ryman's the stationers recently.  The paper size is 6"x4" so it made it very similar to doing an index card.

For my first page I thought I'd go back to a technique I did on an index card a while back.  This was the card I made then:

The problem I had was that I couldn't remember how I created it!  I'd originally got the technique from an old Craft Stamper magazine and didn't know where it now was.  I do remember that I used baby wipes and water soluble oil pastels.  So I made a start by laying some colours down:

I wasn't sure if I was meant to overlap the colours?  I had a feeling I should, so did...in places.. 

I also remembered that to get the circles I wiped the baby wipe through a stencil:

But the pastel marks still showed so I smoothed them with the baby wipe too.  The result wasn't looking much like the example above:

So I then 'enjoyed the process' (!) and threw anything and everything I had to hand at it. It is now a title page for the rest of the book:

'A Place to Create for the Fun of it'.

I still wanted to do a page that was like my original index card, so I laid down some more colour, overlapping a little more this time and then simply scratched into it using a stencil and an embossing tool.

...And I did enjoy the process (together with the end result!), but I must see if I can locate those original instructions...

My next 'NOW' art activity is going to be Collage, so hope you can join me soon,

Nicky

Creative Flourishes