Artful Journaling Wednesday

Hello! I've got another post for you today that shows some ideas of how to draw some cute birds, a few techniques on blending watercolors and how an easy change to your normal handwriting can create a new font. If you haven't already be sure to find and join the Journal Me Joyful closed group on Facebook!

Remember how I've said drawing is really about shapes? So for our cute, whimsical birds start with some basic shapes. They don't have to be perfect!

Now take those same basic shapes and add an eye, a beak, some legs and feathers and you've got several different cute birds. You can get as elaborate or simple as you want.

So getting to the watercolor, here are some basic blending techniques. If you want a lighter color you add more water as in box 1. If you want a more concentrated color use less water. Box one and two are the same blue. See the big difference you can get just with water :) Then you can get some neat effects by putting down wet color, the blue in this case, first and then right away dropping in another color that is also wet. For the little splotches that was just using the tip of my paint brush and dotting the red into the blue. For the bottom left corner I smoothed the red around a bit. It will dry with a very soft look. For a more clear color blending look the 4th box is technically called glazing. You first lay down your base color, blue and then let it DRY COMPLETELY. Then you can layer a new color on top of it. See how the red gave a purple and the yellow green? Neat huh!?

And now putting it all together you can create a quick, cute little scene. For the lettering I just used my regular handwriting but made all the letters capital and tall and skinny. See if you can see all the different blending techniques I used in my birds and flowers. I used all four! If you decide to create something using this post as inspiration please let me know, I'd love to come see!

Supplies:

*Strathmore Mixed Media Sketchbook

*Gansai Tambi watercolors

*Waterproof fine tip pen, such as a Sharpie pen

*#4 round paint brush

Artful Journaling Wednesday

Hi! I am going to be posting each Wednesday some kind of artful journaling tip or tutorial for you and I am partnering with the Journal me Joyful group on Facebook. It's a closed group, but just search for it and request to be added.

I got a few requests to do some posts on lettering. So I'll be focusing on that for the next several weeks :) Let's start with a serif font. You can use any type of pen for this. I used a Sharpie pen for the demo word and Stabilo pens for my completed page.

A serif is a small line or embellishment at the ends of a letter.

Here's an example for you step by step of one way you can create serif letters.

1. Write your word using plain print.
2. On the down strokes of your letters, see the arrows above, draw a line next to your letter. These you will color in so that your down stroke lines appear thicker.
3. See?
4. Now add your serifs. I added little lines to the "L" "v" and e" 
5. You could then embellish your word with some doodling.

Now it's your turn! Practice those serif letters. Write encouraging words in your journal using the serif font. You can thicken the lines on the down strokes, or leave them skinny. You can add a little ball at the end of certain letters such as I did on my "J" and "Y". You can even just make one letter in the serif font and combine it with your regular writing like I did on the word "Peace."

Here's my completed journal page:

Thanks for joining me and I hope you give it a try!

Adding Art To Your Journaling

Hello! Today I have a special post about adding some simple art to your journaling. You can do this even if you feel you can't draw or aren't talented that way. Drawing is really about seeing shapes, so if you know your shapes you are good to go! I am partnering up with a wonderful journaling group on Facebook called Journal Me Joyful. It's a closed group, but just do a search for it and you can request to be added. 

I thought a good way to start adding a bit of art into your journaling would be to add some pretty floral doodles to a favorite quote. I love collecting quotes and making them extra special with a bit of painting or drawing only takes a few minutes.

Here is one of my favorite quotes. I did this in my faux dori that I love to use to journal in. In a bit I will share some products that I personally use and love and hopefully it will help you decide what you might want to start with.

I broke down the basic flower, bud, leaf and vine shapes I used to create my page. This example is done using watercolor. I really love the soft effects you can get with watercolor and it is compatible with quite a few papers you can use in your midori. When creating the flowers and leaves be sure to not color the whole thing in. Leave some white spots of the paper showing through. This gives the illusion of light and depth.

Colored pens are another great option as well and come in a wide range of colors. Here I broke down the same type of elements as above, but you can see the different look pen will give. To get shading with pens you just add thicker or thinner lines and you can color your drawing in, just partly or not at all.

Supplies! There are so many different mediums to explore and I love lots and lots of them! Here's just a small offering of different things I use. **I am not affiliated with any of these companies, I just love the products.**

I think the easiest way to share is by listing the types of products and what/how I use them. 

Paper for journaling or midori style inserts

*The example I showed of my quote was done in a Moleskine Chapters notebook. I really love the paper in these notebooks! They hold up extremely well to watercolor, fountain pens, brush pens and gouache. 

*Tomoe River Paper

This paper is pretty amazing! It's very thin and lightweight but wow! If you haven't tried it before you should. I bought some loose sheets and made my own inserts which was much more economical than buying pre-made, but there are pre-made inserts out there if you prefer. This paper is also fabulous for wet media, fountain pens and just a good 'ole regular ball point pen too.

Watercolors

I am very in love with watercolors. I use artist quality paints by Daniel Smith. This is by no means a requirement as there are many other student grade watercolors that are much less expensive and still very nice. Some of my favorites are Gansai Tambi, Winsor and Newton Cotman and Prima Marketing. I am most impressed with the Prima Marketing ones as you get a very nice tin as well, which is what I am using in the photos above. (I filled my tin with more pans)

Pens

There are so many fun pens out there. The pens in the doodling example are Stabilo. They are very fine tipped and come is a range of colors. You can also get them at Michael's with a coupon. Tombow brush pens are also fun and you can bleed them out to get watercolor type effects. Fountain pens filled with water soluble ink can also give pretty results with just a bit of water. My favorite fountain is the Pilot Metropolitan. For a waterproof option one of my favorites is the Sharpie pen.

Pencils

Pencils are also another great medium. Some great pencils I've enjoyed are Faber Castell colored pencils and Albercht Durer watercolor pencils, Lyra Rembrandt colored pencils and the least expensive option Marco colored pencils.

I hope this gives you some inspiration to start adding a bit of art and color into your journaling! If you do add some and want to share I'd love to come take a peek. Thanks so much for letting me share!