I’ve discovered the joys of the Posca Pen!  Have you tried these?  After looking at Pinterest for hours and hours (I could spend whole days on there 😆) I found lots of art journal pages with bold stand out patterns and plenty just with dots and dashes and I wondered how they could be so bright and vibrant.

I’d tried using gel pens but this didn’t seem to be bold enough but then I found the Posca – a paint pen made by Uniball which is water based so doesn’t smell and dries permanent on paper – you can use them on practically any surface though including ceramics, glass and terracotta so they are versatile and then come in various nib widths from very fine to giant thick ones!  The one I have is a 5M medium bullet tip – 2.5mm line.

My quote this week was “don’t look back unless you can smile and don’t look forward unless you can dream” and I wanted to use a face from a magazine to illustrate the point as she was looking forward.

I laid down by background using the Tim Holtz postal sheets and other bits and bobs from one of the collage packs from Shawn Petite and then got out my Tim Holtz Distress paint – favourite colours to go to at the moment include fossilized amber, cracked pistachio and peeled paint, so i was ready to go with my image.

I added some flowers and then darkened it down a bit with some vintage collage medium (Tim Holtz again) before adding some Dylusions Acrylic Paint in White and my favourite colour Pomegranate Seed – I buy mine from Art From The Heart and love how these acrylic paints are quite runny so you can use as much or as little as you like.  For a bit of drama I added some black flower stencils – this is a metal stencil/die which worked really well.

I started gently with the Posca marker but as you can see, soon got carried away – well there was a big space on the right hand side and she need more dramatic hair!

I just love how this looks!  Now, just the quote to add – I wrote freehand using a normal black brush pen.

And there she is, in all her glory.  I’m really pleased with the outcome and see how the Posca pen pops – mine is cream in colour rather than white, but there are definitely more on my shopping list!

I hope you have a lovely weekend, wherever you are.  Here is the UK the sun is shining so I am off to make the most of it as it’s not a happening thing that often! 😜  Enjoy your journaling and please leave me a comment if you’ve tried Posca pens or you have a question to ask.

Hugs,

Jane 💛

This week I’ve had a bit of an epiphany and really love the latest addition to my art journal.  Each week I watch Shawn Petite’s ‘Crash The Stash’ as well as other videos by this amazing mixed media artist and haven’t really paid attention to the way she uses a charcoal pencil to add light and shade and therefore give your piece an amazing depth.

I’ve been making my background and working out a theme for each piece and then starting to lay it all down.  Here I wanted to achieve a really calm piece using these amazing Tim Holtz Distress Paints, Gesso and some textured paste.  I also had some wallpaper samples and cut out the tree and birds which does give it a slight three dimensional look.

But look what happens when you use a charcoal pencil! Admittedly this is the finished piece and I have added some painted flowers and the text but wow – doesn’t it pop when you introduce light and shade?  I knew it would but not by this much!

Making sure I kept to the same side of each drawing to give the impression that the light is coming from the right these images jump out of the page and I love, love, love them!

Definitely my favourite so far – I love the colours as well as the shading and have also added some details with my new Posca Paint Pen in cream to give it even more of a zing!

I don’t have any flower stencils and have been struggling to find some online that I like (and which come from the UK as the last time I bought something from the States I got stung for a whole load of import tax!) so I thought – I’ll have a go at drawing my own and then painting them (using my Dylusions Acrylic paints) and I am really pleased with the result.

And to finish off round the edges I used a block of charcoal and just rubbed it in to make it look a bit vintage and grungy!  What do you think?

I love this Chinese Proverb and printed it out on paper twice and then mixed up the combinations with a light and dark background before laying it down with Matt Gel Medium.  I even got to work with my charcoal pencil here too – there was no stopping me once I started!

In fact, I love this design so much, I think I might try to replicate it on a wooden or fabric canvas so that I can hang it on the wall!  Whatever you have been doing this weekend, being creative in an art or bullet journal, I hope you’ve had as much fun as I have and I’d love to hear any tips and tricks you have using charcoal!

Jane 💛

For a real ‘splash’ of colour why not use spray ink in your journal.  However, a word or warning – do this in PLENTY of space otherwise it goes everywhere – unless you want to spray close to the paper (which is fine, but not what I wanted here!)

I started off wanting to use a black and white background, so all of my collage papers reflected this and I also threw in some washi tape for good measure!  Once that had been laid down I made some separate hearts by collaging pinks and blues together and then cutting out the heart shape once dry (although these were quite thick and quite difficult to stick down).

Originally I was going to leave the background black and white and have the coloured hearts but this didn’t look finished!  So I got out the spray inks – mine are Dylusions Spray Inks which I love as they complement the acrylic paints in the same colours.

WARNING 😲 WARNING 😲 WARNING 😲 – This stuff goes everywhere!!!!  Thankfully the weather was good so I did mine outside but I still managed to cover the patio furniture in ink!  So beware!  I tried to spray closer to the page but just seemed to get a block of colour which wasn’t what I wanted – but with a bit of practice I managed to get the effect in the end!

Instead of stamping the words I did them on my computer (Heavenfield Typewriter is the font – one of my faves) and then printed them out on clear label paper so that the background showed through – then I outlined them using a black paint pen.

I’m not normall a pink ‘kind of gal’ but I think it looks amazing next to the blue and green, especially with drips of black (not intentional but hey, it worked out ok in the end, right?)

This page is definitely growing on me – not my favourite, but certainly not my worst! Have you used this tricky ink technique?  I’d love to hear your comments if you have and any tips you could share?

Whatever your favourite journaling type – art, bullet or some other – I hope you are having as much fun with it as me!

Jane 💛

I feel that things are moving on a pace in my art journal journey!  Inspired by Debbie Saenz blog post with her beautiful mixed media I decided to do a bird cage of my own. There is a very old song, Victorian I think, which is about a bird in a gilded cage and how sad it is to be locked in a cage rather than free and this, teamed with some collage which I got free from  Shawn Petite’s wonderful website got me thinking about the measure of love, hence the basis for my mixed media piece.

After I’d done my background I wrote quotes (including the words from the song I mentioned above) all over it, giving it a script feel but in my own handwriting – which is a bit dodgy, but I don’t think that matters too much.

Some pages from a book form the birds and the paints are Dyan Reaveley’s acrylic paints which are so vibrant  – I’m in the UK so get mine at Art From The Heart.  Here I have watered them down slightly as they can be a little too vibrant if you are looking for a more translucent look.

My gilded cage uses a glitter gel pen from my stash and the words are from an alphabet stamp set and I’ve used Tim Holtz Distress Ink.  Overall I am really happy with this piece and I think the scripted background is a good effect mixed in with all the other paper backgrounds.

Whatever your type of journaling is, bullet, art of something else,  I hope you have a lovely time with it this weekend.

Jane 💛