Be Brave

I skipped over this one so I'm adding it now. I love pasting tissue paper down and overlapping colors so that is how I made the background, then wrote on top with a sharpie.

Make Art, Not War

By far my favorite so far :) I was actually looking for a background of quotes about art and found one that said Make Art, Not War, so I immediately wanted to make an art journal with paint splatters. Besides accidently sqeezing the tube of acrylic black paint and getting spots on my apartment carpet (use dishsoap & nail polish remover :) ) it turned out better than I expected. The words are written in black paint; for the background, I randomly painted with acrylics then used a paint brush to splatter on thicker paint to make it bumpy. I also used a few colors of puffy paints. When I was done I took a paint brush and painted over any white space that needed filled in. Turned out perfect :)

Walking On Sunshine!

Let's just say last semester started to get a little rough on me and I felt empty. This semester has been a 1-80 and I couldn't be happier. I created this at the very beginning of the semester because everything was going well and was really happy so I wanted to journal about it. When I sat down, 'walking on sunshine' popped in my head so I spontaneously drew a swirly design to represent the sun. I am still just as happy and love looking back at this because it reminds me how far I've come and how things have changed and everything's right :)

Happiness is like a butterfly...

This is one of my favorite quotes and had fun making it. It's hard for me to be spontaneous because I always want things to turn out successfully so I did plan this a little. I used watercolor for the background then wrote the quote with a sharpie then added a few decorations. I love how it turned out!

Let me be patient, Let me be kind

I am missing the photo of the previous page, so I'll add it later. I originally drew a design on this page with pastels and then wrote the lyrics, but wasn't happy with it so I covered it up. It's still not one of my favorite pages, but part of art journaling is to be spontaneous and not worry about perfecting everything, so I just went with it. I wrote these lyrics from "Tell Him" by Colbie Caillat because I just really love the lyrics.

Journaling My Worries Away

Art Journaling is believed to be self healing and decrease health issues and my Art Therapy teacher encouraged my class to art journal every day. I personally enjoy art journaling because it is a healthy escape that enables me to turn my creativity and emotions into something tangible. I don't art journal every day, or as nearly as often as I intended to when I started this journal, but I know it is always there when I feel like expressing myself however I want, when I don't have to worry about any restrictions or limitations like I do art projects for school. I created this page by painting the paper with acrylic paints and then gluing down torn pieces of tissue paper, then wrote on top with a sharpie.

Cover

I wanted to have a journal that was solely an art journal, instead of combining one in my sketch books. I found this scrapbook in my closet that had blank white pages and a blue plastic cover, which worked out perfect. I had researched many art journals and loved this sort of style but never really knew how to go about getting the look I wanted. I basically just started doing my own thing until I was satisfied. I began by gluing down a scrapbook paper with a paisly design and then painted over it with acrylic paint. Since acrylic dries fast, I was able to just paint randomly with different colors until I was satisfied. I wanted to add to it so it would have somewhat of a collage look, so I added a piece of newspaper and a lace thing that I found around my house, and some buttons. I had fun with it and realized that I would never be able to get it to look like others that I had seen, so I just had to go for it and make it my own style, which makes it even better!

Hey All!

Thanks for viewing my blog! I will be posting pictures and descriptions of my art journals, and the inspiration and process of completing each page. I'm pretty busy with classes but I'm hoping to make more time for my art journals and I'm excited to share them.  I'm new to this whole blog thing so I'll try to post more and figure it out when I have free time so keep checking back! hope you enjoy it :)

<3 Kristin