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Mixed Media View of the Backyard: Expanding Your Visual Vocabulary
It’s always a great idea to take a moment and look out the window. Our neighbors at the back of our yard have a lush growth of ferns at this time of the year. I turned the page in my journal and sketched on this pre-painted background—the verso page background was in the same vein […]
Found Some More Grids
Sometimes life can seem very quick, agonizingly slow, and full of all the wrong things—all at the same time. If your life feels like that it’s important to pick up your journal and start writing notes about your life and activities; and to keep drawing (or start drawing if you haven’t already). These activities will […]
What Happened with the Excess Stamp Ink from Yesterday’s Post?
Yesterday I showed you what you could do in 15 minutes with some rubber-stamp ink to prepare some background textures in your journal. You’ll remember there was a scrap of watercolor paper I also painted with the leftover ink. (See the bottom right of the above photo.) Here’s a bit of pattern/texture making fun you […]
Quick, Colorful Background Textures for Your Journal Pages
Lately I’ve been discussing keeping your creative flow going even if you only have 15 minutes a day. And I’ve mentioned pre-painting backgrounds. Today I’m walking you through the use of pigmented rubber stamp ink—but you can also use liquid acrylics or acrylic inks. Remember—if you are not going to use wet media on your […]
Journaling on a Circle Grid
For eleven days in September this year I worked on a “grid” made of circles, just for grins. I thought you might enjoy seeing the process and how the project grew. The first image in this post is the completed grid. I’m going to lose the quotation marks around the word grid—I see it […]
A Bit of Background Texture Buried Under Some Gouache
This April I was daily considering the hairstyles of the 1910s and 1920s. I was pondering the gravity defying nature of those hairstyles. But I was also totally obscuring the background texture I’d created on this page. Originally I was going to continue a collage series that also consumed my attention in the spring on […]
In Context: Thoughts on Visual Note Taking
Visual note taking. We all notice things that matter to us. How much we develop those elements in our drawings…it depends on so many factors. The point is to keep noticing. Page spread in a Strathmore 500 Series Mixed media journal on which I pre-collaged a piece of grey Strathmore charcoal paper that had been […]
More Fun with Journal Grids
Here’s a finished grid from a journal in May this year. I worked in a Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Journal (7.75 x 9.75 inches, soft cover). I pre-painted the grid squares using Nichiban masking tape and Montana markers. The spaces on the recto page were brushstrokes of acrylic color. Sean was glued down […]
Thumbnail Sketches—Thinking Through Ideas
Over the past few months I’ve written about thumbnail sketches and grids a few times. I want to spend a little time today and going forward, discussing these topics because I think both are important tools artists often ignore. They save us time, they clear our brains, and if we are paying attention they show […]
Pre-Painted Background for Gouache
Here’s a gouache portrait I painted on a pre-painted background. Briefly, because I’ve discussed it before in depth: Remember if you want to paint with wet media on a textured background you need to use water-resistant media for your background. (Or be happy that you’ll be fighting the pick up of the background as […]