I love beautiful things and like to be creative. In addition to painting and stamping, I also discovered photography and scraping for myself. I want to give all these things a space here and share them with others.

Why do you love art journaling?

I always loved being creative in many ways, trying new materials and techniques. My art journal is my creative playground.

Describe your art journaling process?

That differs from time to time. Sometimes I start with a prompt or quote, sometimes I have a picture or paper and build my page around that.

How did you get started with art journaling?

I started scrapbooking a few years ago. Looking for inspiration I began to follow some creative blogs, visited online galleries and watched lots of videos on YouTube. That’s how I came in touch with art journaling and immediately loved it.

What tips do you have for beginners?

Don’t think too much – start and have fun. You don’t have to be an artist, and you don’t have to be perfect. Look for inspiration. There are many blogs and galleries and of course Pinterest, where you can find inspiration, helpful tips and technique tutorials. Create your own Pinterest board for art journaling where you can pin everything you like and what’s helpful and inspiring for you. If there are art journalists you like, try to learn from them. Look at which supplies and techniques they use and find out how these work for you.

What do you do when you don’t know what to make?

My favourite place for getting inspired is Pinterest. I have a board with art journal pins where I collect pages I like or techniques I want to try. I also have a board with quotes that I like to use on my pages.

What are your must-have supplies?

• Gesso: I prepare and seal my pages with Gesso before I apply colors and modeling paste.
• Colors: I love to work with any kind of colors – acrylic paint, watercolors, Gelatos, color mists.
• Modeling paste: modeling paste is a great medium to add structure to your page. You can use it with templates and mix it with colors and glitter for beautiful effects.
• Paper: I like to use scrapbooking paper, tissue paper or book pages in my art journal to create layers.
• Templates/masks: they are available in many patterns and sizes
• Stamps: There are a lot of alphabet stamps and patterns which are great for art journaling. I use them with a StazOn ink pad
• Paint brushes, palette knives (to apply modeling paste), black and white pens

What is your journal of choice?

My current art journal is from Ranger and has two different types of cardstock in it. I only use the insert and made my own cover from a piece of canvas so that I can take the cover off when I work in my journal. That makes it easier to handle.

Tell us more about your mixed media adventures. What are your favourite tools for these? What tips do you have?

What I like most about mixed media is to combine different supplies and techniques in one page and see how they work together. Sometimes a page turns out totally different from what I planned before I started. As I said before I like to work with all kinds of colors and paints, pastes and masks.

My tips:

• When I use acrylic paint with a mask I mix it with gel medium to make the paint more solid and provide it from running under the mask.
• Baby wipes are a great way to blend colors when you work with Gelatos. You can find a short tutorial on my blog.
• Try to use masks with ink pads and a sponge. Press the sponge on the ink pad and then apply the ink on the mask. Really easy and the result is beautiful. I like to use this technique for scrapbook backgrounds.

How do you get your pages to have so many layers? They look clean and pure from far, but on closer look, there are so many wonderful details. How do you manage the balance?

I usually start with a layer of Gesso or white acrylic paint. Then I add pieces of tissue paper or scrapbook paper and paint it over with acrylic paint. I don’t use too much paint so that the pattern of the paper is still visible. The next step is to add some colors and texture. Finally, I write or draw on my page using a marker or paintbrush. Sometimes I use stamps. During this process, I stop from time to time and come back later to have a look at the page again and decide if it’s done or not. A good technique to apply acrylic paint and to create interesting backgrounds is using a spatula to spread the color over the page.

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Anke Kramer

I love beautiful things and like to be creative. In addition to painting and stamping, I also discovered photography and scraping for myself. I want to give all these things a space here and share them with others.