This section will include 10 step-by-step formulae for making art journal spreads to take the overwhelm out of art journaling.
Art Journal Catalysts
Tutorial
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.
Layers and Layers of Life with Cindy
In this Artist Date with Cindy, we will glue and paint and then gesso and then glue and then paint some more. And then maybe some more.
Create texture in your art journal using minimal supplies
This tutorial will show you two different ways of creating texture in your art journal using minimal supplies, making it the perfect beginners technique.
How to create layers with transparencies
Connections I love being inspired by what I learn from other artists. Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned so much from talented, and generous artists, and I’ve...
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...
How to make a prompt-producing DIY chatterbox game
Hi there everyone, Tanyalee here with a bit of a fun tutorial post. Today I am going to teach you to make an origami fortune teller/chatterbox that I have designed with art journaling...
How to Photograph Your Journal
Hello, lovely Messians! Sasha (@sasha_zeen) here! Many of you might know me as a fellow Messian and the Get Messy Instagram Community Manager. I am so excited to be here to share a quick photo tutorial with you. Whether you are only starting out your creative or...
Lesson 6 – Peace
Tthoughts about the idea of inner peace and how we seek it.
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.
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...
Imagining and creating fantastic creatures in your art journal
Fairy Tales Hello Messians, it's EmK again, and I am thrilled to be here for the season that I've been anticipating the most: Fairy Tales! I've always fancied myself a writer...
How to make and use your own colour catalogue
Colour Hello, hello! It's Ashley here. This season has been such a blast, so I wanted to round it out by sharing a simple color catalogue you can create and use for continuous...
Combining warm and cool colours to create contrast
Contrast This season has been a blast, and I can barely believe that there are only two more weeks left in this wonderful world of contrast! But, thankfully, I have prepared for...
How to combine contrasting media
Contrast Hi again messians!In this post, I will share with you quick tutorials on contrasting mediums. These are the tools and products you wouldn't necessarily think about...
Textured Backgrounds for Journal Pages
Hello again Get Messians, Tanyalee here with another tutorial post. This week I am going to show you how to use household items to create texture on your pages. I wouldn't normally use...
Adding words when you don’t like your handwriting
Hey there, it’s Kathleen here and today I want to share some ideas with you for how you can incorporate words and phrases in your art journal pages even when you don’t like your...
Lesson 6 – Unconventional Marks + Tools
Some of my favourite unconventional mark making tools I use in my journals.
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.
Flowers of Freedom with the Gelli Plate
Freedom Hello everyone! It’s TC here, with my final tutorial as part of the 2018 Creative Team. I can hardly tell you what a great year it’s been and how grateful I am to you for...
Windy Waltzing Leaf: Using Bold Letters to Create 3-Word Poems
Ubuntu Hi, lovely Messians! It’s Divyam here and I’m totally excited to share with you this tutorial for the Season of Ubuntu. This season feels like a great moment to include...
Let’s Get Fancy: Taking collage further with your Gelli Plate
Artist Julia Bethmann shows you use your gelli plate to get more out of your collage work.
Selfie Sketch: Creating a painted sketched self portrait of yourself
Tiffany shows you a different way to create a self portrait using a headshot photo of yourself.
Junk drawer as treasure trove: using household items to make marks in your journal
Use common household items — things from your cupboards, drawers, and mail piles — to make marks in your art journal.
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.
Spreading kindness: Using our art journals to leave kind words for others
Kindness Hello artists, Alicia here to share with you a special tutorial that is near and dear to me! When I lived in New York City, it became a habit of mine to take in all the...
How to make a folded accordion book about everyday details
Connections One of my most favorite ways to include my life in my journals is to make the mundane magical. I love taking the day’s routine and drawing it out with color and...
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...
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...
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...
Creating depth and dimension without bulk
There are a ton of ways to get some gorgeous depth into your art journaling that doesn’t involve a lot of bulky doo-dads. I’m going to show you how you can use simple tools and...
5 elements to meaningful journal pages
This workshop gives you a run down of 5 simple things to strive to include in your journal pages to ensure you are filling them with meaning, purpose, story telling and emotion. How to successfully encapsulate the significance of a moment no matter how small it may be.
How to use modeling paste
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSfX4bolNw&feature=emb_title
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.
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.
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!
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.
Lesson 4 – Interaction
How and why we should incorporate interaction into our journal pages.
Lesson 4 – Anger and Rage
Allowing yourself the space to feel anger, and finding a vent for it in your art journal.
Connecting to Culture: Creating a Paper Theatre in Your Journal
Ubuntu Elly here, adding my thoughts to the Season of Ubuntu. We have all had weeks now to wrap our minds around the concept of Ubuntu and part of my thought process has been...
One World – A Mixed Media Concertina Art Journal
Ubuntu Basic Supplies: Large sheet of smooth medium weight paper like Arches hot press - 22”x30” 90lb/185gsm Fluid paints in favorite colors like Golden Fluid Acrylic Paint Brayer...
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!
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.
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.
Bookbinding Secrets with Kiala
Bookbinding expert, Kiala, takes us step by step through binding a journal.
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.
Level up your art by drawing into wet paint
Artist Cait Sherwood shows you a really simple technique for leveling up your art. Draw into wet paint and create a deeper art journal page.
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.
Illustrating people: Easy tricks to add to your tool kit
Drawing is one of the greatest ways to learn how to see, because when we sit and spend time looking at something in order to draw it, we must give it more than just a passing glance. Here are some arty tips on how to draw people.
Everyday kindness: flaps which open to reveal inspiration for ordinary kindness
Kindness Hi everybody! This is TC, and I'm super happy to be with you today! I love this season and I'm looking forward to all the messes we're going to make together this year....
Self-love: How to create an origami love letter to yourself
Kindness Hi, it’s Moriah and I am so excited to share my tutorial with you today! For the season of kindness I wanted to find a way to express self love. Being kind to myself is...
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.
Creating a journal of the tides of your year
Nature Hi Get Messy friends. It's Elizabeth here with my final tutorial of the year. And what a year it has been. I have been so grateful to connect with you, and have been so...
Translating Music to Paper
Nature Hey friends. For todays post I wanted to show you something that I absolutely love doing in my journal. And that is, making playlists or working with lyrics of songs that...
How to journal with leaves
Nature Hi Messians! Today I am going to share with you some ideas on how to get nature directly into our art journals. I have used different types of leaves for all of my...
How to find hidden imagery in paint spatters
Connections Hello, beautiful Messians! It's Ashley here, and today I'm sharing a quick challenge to stimulate your creativity and inspire you to get messy. When I was a kid,...
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...
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...
Creating contrast by juxtaposing moods
Contrast Hi, lovely Messians. Elizabeth here with some wisdom from Victor Hugo. (And, hopefully, some workable inspiration for you and your art journaling). First,...
How to work with negative space
Contrast Hello dear Messians! Vanessa here, I am thrilled to welcome you to the Season of Contrasts. I am feeling very inspired by this theme. When I was thinking of how to...
How to use lines expressively
Art 101 Hello Messians! I'm so excited to be back on the creative team this year and today I am sharing a very simple how-to guide for creating expressive lines in your pages....
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...
Creating self portraits through blind drawing
Hello lovely Messians, Vanessa here for the last time in 2016. What a year it has been, no? For me it was a year of change, of adapting to new surroundings, of letting go of certain...
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...
Using Envelopes In Your Art Journal
I love using envelopes when I art journal! It’s the perfect thing to tuck away some special writing or journaling, photos, letters, anything really.
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...
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...
Make a gorgeous mess with bleached paper
Hello creative people! It's Torrie here, and I am back with a super quick and satisfying tutorial on creating bleached papers. Bleached papers? It sounds messy, and it totally...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Creating massive impact with minimal resources
Less#gmseasonoflessIn the previous lesson, we explored our colour palette and mark making. Now we'll be bringing it all together.Action Steps pull everything together in a...
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...
Quieten the Itty-Bitty-Shitty Committee
Holly guides you through mindful art practice to go from unkind self words to positive affirmations.
Creating Everyday with Artist Trading Cards
Habit This lesson will take you through a week long creative habit that I like to do in my own art practice. For 6 days, we will set ourselves up to create an artist trading card...
Reuse the “meh”: Giving art a second life
Habit Art as a habit is great! But creating lots of art also means you'll create some you're not happy with. With these ideas, transform old art into something new & beautiful!...
Re-start: Six practical ways to get back into journaling when you’ve taken a break
Starting Tanyalee Kahler Tanyalee Kahler is an Australian mum turned artist. She loves creating mixed media art journals, dabbling with watercolours, publishing magazines...
The Voice of this Moment: Using Journaling to Find Meaning and Hope
Connect with your deepest self in your journal, and discover a vantage point on the current crisis that offers meaning and hope.
Expressing your current mood through a painted selfie
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Stone textures: Juxtaposing texture and colour in your work
Freedom Elly here, closing the Season of Freedom and bringing you the very last tutorial from 2018’s Creative Team. I wanted to leave you with something colourful and fun that...
Lesson 10 – Contrast in Pen + Ink
In our previous lesson, we learned how to use these two mediums together harmoniously. Lesson 10 however, is all about the contrast.
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.
Lesson 3b – Watercolour
Watercolour drips, Pens + Crayons, Dreamy Clouds, Gelli Printing, Galaxies
Lesson 3 – Image Transfers Over Collaged Backgrounds
In this lesson, I will show you how you can add image transfers over backgrounds of collaged tissue paper, napkins and patterned papers, to create dimensional spreads in your art journal.
Lesson 3a – Acrylic
Blended acrylics, smoosh pages, gelli printing, inky drips, abstract stripes,
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lesson 3 – Symbolism
Three focus points we can utilize for a more meaningful and eclectic journal and incorporating symbolism into our journal pages.
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.
Lesson 5 – Wonder and Surprise
Wonder isn’t something that necessarily springs to mind when we’re thinking about all the different emotions we experience, but it’s a unique one, and really worth spending some time with.
Lesson 1 – Mark Making Warm Ups
3 different warm up exercises designed to help you loosen up and also connect internally with your marks.
Lesson 7 – How to Layer Marks
How to successfully layer different types of marks without causing chaos or muddying up your pages.
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!
Joy Notes and being inspired by yourself
Freedom Ali Ali Brown is a wife, mother, teacher, intercessor, singer, musician, photographer, filmographer and artist. She is a life scribe who has kept a journal for as...