Mark Making and Art Journaling in Wanderlust 2024

I enrolled in Everything Art's Wanderlust 2024 last November and have been enjoying the weekly art inspiration and instructional videos.  A recent session with French artist Eugenie Billotte invited us to look for treasure in our homes to create with.  

Of course, treasure could mean a wide variety of things.  I gathered words and pages clipped from vintage book pages, an old photo, and interesting papers like the textured brown paper packaging above.

  Eugenie walked us through upcycling and mark-making activities that I found freeing, relaxing, and calming.

After creating a small stack of decorated papers, we began working in our art journals.

Here's my finished page spread with a B&W photo I took one spring decades ago of blooming Bloodroot as the focal point of the page.  Nature is my treasure.  I love walking through the woods in the spring, watching birds at my feeder and listening to their songs.

I made a wheel with samples of the decorated pages I created in this lesson.

If you're interested in joining Wanderlust 2024, you can find information here:

https://www.everything-art.com/p/wanderlust-2024-artjournalingcourse

I played with the remaining words I had clipped from old books to make poetry.

And I took some of my leftover materials to create this little treasure about my excitement about an upcoming adventure.

I hope you take the time to play with art supplies, make an art journal page, or express yourself with words cut from magazines or books.  Making art just for yourself is a great form of Self Care!

Wanderlust 2024 with Kasia Avery

If you've read recent posts, you'll know I've been taking inspiration from UK-based artist Kasia Avery, through her Care December and other online classes.  Her enthusiastic & encouraging teaching style makes art journaling exciting.

 I signed up for Wanderlust 2024, a year-long series of weekly art journaling lessons & downloadables, to keep the inspiration coming.

Here's a step-by-step look at my first Wanderlust class with Kasia!

We began by selecting a color scheme for the first spread.  Kasia provided a great deal of background information and tips on picking colors to make pleasing art.  She went into depth on brushes and techniques for each step of the process as well.

Once we had our materials and our color palette, we began with a relaxing technique for writing our word of the year in India ink all over our blank page spread.

As soon as the ink was dry, we added acrylic paint in big, sweeping strokes over top of the first layer.

We selected an area of the spread to make our focal point, and added more intuitive brush strokes.

More paint, some scratching back into wet paint and a little collage came next.

As I added more colors and marks, I kept some music sheeting and junk mail scraps on hand to spread excess paint onto rather than rinsing it away in water.

Acrylic paint is basically plastic, so it's best not to flush it down your drain as it can build up and clog pipes.

I found that having extra papers painted in my chosen colors made it easy to add collage bits to the spread to create texture.

I finished with some hand-stamped words.

I'm learning and enjoying the unfolding process of art journaling.

If you're interested in joining Wanderlust 2024, there's still time!  

Follow this link: https://www.everything-art.com/p/all-courses-everything-art

Scroll down through the courses to Wanderlust 2024.

Of course, you don't have to join this class to create an art journal. Art journaling can be as simple or complex as you want to make it.  You can tear pages out of old magazines and glue them down, paint papers, and layer on different media from watercolor pencils to ink to acrylic paint. Simply follow what interests and inspires you in the moment.

Happy Creating!

Care December: Coldness

I love the idea of tuning into the coolness of the color blue in this prompt.  

Blue looks cooler when you put it next to warm colors like spots of yellow and orange 

by the candles' glow.

This morning, I set up in my studio at dawn with a hot pot of tea and my art supplies to take on the Care December prompt:Coldness.

I had prepared a page spread of vellum paper with clear gesso, so that I could easily draw with Inktense colored pencils and NeocolorII crayons.

A wet brush moved the pigment and brought the colors to life.

I love how the vellum looks like stained glass when held up to window light.

I hope you get some time to create -- this project took me about 15 minutes.  Even a little time spent creating can be great self care.

Care December: Gratitude

Today's Care December prompt involved thinking of the people that make us feel loved and the places that make us feel at home, and feeling gratitude for them. 

I began with this page spread, and picked out some paper bits that made me think of my best friend.  Just the thought of her makes me feel loved and grateful.

I collaged on a stamp -- my BFF and I write lots of letters -- and some tea-stained papers because we love drinking tea and chatting for hours.

A variety of acrylic paint colors added their brilliance.

After the acrylic dried, I painted on a layer of clear gesso so I could easily draw with colored pencils.

A heart with two teacups finished the pages for me.

I hope you'll join Kasia Avery's Care December, too,

and take some self care art time this week to create something just for your own joy.

Happy Creating!

Copyright 2023 Betsy Bangley. All rights reserved.

Care December: What Makes You Feel Joyful & Fluid?

I've been taking Kasia Avery's online art journaling course, Care December, at my own pace.  I love that I can have days that I jump right in and follow the prompt, 

and days that I take time off and save the session until I can savor it. 

Today's prompt invited us to think about what makes us feel relaxed, fluid and joyful.  

We used string and blue ink, and I luckily had some of both, 

from the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse.

We dunked the string in the ink bottle, then flopped the inky string on the page, closed the journal and pulled the string slowly out.

I love the wispy, swirly lines that this technique creates.

The designs looked like the engraved drawings of seashells found in vintage science books. 

Relaxing by the ocean is one of the things that makes me feel fluid and joyful, so I kept the "seashell" marks and added ink washes & colored pencil lines around them.

  

The blue, Serendipity ink ($2 at PCCR) has lovely, shimmery qualities when it dries, 

and looks red in the photo.

Interestingly, I bought the white Prismacolor pencil at the PCCR, too. 

If you haven't joined in Care December yet, there's still time to participate!

Even if you read this post long after December 2023, you can still find the course on Kasia's website.

I hope you take some time to make some art just for joy, just for yourself -- For self-care!

Copyright 2023 Betsy Bangley. All rights reserved.

 

Painted Collage Papers for Care December!

I recently discovered artist, teacher and art journaler Kasia Avery on YouTube.  She has a delightfully enthusiastic teaching style that makes creating easy & fun.

If you haven't seen Care December, her free art journaling class yet, you can check it out here:

https://www.everything-art.com/p/care-december-23

In preparation for participating in Care December, I followed two of Kasia's YouTube videos on making papers of your own design and colors for art journaling. These are the videos I followed to create all of these painted papers. 

Video 1: https://youtu.be/78hXnnl8fdU?si=DGuh25Km8VmQNK7D

Video 2: https://youtu.be/ki9E6mQPxgw?si=sXCrQRdX24cF23hh

 Kasia uses a lot of different supplies, but a person can just use what they have on hand and have success.

I used office papers and forms from The Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, my favorite thrift store in Pittsburgh.  They sell everything from fine art materials to vintage items, photography equipment, fabric, jewelry & scrapbooking supplies and lots more.

I spent a lovely afternoon splashing acrylic & watercolor paint on a variety of book pages, magazine pages, pieces of graph paper, used gift wrap tissue paper, music sheeting, old maps, etc., and turning them into colorful papers for art journaling.

I worked on a big piece of kraft paper on the floor to give myself lots of room to paint.  I turned on some inspiring music, brewed up a hot tea, and experimented with lots of different techniques and materials.

 The beauty of this approach is that I didn't have to drive to a store and purchase anything new.  I used what I had, and the items I had found secondhand at PCCR.

Each piece of brightly-painted paper was made in my own intuitive style, so it will match my art journal. And, I got to spend an afternoon playing with paint, listening to music, lost in the hum of creativity and joy.

I hope you'll join me in doing some creative self care this December!

Copyright 2023 Betsy Bangley.

An Upcycled Art Journal for Care December

I love creating with old, worn things that have a history and a previous life.  They add depth to my art and inspire a greater satisfaction than anything shiny and new.

I made this art journal mostly out of materials that I purchased at my favorite thrift shop: 

The Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse!

PCCR has a wide variety of papers -- from old office paper, to decorative scrapbooking sheets, to music sheeting -- as well as fine art supplies, fabric, vintage items, jewelry, and heaps of other treasures.

I made the journal as part of Care December, artist Kasia Avery's course in intuitive art journaling for self care.  

This free event is available online for you to join at your own pace.  You can sign up on Kasia's website, Everything Art:

 https://www.everything-art.com/p/care-december-23 

I followed the instructions on Kasia's YouTube video to create my journal: 

https://youtu.be/Nd5THleyZfw?si=ZsYYTN9oP4YK3TTp

As part of Care December, Kasia is raising funds to support Action Against Hunger.  You can find out more here:

 https://www.everything-art.com/p/care-december-23 

I hope you will join me in art journaling for self care in Care December!

copyright Betsy Bangley 2023