My first ever video: Stamping technique using a loorolltube

Here is my first ever vid!!!!
This is just a cool technique I thought of and thought it would be fun to share!!

Extra ideas:

• You could vary the colour paint you use
• You could stamp it in a way, so that it gives you a flower shape
• You could use to create a border
• you could use to stamp a circular template either on patterned papers or on cardstock, which if you punch a hole into it makes a fab gifttag
• You could stick in a photo or image and use it to circle something you want to draw to the viewers attention
• You could paint a big fish or other animal and use these to create the eyes
• You could use as a way of creating a circular template over an image and then you can glue down like an inchies page, but just circles, instead of squares
• you could cut little triangles out of the rim of the loorolltube before you stamp and then you will get a broken lined circle( do you get what I mean)
• you could stamp an image(using a normal stamp) and then customize it with your loo roll stamp( for example, by stamping it down and then painting over the image exept for the part with the cirlce around it)

The possiblities are endless and free!! Loorolltubes are not the only item of waste you can salbage for your art! What do you like to use? If you try this technique, please share photos,what are your suggestions on how to use?

Art supplies i am loving at the moment , a journal page and handcarved stamps!!!

Last week I finally got round to carving my own stamps. YAY!! I simply bought a piece of lino, cut down to size, drew on image and started to carve away. It was so much fun and very simple.I did find this vlog video by samantha kira very useful.But it really was so easy and fun. If you have never carved a stamp before, I recommend you watch the video by samantha kira, go abuy the supplies and get carving. I carved an arrow and a Mighty Boosh head( if you do not know this, watch a vid of it on youtube and you will laugh your head off!!!Link at end of article).




I have also created this cool journal page. I had so much fun creating it. First I scribbled around a bit with watersoluble neocolours and then I dry brushed some gesso over it. I did a biro pen drawing of a girls face and added a coloured bookpage t-shirt. i created the flower and then played around with pen and ink. Lastly i coloured in a few things with artists PITT pens.






These are a few art supplies I am loving lately. Mini alphabet stamp set(reat for spelling out words or to use for journaling instead of your own handwriting.), neocolours II in lots of cool colours, artists PITT pens in lots of colours, my brand new aluminum tape, pen and ink, gel medium and carving stamps!!!


What art supplies are you into at the moment?
Do you have any blogpost requests?













LINKS:
The Mighty Boosh: The power of the crimp(I think this is the best intro episode)

Make your own Glue

Today I made some glue from this cool book called: Green Guide for Artists by Karen Michel.I made her recipe called: Rice paste. It was really fun to make, so her is the recipe:

95 grams of rice flour
26 grams of sugar
175ml of warm water
essential oil( this preserves the glue and stops it from smelling weird you can use Eucalyptus, Lavender, Lemon, Tea Tree or Sandalwood)

1. In a pot, combine rice flower, sugar and water. Stir until there are no lumps.
2.Stir over low heat until mixture has thickend. My glue was way to thick at this point, so I had to add more water, but once I had it was fine.
3.Remove from heat and mix in a few drops of essential oil.
4.Allow mixture to cool, then pour into a jar. You should have about a butter-cream consistency.

Apply this glue with a paintbrush , I dipped my paintbrush in water first and then apply to paper. This product last for several months:)

Above you can see my page for GPP Street-team Crusade entery, which I glued down with this cool glue. It woked wonderfully

Have fun!!!

My own sponge adventure

Today I was down the town and went into a shop for lunch. On my way out I saw a pack of 13 sponges for 1 pound and so I bought it. They are multicolored makeup sponges (in pink, purple, white and blue). I came home and sat down to start playing with them and to watch Samantha Kira's Studio Vlog. Then what do I see? This week she is playing with sponges too. How weird is that. I thought my makeup sponges were amazingly cool to work with, they got me an awesome i smudged the paint with my fingers effect , but I did not get my hands dirty. I also found some bubble wrap and used it to create to prints and covered in paint applied with a makeup sponge. I had earlier today, drawn an Owls head. so I decided to cut it out and glue it down. I also used my red and orange shimmering H20 watercolours, a strip of patterned paper and some gelpens and pen and ink. To finish off this page, I wrote about me becoming a vegetarian. I have been for 3 weeks now and I think its fab.
Play with something cool in your journal and leave me a comment about it.





XXO MAKEALIFE

Strip Ease

click to see lArge

I enjoyed last month crusade so much, I decided to give it ago this month to. Above is my page.
First i followed the "instructions" on the site. I took a few patterned papers and paper from an old newspaper. I randomly ripped strips from the papers and glued +these down with gel medium.Next i stamped all over it using my large diamond checked stamp.
Then not quite sure how to continue I left it be for a week and worked on other pages.When i came back to it, all I did was randomly layed white gesso onto the page and then I drew a face with biro(using a magazine image as a giude to where her features should go.)I then gave her a tribal feather headpiece and then covered the excess gesso with orange paint. Lastly I cut the word adventuerer and leader of the pack from a magazine and glued it down.
:)

I have a few new products(YAY!!)....

A few days ago, I went to this amazing little craft shop, that sold so much cute stuff. It was really hard to limit myself to a few things.In the end, i left the shop with one bottle of cosmic shimmer mist, a Tim Holtz Distress Ink pad and a new paintbrush. I am also including gel medium and Gesso to this post,as I just got them a few weeks ago.
The paintbrush is a flat bristled brush in size 4: this brush is fab, you can do dry brushing with it and treat it rough, as long as the brush is cleaned properly at the end, it will last for a long time. This is my new favorite brush.
My Gel medium in gloss: is my new bestfriend. You can use it to create texture(combined with paint will add colour), its a great glue and can even be used to create image transfers,
The white Gesso: is a worthy investment and very different from acrylic paint. It can be used to cover up the whole layer underneath, but it can also be applied in such as way, that parts of the underneath layer shine through. Dry brushing works really well with this.
The Distress Ink Pad in vintage photo: is a lovely colour and so far is great to use around the edges of my journal pages.I want to do a bit more experimenting with this, as I just got it the other day.
Lastly the Cosmic Shimmer Mist in Gold is so .... well shimmery. You can use it as I have done on the journal page above, in the background to add the wow factor to your pages. I want to experiment with this as well.

Have you ever used any of these products? If so what do you think of them? Please share in a comment below.:)))

My Anti Cosmetic animal testing painting and some cool ideas to use in your art journal

I love this painting, the first half is a normal girl and the other half is what she would look like if she had to go through the painthat animals do, just so we can look"PRETTY"?!

Here are some ideas For art journaling that I am loving:

• work with some ink and just add a few accents to your pages
• practise drawing
• think outside the box, look at every material as a potential piece of art journaling gold
• cut and paste down a random sentance from a book and use this as your prompt
• buy yourself a pot of gelmedium and experiment
• use paper chains(handcut) in your backgrounds
• Date your art work
• experiment with splatters

Have a good and creative weekend!DO you like it when i just post a piece of art and some prompts or should I give you more techniques or something?

StudioWednesday 7.4.2010

I have decided I will not post my art pages on thursday.I will post them whenever, but
I will do so once a week.Okay guys?

Anyway:

Below is my first art journal page in my new handmade art journal,I have already done way more but I am always abit behind with uploading photos.But who cares? I did this page by first taking my neocolour IIs and appling them to the background and adding water so that you get that lovely blend of colours. I love having lots of colours on my pages.Then i tried out tape trasfer for the image.The way you do so, is take some clear packaging tape, the wide kind and laying the image onto it.Wet this and rub off the back layers of your image.This leaaves only the top layers of paper and therefore the image on the cellotape.The reason I have lines going through mine is because I did not have wide tape , so I had to improvise with normal tape.I still think it turned out fab, don't you? I want to buy some clear packaging tape, so I can try again.

After doing all this, I sat infront of the telly with scissors, a glue roll(very handy) and my box of patterned papers.I just sat there and cut and pasted pretty images the whole evening.Very relaxing. At the end of it all I decided not to add any words as I find this page is like a picture of some secret coloured water.The girl looks like she is under water and it seems to tell me a a million things without any words and i did not want to ruin this.I really like this page.

The next one, is my version of journalgirl's prompt(what makes a miserable art journaler?).I used many layers of paint and paper scraps to gat the background, but I really do like the background.Then I just added my list :

1. 1.She tries to exactly copy other peoples art.Just copy the elements you lika nd combine into your own style.
2. She tests everything out before doing it. You should react frominstinct. Your art journal is you place to be free from judgement on how good things are.
3. Isn't ever happy with what she creates.Sure we don not always create good pieces, but If you dont like the page, you at least liked the process right?
4. She does not capture her personality and feelings in her art journal
5. She always does the same basic thing. So say, text in corner and picture at top.Have fun and play with placemnt¨
6. She lays one layer of background and then is done.Layer you back grounds.Layering is fun!
7. She plans out her next page!Just be creative

At the moment I am challenging myself with daisyyellow april creative challenge, Make a list of 100 ways to use a paintbrush!It is hard,but very funa dn really makes your brain think creatively!I have 25 ideas so far!!!:)

My Handmade art journal(with tips for making your own)

The most basic art journaling supply is a good journal.I have used 3 sketchbook moleskins, 1 watercolour moleskin and an altered book so far. This is my first ever art journal I have made.My next planned one is like this one on journal girl( http://www.journalgirl.com/httpwwwjournalgirlcom/2010/2/17/diy-wednesday-wire-bound-journals-can-be-cool-and-easy-to-ma.html).

On to my actual made journal. Above you can see the cover.It is made from some ikea fabric with a scrap fabric colour wheel on it.I thought this was such a cool idea.This art journal has 44 pages, it is made half from watercolour paper and half from drawing paper.I really love this combo, as i can switch between the two kinds of papers depending on my mood.Here is a quick description of how I made the journal, sorry I didnt take any during photos.The reason why I am not turning this into a tutorial with images is cause I learned how to make it of a friend as I went along.Any way, first I folded the paper down to size and sewed up the folds. I loosly attached the segments with thread ans then glued the spine using white glue.I let it dry and cut a cover from book board.Next i cut a thin strip for the spine.I cut holes in the cover and thread 3 pieces of woven fabric through it. Glue down.Cover spine with bookcloth sandwiching the spine bookboard and glue.Make the coverquilt.Glue down cover and DONE!!

The back and pages!

So here are my tips for book making:

1. Make your cover personal in some way. You could sew a fabric cover, paint some fabric or paper, cover in paper and then paint once on cover.Try to dipict some symbol or the colour wheel that reminds you of what your art journal means to you.For me I want to grow as an Artist and show all the colours of my life in it.
2. When glueing, protect pages with some baking paper
3. Wash glue brush well with soap after glueing or you will kill it(talking from experiance)
4. Use your favorite papers in a combo that works for you

The beautiful inside paper!!!

5.Save any scraps you may get(like from the above paper) to use in collage
6.Use a bonefolder to create lush folds

Hope these tips and Images inspire you to try your own handmade art journal.

Makealife XO

StudioThursday 11.3.2010

As I told you guys a while ago, I have started working in an old book about Indians. It is fun to use an old book, but i think I prefer using a blankbook.Because you don't have to worry about priming a page first or strenthening it in anyway. Also you cant draw or sketch very well, which i like to do a bit of sometimes. But it is a really good way to recycle and not spend any money and you should definately try it!!
Above is my page where I alowed myself to use only blue and the horse picture, that was already in the book. its fun to leave pictures or information showing that you like.



This next page was one I worked on over about a week doing a little bit everyday. There is another face!!I love painting and drawing fantasy girls. But you should draw people live to get the practise. This is a very good way to grow as an artists. Remenber though that if you make any mark on paper , that has a meaning to you, you ARE AN ARTIST.




This is just a nice pale page witha tone of doodling on it. This can be a very fun thing to do infront of the telly or in bed. Prepaint a page and them grab glue, scissora , magazines and pens and get to work.





This was my first every page in this art journal. i like the indian girl as far as shading goes, but i do not like her face shape but oh well.
@PAPERPHANTOM: Would this be an okay face to show you how to do shading on?That is to say do you like it well enough?

Okay guys, see you next thurs with more of my art and with other stuff before that.
XO MAKELIFE

I will leave you with a few prompts that i have thought up but not tried yet:

• When you start a new art journal create a page about the techniques or prompts you want to use in this journal and at the end a page about what you acctually achived.
• write a story and illustrate in your art journal
• pick an animal, object or person and write all you know about this topic(you can pick any topic you like)
• create a page around one word. This will be the only word you get to use on this page.
• write down words that have to do with your day: what you did, weather, what you wore...
• glue in colourful labels
• try drawing faces or picture inclusiv shading using water solouble crayons

Have fun!!!!!(this is what I will serve you every week , my art and prompts or tips or quotes)

How to turn your art gallery trip into a goldmine for your art journal

Above is my page I did last summer after being at a seurat exibition.Here are some fab ways to do similar stuff in your art journal.

• Take notes of what you think of the paintings; this can be techniques, colours, tralent or motiv.When you get home use these notes to write about it in your art journal.You could also add your favorite painting as a postcard.
• You could get inspired to paint you own picture.Either a complete copy or just copy the colours, motiv or technique used.
• Grab all the free broshures about the exibition and make a collage from them.
• Pick your fave picture and buy a postcard of it.Look at it and write down all the colours used, the motiv and why you would chose it.Why do you like this painting?What could have inspired the artist to do this?At the end you can combine this info to a wondertful page full of your thoughts about your fave picture.
  

A close up of the above. You can see I have tested his dotted technique.

• Learn about the artists life and use this as a preompt for your art journal page
• Copy the painting in a diffrent medium. So for example if the original is an oil painting recreate oit in clay, embroidery , collage or watercolour.
  
  

Close up of how I think he does his horses.

Tip: Buy a guide to go round the gallery with as you will gat a lot more out of it if you know what
each painting is about.

My art studio:What artsy stuff have I been up to?

I am a bit behind on taking photos of my latest art , but they are coming!So here is just an update of what I was up to about two weeks ago, sorry:)

Above you can see a single page I did to try out one of the art techniques i found on http://www.thepaperphantom.wordpress.com/ .It looks so cool!Love the technique.Now the reason I was not working is because I started making this lovely journal from scratch myself!!Its so amazing when you make your own art journal, you feel conected to the art you do on it in such a special way.Have you ever made a journal?I am planning a post soon, as I am now almost done.So anyway I needed to have somewhere to work, so I just used some paper.Now I have got this old book about Indians that is my art journal.Cause I'm still working on my journal.(Yes i have been working on it for about a month now, but whatever!:))

This is the cover for my sketchpad(not my art journal) with a really good quote on it.I want to grow as an artist and the best way to do so is to work on what you are bad at(so with me sketching from real life, not photos).Here is the quote:

It is only by drawing often, drawing everything , drawing incessantly , that one fine day you discover to your suprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

Camille Picasso

Lastly here is a watercolour pencil drawing of a falamingo I did.So see you soonXX

MAKEALIFE

Bring Nature into your art journal

As spring is coming up , at last as I am soooo fed up with all this snow, I thought I'd share my thoughts on this new idea I have had.So warning: None of these ideas have been tested!
Isnt't it lovely to go for a walk in the forest?I came up with this idea , where you collect things from the forsest and use these in your art journal.Here 's a list of a few ideas how you could do this:

• Let the colours of the forest inspire you next page
• Pressed flowers and leaves(cellotape in to stop them from crumbbling into your journal)
• tree rubbings, bring some paper and a pencil or crayon.You could even colour in the white areas of the rubbing to add a bit of colour
• Any scrap of paper you may find during your walk
• Take photos of any animyls, people or plants you see
• Flat stones can be stuck in
• random stones can be painted and used as decor or a paper weight
• Make artsy nature terrariums.I plan on doing and posting a tutorial on this, nce the weather warms up a bit.If you have any ideas for this please comment below!
• Draw animals or humans in the forest.Or if you don't feel confindent with your drawing skills, draw a tree or something.then now one can tell you it doesnt look like them!!

Yeah, thats all my ideas for now.If you have any please leave in a comment below and then I can do a part 2 reader ideas . that would be so cool thx.

3 Artjournal Pages and A List of Things You Can Use in Collage

Doodling is so much fun and I find it very relaxing.It doesnt take up much concentration to do it and you can think about other stuff as you go along.But if you wnat you can put a lot of thought into each and every line you draw and then it can distract you from things.
The green stuff is me trying out the recipe for homemade sparyink over at paperphantom(see side bar), a new site which I totally love.



Lately i have been into collaging a lot.I really love cutting up old magazines for lovely images and cool fonts.Collage is the perfect way to use these.Here is how i build up my collages:

1. I give the background some colour which sets the tone for my page
2. I gather pretty paper that match the mood or colour of the page
3. I cut up magazines searching foe images and i check my collage file and my inbspiration board
4. next i look for other random flat things I can use in my collage.
5. Now i stick it all down and keep adding stuff until i feel its done
6. Sometimes i add a layer of paint to the top
7. Tip:you can draw your own collage elements too

This is my haiti page and my fingernail with my fave nailvarnish(redlove) on it:).I set the tone as chaos and destruction on my page adding lots of random notes and scribbles.Have you done a haiti page?Id love to see it if you have.


Things You Can Use in Collage

• Photos(which can be alterd in some pretty cool ways, i plan to do a post on this soon)
• maps
• ticket stubs
• old newspapers
• scanned in fabrics
• scanned in art journal pages
• calender pages
• scrapbooking paper
• sweety wrappers
• clothes tags
• lables
• reciepts
• little drawing of your own
• old coins
• dried and flattend flowers and leaves
• tree rubbings
• flat stones
• paint swatches
• painted coffee filtters
• lace
• wrapping paper
• diagrams from old books
• book paes
• and much, much more......

Make art with friends

Today my friends came round. We didnt really know what to do , so we all sat down and started collaging.I grabed my art journal and they got some paper.Then we started cutting images and words from old magazines and used some papers from my patterned paper collection.The last thing we also used is neolcolour II crayons.Above one of my friends did her picture.



My other friend made a weird but cool collage body person and then played round with neocolour.While doing this we chattted and listened to music.Its so much fun doing art with your friends.You can get ideas from each other, learn new techniques of your friends.Have some drinks and biscuits handy and get everyone to bring some music.This could easily be done at a party to.




And last but not least here is mine.First i gave the background colour with crayons and then added images and paper.

So if youre bored just call your friends for a lil crafting/art(working):)

Bubble wrap printing and a another art journal page

I got inspired to have a go printing withj bubblewrap , after i had seen this blog post on daisy yellow(http://daisyyellow.squarespace.com/vividlife/bubbled-brayer-backgrounds.html).Then after christmas i had some left over from one of the presents i had got.So then I just went for it.I do not owm a brayer so i just put a rolling pin over it.I used acrylic paint (i guess you could also use ink).Once the background was done, i simply cut two heads out from a magazine and drew a body.Then i wrote down my new years resolutions(http://makealifeandmore.blogspot.com/2009/12/creative-2010.html).



Above is just a close up of one of the figures, as you cant see her that well in the above photo.Her dress was draw with awhite gelpen(i love these, you need one too, yes you do).

This is just a journal page i created.The background is watercolour, then a sketch of my room in pencil and the journaling is using a pitt pen and a gel pen.

"Perfection is not the quest for the best,

it is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves,

the part that tells us nothing we ever do will be good enough-

that we should try again"

- Julia Cameron

More from my artjournal

So here are some pictures of my latest art journal pages.I have left lots of room between the pictures and my writing as some very helpful forum attendars(does that make any sense) said i should.

The first two pictures are both from the same page, one is just a close up on the person I drew as you cant see her all that well.This page was made over christmas , so alot of it is just trying out my new art supplies.;)

The 3rd picture is a little bit of doodling I did with my artists PITT pens.But i hate the girls lips.I still posted it , cause I think this blog should not just be about me showiung off my art but also ma failures.

The last pink picture has some pink wrapping up paper in the background.I like how its gone with all the layers.

Happy art journaling!!!!

My latest artwork

I feel that in the last month or so, my writing skills on my blog and also my art has gotten better.Also I have sterted to work a bit more outside of my artjournal. I am working on a collaged jewelry box and 10 collaged bookmarks as christmas gifts.Yes I am still working on them.I know i should get a move on but I think art should not be rushed.When i am done I will post some photos though.
But for now I leave you with three photos of some of my latest art work.
1.My very first attempt to make an artists trading card.I loved making it. What do you think?
2.Is a journal page.The women where inspired by the volturi in new moon.I know theres not much visual reseblance but its more the feel i got when drawing them.
3.The first picture in the series of three pictures i want to hang up in room. Divided onto each it will say Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.So for the second I am going to paint a big eye.

Merry christmas!!!!

A new cover for my art journal, a primitiv stamp and my New Moon journal page

What do you think of my new art journal cover?It was so simple to make, i simply cut out random bits of paper and glued them on and them coverd the whole thing with cellotape.The tool thing(is it called a spatula?)on top of it is new and im hoping to do marie antoinettes hair withit.

I really intrested in making my own stamps so i tryed a super caveage version of it, by simply sharpening the top aof a wine cork and them stamped it using black on my journal page.But I do think it is really effectiv.Last but not least my new moon page.I did it after seeing the film and the journaling is about what the story is about.

Happy journaling!!!!!