Hey, Girl...Journaling with Julie 11

These Hey Girl memes crack me up...even though I know they're not new. I used it for the post title because for this week's installment of our long-distance art journaling, my sister, Julie, and I created Girl Portraits from the Tamara LaPorte book, Create Your Life. 

I've previously taken a Lifebook course with Tamara (online) and learned step-by-step how to create a whimsical girl portrait. In the book, you get the info but it's not nearly as comprehensive or helpful as the video for people like me. However, if you can't take the online course, the book is a fun way to learn how to art journal from a variety of artists. I do recommend it.

I took some photos along the way so you could see. First, of course, is the sketch. The next is water-soluble crayon. I used Gelatos with water and then painted it on like watercolors. This second step is where I panic a little, all the sketching seems lost and she is very flat-looking.

The next step was adding watecolor pencils and adding back in the details lost with the first layer of paint. I'm still not happy with her at this stage, but I forged on. The fourth step was to add in acrylic paints. You'll notice I changed the eye color for no real reason, and I added in pinks and purples in the shadows just like the example. I was a little afraid to use the stark white in the middle of her face, nose and around her lips. But it does add dimension and there's still a lot of painting to do. So I kept going as instructed.

For the 5th step, you add collage papers to the background and then scribble on with your Gelatos again. I used water and my fingers to smooth the crayon out. In the 6th step, you're supposed to brayer on some white gesso, but I didn't have those things handy, so I dry brushed some white acrylic paint to unite the background. Then I added some doodles with watercolor pencil. I'm starting to feel better about her at this step.

The 7th step includes coloring in those doodles and adding some color blocks back into the background. I used black Tombow marker to add lines to the doodles, hair and wing on the left side of the picture. For the final step, more doodles were added with black pen and white gel pen, along with highlights and shadows. I like how she turned out. In the original painting, Tamara has an owl on the girl's shoulder and I had a bird instead...but when I got towards the end, it turned out to be a duck for some reason. I get all my wisdom from rubber duckies apparently.

Whew, lots of layers, lots of media and lots of changes as I went through the process. Having taken the online class (versus just using the book) I knew that the painting would look bad at some points and that I had to just keep going. I'll admit I did tear the page some on the cheek (left as you're looking at it here) because I used too much water but I just added some dry Gelato and smoothed it the best I could. Just keep going and be okay with mistakes.

Here's Julie's process for her interpretation of the lesson.

"I outlined her with a ultrafine sharpie and then used watercolor gouache on her hair using my fingers instead of a brush. I put butterflies in her hair to represent the wings. I used different colored inks to stamp the butterflies on and outlined a couple with Posca pens. I also stamped the word fly and went over the word with a white Posca pen and outlined it with a black Posca pen. 

I used watercolor pencils on her skin and even did some shading which was a little scary for me since I’m not used to doing that. I kept adding a layer after one dried until I got the right shading I liked. I also used watercolor pencils on her eyes, lips, eyebrows, and eyelashes. I used watercolor gouache on her shirt as well. I added details to her Yin Yang with my Posca pens. I wasn’t real happy with the background so I painted it with black acrylic paint and then added white Posca pen dots. I’m really happy with the way it turned out."

Of course, Julie did more of the thinking part of this art lesson, I tend to skim that part (choosing which symbols you want and what they represent to you, thinking of your childhood, figuring out what things still have weight in your life, etc.) and go generic but Julie does some of the work behind the lesson, which is cool. I love the hair here and her background absolutely makes the image pop. It's interesting that we both had moments where we were nervous about adding things and then both ended up pleased with the final results. 

I love trying new things in the arts and crafts world, even though some I ought to stay far away from...like the needle felting I tried. Those needles are flippin' sharp! 

What materials have you tried recently?

Happy Friday!

Chark

Home Sweet Home—Journaling with Julie 10

My sister, Julie, and I continue to make art from the lessons in this fab book from Tamara LaPorte and today is our tenth lesson to share. This one was about your home and childhood and used words and collage to create a little home of your own. A lot of these lessons call for introspection and help you address some things you wished were different. 

I used some washi tape, some glitter-look papers, some text paper and some paper I had stenciled on to create my house. I added flowers, stars, hearts and a bird as my symbols. I toned down all the chaos with some watered down white acrylic paint and used a silver and black marker at the end.

And I drew me peeking out, with a crown on. Julie and I decided I look a little like D.W. or another character from Arthur. It was unintentional, but what do you think?

I was an insecure kid, full of worry, so I added the phrase "you will thrive and be surrounded by love" because really that's all I wanted. In addition to my sisters and mom, I had a lot of people in my life who loved me. I'm lucky to have found my hubby when we were 16, lucky to have two wonderful kids with him and lucky because he's crazy perfect for me. If my little kid self could've known how well life would turn out, she could've calmed the hell down. 😃

From Julie: "Here’s the outside of my house. I collaged some of my painty papers for the sky, the grass, and the tree trunk and I put a magazine picture of a fall tree for the upper tree part. I used scrapbooking papers for the roof and the front of my house and I used two buttons for like the door knobs and a string for the closure.

I stamped some shapes on the outside of my house and along the edges and outlined some of those with a black sharpie. I use a little bit of white acrylic paint to finger paint all over the picture to kind of unify it but it doesn’t show up very well. On the inside of my house I put pictures that I love now and as a child. Two elephants, googly eyes, ice cream, colorful balloons, Sesame Street characters, a lighted candle, a girl sitting on a bunch of books she’s reading, and finally a cross intertwined with a heart. So the things that I loved as a child and as an adult are represented here: favorite animal, treats, my love of reading, and finally love and faith. On the inside of the doors I used ton of different markers and just scribbled all these colors because it’s one of my favorite designs really."

I love that she went large with her project, I cut corners a little and went smaller, while she went for it. I felt like I should redo mine, because I didn't even read all the directions (by accident, I swear) but she assures me it's dandy and no need to redo. As I'm essentially lazy, this worked for me.

Hope you find some time to be crafty this weekend, and think about picking up this book, it's really fun. And nope, there are no affiliate links, just sharing.

Happy Friday,

Chark

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World so Let's Art Journal—Journaling with Julie 1

The world is all kinds of nuts right now...the Corona virus is keeping everyone at home and on edge and we've had some personal stuff going on here too, so I've been awol from the blog. HOWEVER, I'm back and ready to get back into the swing of things every Friday here on the blog.

My sister, Julie, lives in New Jersey and she's a crafty chick too and while texting one night we found out we had the same art journaling book...so we decided to each do the chapters together. It's so fun! It's this cool book by Tamara Laporte.

The first lesson is a butterfly with a lot of thought and introspective and then you follow the steps to create the page. This is my process. I went with a 2-page spread and used my Distress Oxides spray inks, along with some Dylusions spray inks.

Then you add some stencils and water and more spray inks.

Then you Zentangle in a butterfly and, if you're me, you add rhinestones. I also added white gel pen, chipboard words and written words.

Obviously, my sister had different spray inks and stencils and she actually does Zentangle doodles so ours are different, but they both turned out dandy! 

It was super fun and interesting to do long-distance but together. We've never been able to take a class together, so this was kinda the same thing. With less poking at each other. I imagine we'd be picking at each other and elbowing each other and borrowing each other's stuff. But it'd be a blast, so one of these days, we'll have to try to do a real one.

Wishing you calmness and health during this weird, mad time.

Happy Friday,

Chark