Art Journal Catalysts

2. Grow

Lesson 4 – Layering Image Transfers

Lesson 4 – Layering Image Transfers

For this final lesson, I will demonstrate how you can create a really cool art journal spread by layering multiple image transfers on top of one another. This particular process does take time to complete, only because you have to wait until each transfer is completely dry before you add another transfer over it. But the outcome is so worth the time and wait.

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How to make an envelope journal

How to make an envelope journal

Connections Hey y'all! It's Katie here with my tutorial for the Season of Connections! Have you ever had a penpal? I used to have half a dozen of them when I was a...

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It’s Happening Now: Making Art Fast and Slow to Create a Page of Opposites

It’s Happening Now: Making Art Fast and Slow to Create a Page of Opposites

First we will work as fast as we possibly can, going wild on the page without stopping to think about what we are doing. Next, we will move to the opposite extreme and work incredibly slow, slower than we might have imagined possible. Lastly, we will bring these two extremes together to create a page of opposites, inspired by the principles of yin and yang.

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Creating a mixed media self portrait

Creating a mixed media self portrait

Connections "A portrait affirms; it gives the gift of self to its subject. It says, 'Yes, you are worth spending this time over, your story deserves to be told, you should...

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Lesson 4 – Lines, Lines, Lines

Lesson 4 – Lines, Lines, Lines

Lines can be utilized in many different ways to create visual interest in your artwork. Lines can be used as a graphic element to create drama, help draw the viewers eye across the page to a point of interest, create backgrounds with controlled line work and more.

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The paintbrush of power: Using comics and cartoons to turn yourself into a superhero

The paintbrush of power: Using comics and cartoons to turn yourself into a superhero

When I read all our posts and conversations on the Facebook group or on the forums, I am continually blown away by the incredible human beings that make up this community. I see courage, creativity, friendliness, and love. I see artists making the world a better place each and every day. Lets play at being superheroes, celebrating these incredible qualities and bringing them to life in our art.

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How to paint intuitively

How to paint intuitively

Contrast "The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.” – Elizabeth GilbertHello my favorite artists! It’s Riet here...

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Art journal your spirit animal

Art journal your spirit animal

Art 101 Hi guys, it’s Riet here. Today I want to show you my Raven Nest Journal. It’s about my spirit animal that I discovered last year. I dedicated a whole journal...

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How to create a collage of hands

How to create a collage of hands

Hey Messians. It's Nina here with a fun and simple idea for your next art journal spread. Since we're in the season of Gifts I thought it only appropriate to make this piece about...

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Lesson 5 – Prompts

Lesson 5 – Prompts

How I interpret prompts and how I utilise the techniques I have demonstrated so far to make my pages. The goal is to give you a starting point for using prompts in your own pages. It will include a run-through of my interpretation of four prompts, with hopefully four very different spreads at the end.

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Lesson 4 – Journaling and Scripting

Lesson 4 – Journaling and Scripting

In this lesson we will cover different ways you can use journaling in your art journal spreads. We will be thinking a bit outside of the box as I am a big believer that the journaling you include in your spread does not need to be a huge story. It can simply be one or two words about how you are feeling or it can be a quote or song lyrics that represent your thoughts. Or you can let the art itself tell the story and skip the journaling part all together.

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Lesson 8 – Resisting Ink

Lesson 8 – Resisting Ink

In this lesson, we are looking at how to resist ink. Since ink is such a fluid and water like medium, it can be fun and interesting to pair it with something opposite. We will work with elements that are basic for any artist – nothing fancy, not even masking fluid!

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Lesson 2 – Intricate Backgrounds

Lesson 2 – Intricate Backgrounds

In this lesson, I will show you how to create intricate backgrounds using paints, inks, and a series of image transfers. This is an easy way to make your pages pop and look like they took a great deal of work to create.

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Creating maps to illustrate the seasonal landscape

Creating maps to illustrate the seasonal landscape

Sometimes a season can seem like a country with it’s own landscape and culture, quite distinct from other seasons. In this tutorial, we are going to choose one season to work with and create a map showing its unique terrain. We’ll add some simple symbols to represent each place and touches of colour to bring the map to life. This map can serve as a helpful guide when you find yourself deep within this realm, reminding you of the roads you can take and places you can visit to make your stay more enjoyable!

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Creating a Seasonal Mood Board

Creating a Seasonal Mood Board

We all have favorite seasonal activities and traditions. By using old calendar pages, and creating a mood board, we are celebrating these unique parts of the current and upcoming seasons.

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Storyboard Sunday: Using comic book panels to tell your tale

Storyboard Sunday: Using comic book panels to tell your tale

Comic book panels are a great way to focus in on the small moments while, at the same time, building up a bigger picture of the story we want to tell. In this tutorial, we’re going to be telling our stories by combining a comic book page layout with a mixed media, art journaling style.

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Scavenger Hunt: Get inspired by your neighborhood

Scavenger Hunt: Get inspired by your neighborhood

Today I invite you to explore your neighborhood or maybe even a new city as a child would, curious about everything and wanting to find all the answers! Use the scavenger hunt guide to collect inspiration for your art journal and let your inner child play.

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Seeing patterns: Carve your own rotating stamp

Seeing patterns: Carve your own rotating stamp

Using a square eraser you will learn to easily design and carve a stamp that creates a rotating pattern. Create your own designs or be inspired by your personal symbols or images you find in a book. Using a stamp to create patterns, is a quick way to add a layer of interest to your spreads.

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Knitted with love: Using yarn to create pattern and texture

Knitted with love: Using yarn to create pattern and texture

When I was thinking about the theme of kindness, I thought about how much love and care gets poured into making things by hand for the people we love – baking a cake, sewing a dress, knitting a sweater. The end result is a form of kindness that you can feel, that has been brought to life through the process of making something by hand.

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How to make an accordion folded journal

How to make an accordion folded journal

Fairy Tales Surprise! It's Misty! Normally Vanessa kicks off our seasons but she was kind enough to switch with me for Season of Fairy Tales so I could show y'all how to make...

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How to give your figures colourful hair

How to give your figures colourful hair

Colour Hey Y'all, Katie here today to share a tutorial with you! As you know I love drawing and painting, and with it being the Season of Color, I wanted to share with you how I...

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Art Journaling with Children

Art Journaling with Children

Hey, it's Sarah here. „Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.“ - Pablo Picasso. Every child is born with an unbroken will to discover the world...

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10 Songs 10 Minutes 10 Pages

10 Songs 10 Minutes 10 Pages

When I’m staring at a blank sketchbook or art journal page, feeling the call to create but at a loss for where to start, I often turn to music. A good song can evoke so much. I draw from...

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Drawing inspiration from Andy Warhol

Drawing inspiration from Andy Warhol

Hi Get Messians, it's Karen here. I don't know about you but it can be really hard to come up with ideas sometimes for your journal. It's annoying to feel "stuck" when all you...

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A beginner’s guide to drawing faces

A beginner’s guide to drawing faces

Hey friends, it's Katie here today! Your resident doodler! I'm the girl that always has ink on her hands! Really. This year I'm doing a challenge to  draw or paint something...

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Easy watercolor tiny book

Easy watercolor tiny book

Hey messy people! Nina here. When you’re taking on a huge project – like a daily challenge or a 30 lists album – it can prove quite necessary to take a shortcut on some things. Like the...

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Creating and filling an accordion album

Creating and filling an accordion album

Hi everyone, Tanyalee here from the Creative Team. I'm going to give you an insight into my process for a journal page. Not just any journal page though, an accordion album using...

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Art with gelli plates

Art with gelli plates

Hello Get Messsians! It’s Karen here with my first Creative Team post and I am really excited to show you what I’ve been up to. I don’t know about you but I’m always a little sad that...

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Writing letters to your past self

Writing letters to your past self

Hello everyone, Nina here. One of the most humbling experiences in life is learning just how much we don’t know. As we get older we realize that the things we used to be one hundred...

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A guide to hand lettering

A guide to hand lettering

Hand lettering is something that everyone can do. I think it’s really important to embrace your writing, it’s part of you and your personality. I love to use my handwriting on my journal...

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Bonus: Going large in an A3 sketchbook

Bonus: Going large in an A3 sketchbook

Less#gmseasonoflessTaking everything we've learned in the first tutorial, we are now going to take the same colours and techniques and go large. When you open up an A3 sketchbook...

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Colour Mixing

Colour Mixing

Season#gmseasonoflessIn this tutorial learn how to explore the full possible range of a limited colour palette, and experiment with mark making. In the next lesson, we'll pull it...

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Lesson 9 – Replacing Water with ink

Lesson 9 – Replacing Water with ink

For our first lesson that uses both felt tips and inks together, we are re-visiting lesson 1. Lesson 1 taught us how to blend out our felt tips with water – this time though we are replacing the water with ink, or a mix of water and ink. This will give you a more pigmented finish and also allow you to mix colours and opacities.

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Lesson 3 – Abstract Backgrounds

Lesson 3 – Abstract Backgrounds

This lesson is broken up into three parts: acrylic backgrounds, watercolour backgrounds and collaged backgrounds. I will very quickly take you through a selection of techniques using each medium/technique. At the end of the lesson you will have a vast array of tricks up your sleeve to make fast, abstract backgrounds for your art journal spreads.

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Lesson 3 – Felt Tips + Magazines

Lesson 3 – Felt Tips + Magazines

In this lesson, we are using magazine pages instead of our art journal. Try and gather 5-6 different pages to try out these techniques. I always gravitate towards black and white imagery – or pages with a lot of blank space on them. This way, your felt tip marks are the star of the show with their bright colours and the images don’t steal focus.

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Lesson 2 – Felt Tips + Water

Lesson 2 – Felt Tips + Water

Taking what we have learned from our first lesson, we are repeating some of the same layering techniques but this time, adding water. The inclusion of water changes the aspect of felt tips so much and there is a lot of different ways to approach this method. Grab your supplies and let’s make a splash.

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Lesson 1 – Layering Felt Tips

Lesson 1 – Layering Felt Tips

We will be learning how to layer felt tips on a page. Using multiple colours to create new blends for backgrounds and patterns. Playing with warm colours, cool colours, light and dark colours together.

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Lesson 3 – Symbolism

Lesson 3 – Symbolism

Three focus points we can utilize for a more meaningful and eclectic journal and incorporating symbolism into our journal pages.

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How to Paint a Geometric Galaxy

How to Paint a Geometric Galaxy

I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation for including watercolor galaxies in my work, but I just can’t help it. I love painting galaxies and starry scenes, so now I am thrilled to be sharing my techniques with you.

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Bonus – Marks Imitate Art

Bonus – Marks Imitate Art

In this bonus lesson, we will create an art journal page transforming a found image with marks! This is a great technique to practice creating marks but also makes for a really lovely art journal page!

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Scientific illustration: Curate your own seasonal collection

Scientific illustration: Curate your own seasonal collection

Art and science combined are great passions of mine and so naturally I really enjoy Scientific Illustration. 
So today I wanted to share with you the rules of scientific illustration and hopefully show you some ways that you can level up your drawing skills, and illustrate the seasons. 

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How to draw faces

How to draw faces

Divyam shows you how to draw a face so you can add unique characters to your art journal.

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How to use oil and chalk pastels

How to use oil and chalk pastels

This post is concentrating on both oil and chalk pastels, as well as other medias. Pastels are a great way to add texture, depth and variety into your art. The colour pay off and resistance you get from oils is fun and powerful whilst chalks can be soft, beautifully...

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2.1 Quiet Backgrounds

2.1 Quiet Backgrounds

how to quieten a background with gesso
how to quieten a background with vellum
how to quieten a background with tissue paper
how to quieten a background with white out text
the glory of the blank page
inherently quiet backgrounds

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Doodling for beginners

Doodling for beginners

Nature Hey everyone, It's Katie here! You've probably heard of zentangles, right? It's a method of line drawing where you create repeating patterns and turn them into designs. I...

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How to make a pop up art journal

How to make a pop up art journal

Fairy Tales Hello lovelies! It's Ashley here with a fresh new tutorial. As you know, fairy tales are full of ups and downs, twists and turns, trials and triumphs, much like...

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Make your own printables for journaling

Make your own printables for journaling

Fairy Tales Hey y'all, Katie here! I'm having so much fun with this Season of Fairytales. I'm actually a huge science fiction nerd, but fantasy is my my second favorite genre...

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