Day 15: Watercolor Scene+liquid Acrylics+markers

 Hello Christian Art Journalers and friends!

**DAY 16 and 17 will be posted with Day 18 due to a family wedding celebration my camera will be busy at!  Look for the Post on SUNDAY, March 18th**

How are you doing as we enter the half way mark to our 31 Days of Christian Art journaling?  Tomorrow I have a great collage paper technique you will love, but wanted to give you another alternative today to stamping a scene:  watercolor painting one.  And I wanted to keep it simple, because not everyone feels comfortable watercoloring and I want you to keep focused on the PROCESS of art journaling, not to have you focus on the OUTCOME so much.  It's what keeps this fun for me.

You will make random watercolor brushes to get your basic 'shapes' in there:

 I have a couple mountains, clouds, sand and water showing up in this, but it's done with random movements and doesn't look like much now.

 Added my sun and some more 'cloudlike' movements with my blue in the sky.

 I wanted to bring the entire scene together more in the blue family, so squirted this over the whole scene.

 Next I added some drops of the liquid acrylic in green on the left and blue on the right (see the shimmer?  That's the liquid acrylic!)

 Next I stamped a favorite verse from the Inspired Stamps PRAYER set, using a permanent ink.

 Lastly I drew in with marker so defining lines and journaling (I do not know why the brown shows up so STRONG here, on my page its much more subtle!)

 I tried out a new product for me today:  Smooch.  It is a shimmering paint and I used it to put snow on my mountains, fluff in my clouds, and highlights in my journaling.  I like it!

Here the page is completed.

Tomorrow we'll do some fun collage, so get those scraps a'ready!
May God bless your ART...and your HEART!
~Antoinette
www.inspiredstamps.com

Day 14: Stamping a Scene + Watercolors

 Hello Christian Art Journalers and friends!
Today I am sharing how to make a scene...with stamps and watercolors!  I am using the Inspired Stamps set called Scenic View. 
Tomorrow I'll show you how to create a similar scene just using your watercolor paints and pencils!
I started off using the circle stamp and Stazon ink.  The cut of this looks kinda odd when you put it on the block, but we had it made like that to give your circle more stability...and this really helps to make a beautiful circle:

 I only wanted half the circle to make the horizon line sun, so I masked it with paper:
Next I stamped some blue clouds and some waves.  The stamp "May the Lord bless your day!" is stamped in the sun:

 I used the line stamp from this set to create a sand line.  I also use it for the horizon line under the sun when the sun is on land instead of a wavy water scene!

 I stamped the mountains and more clouds on the other page, then: using the lightest blue in my watercolor palette, I took a very wet brush and brushed the color around the clouds.  Then a yellow for the sun and a darker blue for the water:

 I used my atyou Spica marker to give some depth to the shoreline:

 And watercolored the beach.

 Next a row of grass created a nice barrier for the mountains (I will go back later and do some shadowing on the mountains but ran out of time today!)

The page is done, and now it's time to journal!

 I ran pencil lines across to guide my marker (A Copic brown marker is used for the journaling):

 Here's each page individually:

Until tomorrow!
May God bless your ART...and your HEART!
~Antoinette
www.inspiredstamps.blogspot.com

Day 13: Watercolor pencils and atyou Spica markers

 Hello Christian Art Journalers and friends,
Today I have a really simple, but OH so fun technique for you to use:  Watercolor pencils!  You can use a water brush or water pen with this.  First, Sketch out your image (I love flowers):

Then using your water pen (or water brush), go over the pencil:

 I didn't wait for my pen to dry, and it smeared a little so I added a little yellow chalk over the words so I could see them better:

 I decided to spritz a little Glimmer Mist over the white parts of the page:

 And am really happy with the way this came out:  I used the gold Spica marker which doesn't show well here along the stem and to add some defining lines, plus my White Signo Pigment marker for the letters:

Leave a comment below and let me know if you are following along or pop over from time to time!  We are almost half way finished and I feel like we just got started!!

May God bless your ART...and you HEART!
~Antoinette
www.inspiredstamps.com

Day 12: Gesso washing to tone down a page

Hello Christian Art Journalers and friends,
Ok, today is a very important technique if you ever make a page that you: 1)hate  or  one that is 2) too loud.  I did BOTH to the one above after I had the bubble wrap technique for you. 

Gesso is a wonderful medium that looks like white paint, but it's so much more fun!  I have another technique I want to show with it that I won't spoil now, but today we will make a Gesso Wash.  I use a canning jar, so I can put a lid on it and keep if for a little while!  I did about 50% each, water and gesso here.  If you want MORE coverage, use less water.  Less coverage? use more water:

 Brush it over the area you want toned down:

 If you look you can see stamping and painting under the wash, but it's less LOUD :o)
Next I used a Coffee Break Design Stencil I got at the Heirloom show a couple of weeks ago to sponge on some yellow acrylic paint 'suns':

 I added some journaling, but plan to come back to this another day.  If I still don't like it, I can always take a gift card and some acrylic and start all over.  I usually give my pages a couple of tries before I 'redo' them.  It's more fun to FIX UP something :o)

Next up is a great tool: Watercolor Pencils!
Thanks so much for joining me on this journey!  I'm having a LOT of fun playing!
May God bless your ART...and your HEART!
~Antoinette
www.inspiredstamps.com

Day 11: Bubble Wrap painting

 

Hello Christian Art Journalers and friends,

Today I have a really easy technique and one that adds some nice dimension on pages:  Bubble Wrap (it's not just for popping :o)

First, I use the gift card to scrape purple acrylic paint across both pages:

 Then I put some yellow paint on my craft mat with a spritz of water and smear it out with my paint brush:

 Place your bubble wrap bubble side down onto the paint and push gently with your hand so that all the bubbles get some paint on them:

 Place the bubble wrap down to paint.  If you want more, add more (like the second page)

 Today I am leaving you here (yes you can add stamps, Scripture, collage, other masks, or more paint....but tomorrow I have a specific 'problem solving technique' I want to share with you so we're stopping here!

Be sure to come back tomorrow, as the (part 2 of this technique is very valuable to all art journalers :o)
May God bless your ART...and your heart!
~Antoinette

Day 10: Liquid Acrylics

Hello Christian Art Journalers and Friends,
Today I have a favorite material to share with you:  liquid acrylics!  These are my all-time-favorite paints to work with when I want a really spectacular effect. 

Here's how I began today's Christian Art Journaling:
Squirt the green paint, then the blue paint (each bottle has it's own 'eyedropper' built in)  I then spray my water bottle and let the paint drip, squirting the green part first and then dabbing with a paper towel, then the blue part (no dabbing, let it run to the edge then dry the pages with a hair dryer):

 When it's dry it will look so sparkly and beautiful you will just want to sign your name and hang it on a wall!  These paints are just that gorgeous!

 I took the flash off my camera so you could see the shine a little better of the paints here:

 Next I thought of grass and sky with this layout so I grabbed the Inspired Stamps:  Trees and Leaves set:

 I stamped the trees with Stazon ink and then stamped the verse from the BE STILL SILHOUETTES  stamp set in pigmented white.  I didn't like the softness of it, so I stamped a little under this with the same stampset in black...

 By stamping like this it gives a 'highlighted' look on your words!  I love this effect and use it often in cardmaking.

 Finally, I wanted my journaling to not be the most obvious thing on the pages so I wrote along the 'horizon line' and down the page, across the bottom.  Here are each of the pages close up:

I hope you will give these liquid acrylics a try!  They are so gorgeous to look at in real life...I wish the photos did them justice!

May God bless your ART...and your HEART!
~Antoinette
Inspired Stamps used:  Trees and Leaves, Be Still Silhouettes