Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Arsty secrets revealed!

 Hey there arsty peeps Rita Barakat here today at Frog Dog Studios!
Today I have some tips that you may or may not know about art journaling
...artsy secrets!Shhh!
If you new to art journaling- the great thing is anything goes, it's YOUR journal so make it your way.
If you want to draw, or collage, write or use symbolism instead it's all up to you! 
You may have a purpose for your journal- a theme so to speak. I created this one for faces.
I used to not like drawing people- more like cutesy characters and such, but now I LOVE it.
So maybe your journal could be a challenge for you; something that you are working on?
Maybe you have not dabbled in mixed media yet (what??!!) and it is a challenge for you?
A small art journal would be a good place to experiment with different mediums
(in a kit perhaps?)
and then when you love it (and you will) you can
incorporate it into your other work!
 
Journaling: Maybe you are not comfortable journaling.
Ideas- use "journal prompts" in a search engine- there are tons of sites
dedicated to this purpose. You can use a part of song (as I did here) or
if it gets too personal hide it behind paint after you are done or put it in a pocket
or use symbols instead.  For me I needed this hand, not only because it
goes with the song, but it represents giving up myself  and my agenda
for something bigger.

Trying something new: Whats the worse that can happen? You don't like it? 
Keep working on it- change it up or cover it with gesso!
(Gesso is your friend! LOL!)
My base for this layout is sewing pattern in June's Frog Dog Kit.
I used a thin layer of gel medium and then the paper, in crinkled up a bit and
I love the texture. In my previous project I used alcohol inks to color the paper, this
time I left a lot of it alone, adding gold color (Twinkling H20's in the kit) to highlight certain areas.

Perfection: (In my best Italian accent) Forget about it!
I am VERY critical of my work- it takes me a long time going over something until 
I am OK with it. Trust me this is not the way to go! Something I have to remind myself
(especially when drawing people) is that nobody looks perfect so why
am I trying to draw perfect people?
If I get caught up in the "perfect page" I take the fun out of it.
And it is fun so just go for it! So what are you waiting for???
Go create something already! :)


9 comments:

  1. I Love this!!! Thank you so much for sharing the project and your secrets!!!
    Hugs,
    Kerri

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  2. What a great post!! Love your artsy secrets!!! I am friendly with gesso too! ;) Evie

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  3. Great post. I LOVE art journaling. I recently went through our closets to find old books so that I can have art journals for various reasons. I plan to use one as my practice journal for new techniques. Going on vacation this weekend...I think I'll take a book and do some drawing!

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  4. wonderful words of wisdom.... thanks for sharing

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  5. Thank you for sharing some good tips.

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  6. This is beautiful! I love your journaling--very inspiring!

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