Day 1: Starting your Christian Art Journal: watercolors, markers, and stamps

Hello Christian Art Journalers and Technique-Seeking friends!
Today is the first day of our 31 day DAILY CHRISTIAN ART JOURNALING Showcase.  I will keep each post under the 31 Days of March Christian Art Journaling label on the right of this blog so you can come and go as you like. 

Today we face the most EXCITING part of any art project and the most creativity-stopping part, too:  The new book and the first page:

AAAHHH!  Sweet, and AAAAHH! What do I do NOW?  First of all, join me in letting go of all fear.  Fear of mistakes, fear of new things, fear of failure, fear of messing up that first page!  Sigggh!  I always feel better doing that.  Sometimes I start on page 4 just so I don't feel so much pressure as I do begin, but today I braved it and began on page one.  With the Scripture I wanted to use.  I stamped it in WATERPROOF ink and some flowers around it:

I chose this verse because my hearts desire is that my every effort would be a reflection of loving my God!  And this 31 Day Christian Art Journal will have that focus.  After this, I used the $5 set of watercolors to color, imperfectly, my flowers:

Next I painted the outside of this area.  I then used plain old water to paint with my paintbrush and pull in some color to get rid of my harsh lines.  You do what YOU like in yours.  Do you want your flowers colored in neatly? Use a smaller paintbrush or even markers/crayons.  Do you want the entire page blue?  You can do that, too!:

 Use your paper towel to pick up any water puddles.  I used my hair dryer to dry the page (cause I have no patience!) and drew some lines with my Pitt pen (Sharpies will work fine here!)

You may want to write a little about what your 31 day journey is about in this Journal or leave it like this until later.  I wanted to show you another way to add journaling, first by penciling in a shape as a guide, then writing around it:

 I then erase my pencil lines, and added "My Time With God" using the Labelmaker Alphabet

 It needed some more color, so yellow to the rescue...

 And here is page #1 of my 31 Days of Christian Art Journaling.  It's simple to do and easy to adjust.  Don't have stamps?  WRITE out your Scripture or words. 

Remember you can always go back and TWEEK a page later:  I think the flower bundles of hearts may get a new color technique later, but for now I am happy to have the first page done.  Tomorrow, we'll explore our next technique:  Watercolors with CHALK!

Let me know if you are here, following along! 
May God bless your ART...and your HEART!
~Antoinette
Stamps:  1 inch Flowers, Mark 12:30, and Labelmaker Alphabet (www.inspiredstamps.com)