Recent Art Journal Pages

I published one blog post last year, this year I plan to post more.

Key word being "plan," I guess. Most of my free time is spent art journaling.
I use art journaling as my ultimate self-care, there is something freeing about combining different mediums in a small space.
I journal with no rules or limitations. Anything goes.
Journaling also helps my anxiety, I can let things go or I can obsess. Most of those thoughts are let go.

Below are some recent journal spreads.

This spread was inspired by a song lyric "Bite my tongue, bide my time." I draw a lot on magazine images because I find it interesting to re-work portraits and change expressions. Besides the magazine illustration, I wrote out the lyrics, and added a hand carved stamp of teeth. Teeth represent change to me and appear in my work often.

Here I made another magazine image portrait, this girl came from a catalog. There are no hidden meanings here. I just wanted to use that color palette and play around with texture. The gold is acrylic ink that was bubbled/burned by my heat gun. I believe the words in the background are lyrics by Khalid. There is also tissue paper and Asian papers collaged. My favorite part is the found piece of metal from a local beach to me, which is most likely from a beer can. Pick up your trash, peeps.

What I love about this spread is the vintage postcard. I bought a lot of vintage 1940s/1950s postcards on ebay. A few of the postcards have been sent out on postcrossing but some have made it into my journals. I love the jumper at the top. I printed an old alphabet foam stamp that belonged to my son. You can see his teeth marks. The coral on the page next to it is from a discarded book from the local library. Corals and Sea creatures appear often in my work.

Another magazine woman, the ink is washy and I love that, reminds you that it is painted on. I also collaged with junk mail (the marbled paper is from @finebergartstudio ), and the shells are re-purposed from my snail stamp I made. The woman is calm and rested (well, at least that's how I imagined it).

"Don't down play feelings." I think that is an important message for anyone. You can see another one of those Vintage Mexican post cards in the background.



Do you like these kinds of posts?
Would you like a tutorial of me art journaling?
Other things you'd like for me to write about?
Feel free to let me know.