Starting An Art Journal With A Stencil Masking Technique

I’ve been experimenting, experimenting, and more experimenting with new techniques.  I’ve been sharing the successes and the “failures” with you here on my blog and on my YouTube channel.  Today, I decided that it is time to start an art journal.

I find myself making a lot of cards that I never get around to sending.  I’m thinking that it is time for some new project ideas that I can use in other ways.  I think this is especially true now that I’m really doing a lot of mixed media projects.

I love mixed media projects!

What is a mixed media project?  It is a project that you create using at least 2 different mediums.  For example, today I used watercolor brush markers, heat embossing, masking fluid, die cuts, and ephemera on my page.

It’s packed full of techniques and I’ve decided that will be the purpose of my art journal.  I want a book that I can be creative in and experiment with new techniques or just try something out without feeling the need to make a card.

I experimented with the Altenew Watercolor Brush Markers and just covered the page with scribbled stripes of very watered down color.  I dried it with the heat tool and then put the Altenew Leaf Burst stencil on top and taped it down with some low tack tape to hold it in place temporarily.  I used my  Masking Liquid pen to fill in the stencil spaces with masking liquid.  Once that dried, I added more of the watercolor over the top.  I spritzed it with Altenew’s Antique Gold, Antique Silver and  Iridescent Ink Sprays.  I also spritzed it with water using my Distress Sprayer.

The leaves were cut leaf dies using scraps of fall colored card stock with my Sizzix Big Shot.

I added lots of sentiments embossed in Altenew’s Antique Gold powder.  The sentiments are from Catherine Pooler’s Autumn Blessings stamp set.  It is from a former Stamp of Approval release called Counting Blessings.  I love those big script words.

The thankful, grateful and blessed are those sentiments from the CP Designs stamp set.  The smaller sentiments at the top and the bottom:  Hello Fall and Wishing You A Season of Blessings came from one of my favorite Sunny Studio Stamp sets called Autumn Greetings which I believe has been out since last fall.  The Catherine Pooler set has been out quite a while too.  I feel like these two sets have timeless fonts and sentiments that I won’t be putting away anytime soon!

You can see all the texture on the page in this picture!

After everything was dry, I removed the masking liquid with an adhesive remover square by simply “erasing” it off.  I added some linen thread and some fall colored sequins to finish off my page.

My plan is to create something other than just cards and creating this notebook will be a nice place for me to experiment with new techniques.  I already feel like just opening it and seeing this page will make me happy every single time I see it!

This is a Canson XL Mixed Media notebook that I got on sale.  I used double sided tape to adhere this page to the one below it since I had watercolored on it and it was a little warped from the process.

I was inspired to create a fall page after watching a video on art journaling from Scrapbook.com and taking a class on masking techniques.  This particular technique was a technique shared by Kristina Werner and it is fun to do.  By putting down a light layer of color then masking over a stencil so you can add a second layer of color and remove the mask so the original color shows where the mask was in the stencil pattern is just fun to do.  I love revealing the image the masked stencil creates when you remove the mask.

Here is a video so you can see the masking process because that has a lot of applications you might want to try.

I’m also linking this in the CropStop Link Party for October.  

Check out the Crop Stop blog for great instructions on creating a plaid background with markers!  I’ll be trying that next!  I’m always looking for inspiration and the fall plaid just makes me want to create more fall projects!

Several of the products that I used can be purchased at Crop Stop or you can use the affiliate links below.

 

Supply List

 

Are you interested in the products I used?  To make them easier for you to find, I have linked them below. (Affiliate disclosure ) Your purchases help keep my blog running at no additional cost to you and I thank you for tthe support!