HeartYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Explore how to make moveable collages in your art journal. Action Steps Bring your imperfect, messy self, take what you need, and know that more...
Making Moveable Collages by e bond
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Art Journal Catalysts
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Messy Recipes: The Overthinker’s Guide to Making Art
Workshop Replay Messy Recipes: The Overthinker's Guide to Making ArtThe workshop is for the perfectionist who chooses mess instead. It’s the perfect, practical antidote to overthinking. I’m a recovering perfectionist myself. Embracing the mess is a...
Color & Paper Mixing by Roben-Marie Smith
MessYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Gather papers by color and collage them into your sketchbook for project inspiration. Bonus Save this file to your computer, print it out, and...
Grungy Papers by Melanie Theriault
MessYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Create grungy tissue papers with a gel plate and acrylic paints to use as a quick background. Action Steps Bring your imperfect, messy self, take...
Words and Lists by Abbey Sy
OKYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Create a journal spread with a list of things that make you feel OK. Start with the phrase "I feel ok when..." and get creative with your...
Feelings from Music by Anouk Karssen
VulnerabilityYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: While you listen to a song that moves you, that reminds you of a happy memory or simply inspires you. Take a moment to feel what...
Our Archaeological Dig by Lisa Goddard
VulnerabilityYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Work in layers to express different aspects of yourself and your life. Imagine an archaeologist peeling back each layer in 200...
Inspiring People Sketches by Shemi Dixon
EnoughYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Create fun, and messy people sketches to honor the inspiring people in your life. Supplies Journal Paper scraps Washi Tape glue tissue paper...
Challenge: Collage Relaxation
Promise#gmseasonofpromiseYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Relax with your art and get into flow state with this easy art journaling technique. Repurpose scraps...
Challenge: Collage Lines
Use cut paper lines/shapes to create a sense of motion across two spreads in your journal. Working with lines, colors and imagery will create visually interesting and dimensional art journal pages.
Challenge: Movement as a Distraction
We constantly are moving, doing, and staying busy in our daily lives. How can we carve away slivers of time for peace and creating? In this journal we will connect to a moment of calm in the midst of the chaos playing on contrast and complimentary colors to highlight this dichotomy in our lives.
06 My Story
Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It’s all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self-portrait. A diary. Your whole drug history’s in a strand of your hair. Your fingernails. The forensic details. The...
Challenge: Artist Affirmations
I love to incorporate artist affirmations into my art journal practice. Let’s create a beautiful and meaningful art journal spread to silence our inner critics.
04 My Truth
At the core of who you are is your truth. We often need to remind ourselves of this truth. The world likes to try to get us to forget. Journaling.Meditating.Heartstorming.Creating. All of these are great ways to remind us of our truth. For MIND, meditate on the...
Challenge: Wild Abandon
Moments#gmseasonofmomentsYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Create with wild abandon. Let go of perfection and expectations and gather things that you love. Art...
Challenge: Transformation
Moments #gmseasonofmoments Your challenge, should you choose to accept it: Create an art journal page using the word Transformation as the theme. Bonus points: Limit your...
Challenge: Pocket Goodies
Add a pocket to hold tags or other created goodies in any art journal.
Challenge: Rooted
New#gmseasonofnewYour challenge, should you choose to accept it: Go back to your roots.I went back to my roots by going back to old journals. Here are some more ideas: copy one of...
Mindfulness Through Art
Mindfulness#gmseasonofmindfulnessMindfulness. Turning towards ourselves and listening. Being patient and curious and open. Imagine how much our...
How to Create a Scraps Diary
In this video, Autumn Moon shares what exactly a Scraps Diary is about. She pages through her Diary and shares the spirit behind it, the guidelines, the essence, and what it means to her. Video Transcript Please note that this transcript has been automagically...
Recipe 13
#getmessyrecipes Unfinished/ extra tags and magazine cut-outs (choose the ones that will fit your current journal) Any homemade embellishments – I used clay....
Self Love through Collage
Worthiness#gmseasonofworthiness This lesson was originally released in the Season of Kindness. It holds so much value for the Season of Worthiness that - for the first time...
Your Story is Worthy
Your Story is Worthy of Being ToldHello dear heroines, I feel so lucky to be back with you for a little bonus lesson. When Caylee mentioned that the next Season was that of Worthiness, it sparked some ideas when it comes to this class. The Inner Heroine is quite a...
Your Story is Worthy of Being Told
Sometimes, things get in the way of our art making – whether it’s time, emotions or life in general! But I want to impress upon you that you are worthy of taking this time for you, that your story – your journey – is worthy of being told as well.
All of Self
Self#gmseasonofselfWe as human beings are complex. By focusing on the details of ourselves, we are able to fully appreciate and celebrate them. Process Step One: Digitise your...
SOUL
Self#gmseasonofselfDownload the Season of Self: Soul Sidekick Save this file to your computer, print it out, and keep it inside your journal to spark journal ideas.For each lesson...
BODY
Self#gmseasonofselfDownload the Season of Self: Body Sidekick Save this file to your computer, print it out, and keep it inside your journal to spark journal ideas.For each lesson...
Bonus: The Ringmaster
Finishing#gmseasonoffinishingHere's a start to finish process of the Ringmaster art journal spread, and a great example of including yourself in your journal. Action Steps...
Finishing with the Unfinished
Finishing#gmseasonoffinishingLet's finish our journal spreads with unfinished things. I know I have a lot of sketchbooks and journals of pages I didn't finish, forgot about, or...
Envelope Pocket Journal
Finishing#gmseasonoffinishingLet's set ourselves up to finish strong this year. I'll be showing you how to create and easy envelop pocket journal that can be accommodated into...
Choose Your Companion
Free Lesson - Choose Your CompanionThe Inner Heroine class is all about documenting a journey that we have undertaken and that has allowed us to grow. In telling our story through the lens of a heroine embarking on a grand adventure, we can be free of self-censorship...
Four Seasons Collage
Collage through the seasons with Frane Crane.
Bloom Season Hangout Replay with Francisca
This is a snippet of our Season of Bloom hangout with Francisca. This is an unstructured hangout and the only invitation was to bring collage papers with.
Incorporating your favourite elements into an art journal spread
Focus#gmseasonoffocusIn this video, I’ll take you step by step through my process of creating a spread which combines all the elements of my work. I will show you...
An intuitive approach to building a layered spread
Focus#gmseasonoffocusIn this video I’ll be sharing a layered spread from start to finish in my handmade journal. These spreads used to intimidate me, but not any...
A look at Johanna’s pages – identifying the 5 elements
A look into some of my personal journal pages. We identify the elements I use together and look into the individual roles of each, what they bring to the page, how they bring it to the page and where they stem from.
5 elements to meaningful journal pages
This workshop gives you a run down of 5 simple things to strive to include in your journal pages to ensure you are filling them with meaning, purpose, story telling and emotion. How to successfully encapsulate the significance of a moment no matter how small it may be.
Messy Mandalas
Reflection In this Artist Date, Clare will guide us on how to make a ‘Torus’ mandala base using a compass, along with a freeform method which needs no equipment apart from a...
Creating Everyday with Artist Trading Cards
Habit This lesson will take you through a week long creative habit that I like to do in my own art practice. For 6 days, we will set ourselves up to create an artist trading card...
Reuse the “meh”: Giving art a second life
Habit Art as a habit is great! But creating lots of art also means you'll create some you're not happy with. With these ideas, transform old art into something new & beautiful!...
Documenting the Roller Coaster
Documenting DEBBIE BAMBERGER Debbie is a sexual and reproductive health nurse practitioner in Berkeley, California. She began art journaling in 2016 with no prior art...
Re-start: Six practical ways to get back into journaling when you’ve taken a break
Starting Tanyalee Kahler Tanyalee Kahler is an Australian mum turned artist. She loves creating mixed media art journals, dabbling with watercolours, publishing magazines...
Embodying the Fool: How to feel the fear and take the leap anyway
Starting can be difficult. The way ahead is obscure, we are afraid of failing or of getting lost on our journey. So how can we set off boldly, how can we be daring? We must embody the Fool. The Fool is an archetype that allows us to take a leap of faith, to go ahead even if we are fearful. When we are able to look ahead with enthusiasm and energy and when we know that whatever lies ahead is part of our journey and will support us, we are embodying the Fool archetype. This allows us to feel free as well as (perhaps paradoxically) in control of our own destiny. That is when we are happy to start. We will use water soluble media to create an inspiration wave to encourage us to start. Let’s gather this wave of positive energy and let’s be intentional in finding the mantras that carry us forward and let’s take that leap! Let’s start in this creative journey together.
Using Commonplace Books as a Weapon Against Perfectionism
Failure The last time I counted back to see how long I’ve been keeping commonplace books, I thought it’d been about twelves years or so, but since then I’ve found...
Document a day with me
Bonus: Art Journaling Formulae for Busy People
This section will include 10 step-by-step formulae for making art journal spreads to take the overwhelm out of art journaling.
Lesson 5 – Prompts
How I interpret prompts and how I utilise the techniques I have demonstrated so far to make my pages. The goal is to give you a starting point for using prompts in your own pages. It will include a run-through of my interpretation of four prompts, with hopefully four very different spreads at the end.
Lesson 3c – Collage
Collage is the best way to use those prints and backgrounds, and any other piece of paper or ephemera that you have in your stash.
Lesson 2 – Intricate Backgrounds
In this lesson, I will show you how to create intricate backgrounds using paints, inks, and a series of image transfers. This is an easy way to make your pages pop and look like they took a great deal of work to create.
Lesson 3 – Image Transfers Over Collaged Backgrounds
In this lesson, I will show you how you can add image transfers over backgrounds of collaged tissue paper, napkins and patterned papers, to create dimensional spreads in your art journal.
Lesson 4 – Layering Image Transfers
For this final lesson, I will demonstrate how you can create a really cool art journal spread by layering multiple image transfers on top of one another. This particular process does take time to complete, only because you have to wait until each transfer is completely dry before you add another transfer over it. But the outcome is so worth the time and wait.
Bonus – Clear Packing Tape Transfer
This is–in my opinion–the easiest image transfer technique to perform and great to add a little something different to your journals.
Part 2 – Archetypes
Totems > Part 2 From Vocabulary.com: “In the psychology of Carl Jung, an archetype is an inherited pattern of thought derived from the past experience of the whole race...
Part 3 – Elemental Magic
Humans are in and of this world, we interact with it; there is an exchange of energy. This is one of the first principles we learn in Anthropology and we sometimes forget this. We are the product of our environment, we are linked to it. Elemental magic encompasses those symbols, seen and unseen, that surround us.
Part 4 – Claiming the Female
Women’s lives and stories have been interpreted through the masculine lens for a long time. The idea of the witch came out of men being afraid of the knowledge that certain women had. They wanted to control women and so invented this idea of witchcraft as something to be afraid of and repress. And I would like this lesson to be about not being embarrassed to tap into that shared knowledge and history. To acknowledge that we are women and that we participate in society and matter just as much as anyone else. I want women to be proud of this and to be intentional in our art and lives.
Lesson 3 – Abstract Backgrounds
This lesson is broken up into three parts: acrylic backgrounds, watercolour backgrounds and collaged backgrounds. I will very quickly take you through a selection of techniques using each medium/technique. At the end of the lesson you will have a vast array of tricks up your sleeve to make fast, abstract backgrounds for your art journal spreads.
Lesson 3 – Felt Tips + Magazines
In this lesson, we are using magazine pages instead of our art journal. Try and gather 5-6 different pages to try out these techniques. I always gravitate towards black and white imagery – or pages with a lot of blank space on them. This way, your felt tip marks are the star of the show with their bright colours and the images don’t steal focus.
Lesson 2 – Personalising the Cover and Preparing Insides
An introduction into the focus points we will be learning, and have a look at the worksheets and printables provided for the remainder of the course.
Lesson 3 – Symbolism
Three focus points we can utilize for a more meaningful and eclectic journal and incorporating symbolism into our journal pages.
Lesson 4 – Interaction
How and why we should incorporate interaction into our journal pages.
Lesson 5 – Real Life Pieces
Incorporating real life pieces into our journal pages – the things that accumulate in your life on their own accord; little mementos that come from events you attend, people you meet or places you visit.
Lesson 6 – Peace
Tthoughts about the idea of inner peace and how we seek it.
Lesson 5 – Wonder and Surprise
Wonder isn’t something that necessarily springs to mind when we’re thinking about all the different emotions we experience, but it’s a unique one, and really worth spending some time with.
Lesson 4 – Anger and Rage
Allowing yourself the space to feel anger, and finding a vent for it in your art journal.
Lesson 2 – Joy and Happiness
This lesson is about connecting with happiness in our art journals. In the video I’ll introduce you to this idea, and to an artist whose work inspires me to create bright, joyful pieces of my own.
Bonus – Marks Imitate Art
In this bonus lesson, we will create an art journal page transforming a found image with marks! This is a great technique to practice creating marks but also makes for a really lovely art journal page!
Flowers of Freedom with the Gelli Plate
Freedom Hello everyone! It’s TC here, with my final tutorial as part of the 2018 Creative Team. I can hardly tell you what a great year it’s been and how grateful I am to you for...
Tags of Humanity: Creating Quilted Tags Out of Paper and Fabric Scraps
Ubuntu Happy Wednesday friends! Tiffany here again and sharing with you my take on Ubuntu. Since we’re working “tiny” this season, I’ve decided to work in a small tag book...
New Dynamics: Creating Diptychs to Explore Relationships
Ubuntu Hi everyone, it’s Sarah! Today were going to be exploring diptychs and how they are used to bring the connections between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Since the word...
Using a spinner to move through seasons of life
This tutorial introduces the use of a simple spinner element.
Seasons of Collage
Four different collage techniques to represent the four seasons.
Creating a Seasonal Mood Board
We all have favorite seasonal activities and traditions. By using old calendar pages, and creating a mood board, we are celebrating these unique parts of the current and upcoming seasons.
Let’s Get Fancy: Taking collage further with your Gelli Plate
Artist Julia Bethmann shows you use your gelli plate to get more out of your collage work.
Archetypes enhance the power of story: using the hero’s journey in our art
Archetypes are used in stories to convey powerful meaning across culture and time. Explore the classic archetype of the Hero and the Hero’s Journey in our art journals using mixed media elements and a recurring Hero figure.
Using a Traveler’s Notebook to Tell Your Story
Use ephemera from your everyday life to create a story using Traveler’s Notebooks.
Getting Started with Collage: Tips & Journal Spread Process
Amanda gives you some tips for getting started with collage and creating a fun, uplifting journal spread.
1.4 Essie Ruth – Collage in Monochrome
The conversation between colours in an artwork can make it complex and busy. When you reduce your palette to shades of one colour, you reduce the noise, and make a much more minimalist piece. It can still be intricately detailed, and multi-layered, but doesn’t get as intense.
Collage presents a unique way of including a wide range of textures and shapes while sticking to shades of a single colour.
Documenting Color with Sarah
Create color swatches to cut apart to make simple collage palettes and patterns with Sarah.
Scrap Collage
All many of us need to do to create art journal pages is sweep up our art spaces and put those tiny discarded papers to serious work. In this class, instructor Zinia Redo starts simple and progresses through intermediate to advanced techniques that will help you use tiny pieces of leftover papers (or purposefully selected beauties!) for intricate and beautiful backgrounds. All you need for this class is scissors, your scrap paper stash, and glue to get your fingers snipping, arranging, and glueing. You can use this class to create art journal backgrounds, base pages, scrapbook pages, collages, mosaics, summer crafts with the kids, frame-worthy art, and more. If you follow all of the class techniques, you will have 92 art journal base pages ready and waiting for when inspiration strikes.
Collage and Create Alongside Katie
The collage queen invites you to make a paper mess alongside her.
Layers and Layers of Life with Cindy
In this Artist Date with Cindy, we will glue and paint and then gesso and then glue and then paint some more. And then maybe some more.
Selfie Sketch: Creating a painted sketched self portrait of yourself
Tiffany shows you a different way to create a self portrait using a headshot photo of yourself.
Use vintage photos and found words to tell a familiar or fictional story in your journal
Let’s explore ways to use vintage photos and papers in your art journal. Make a found word sentence or two to enhance you story, be it autobiographical or fictional.
Photographic Abstraction: Using Cropped Images to Focus on the Details
Create your own abstract images by zooming in and cropping your photos interesting ways and then use these photos to share the details of your stories.
Scavenger Hunt: Get inspired by your neighborhood
Today I invite you to explore your neighborhood or maybe even a new city as a child would, curious about everything and wanting to find all the answers! Use the scavenger hunt guide to collect inspiration for your art journal and let your inner child play.
The paintbrush of power: Using comics and cartoons to turn yourself into a superhero
When I read all our posts and conversations on the Facebook group or on the forums, I am continually blown away by the incredible human beings that make up this community. I see courage, creativity, friendliness, and love. I see artists making the world a better place each and every day. Lets play at being superheroes, celebrating these incredible qualities and bringing them to life in our art.
New do! Styling hair in your journal pages.
This tutorial will encourage you to use an altered book and encourage lots of play when you give your ‘model’ a new hair do. You don’t need a ton of supplies to get a really effective page in your art journal.
Infuse your Art Journal with Emotion
Find the right media to express specific emotions.
Roll the art dice: a creative art journaling game
Play Download the List Save this file to your computer, print it out, and keep it inside your journal to spark journal ideas. Hello artists, Alicia here to kick off the Season of...
Everyday kindness: flaps which open to reveal inspiration for ordinary kindness
Kindness Hi everybody! This is TC, and I'm super happy to be with you today! I love this season and I'm looking forward to all the messes we're going to make together this year....
Self-love: How to create an origami love letter to yourself
Kindness Hi, it’s Moriah and I am so excited to share my tutorial with you today! For the season of kindness I wanted to find a way to express self love. Being kind to myself is...
2.1 Quiet Backgrounds
how to quieten a background with gesso
how to quieten a background with vellum
how to quieten a background with tissue paper
how to quieten a background with white out text
the glory of the blank page
inherently quiet backgrounds
2.3 Riet Poch – Depth in Backgrounds
In a minimalistic page you can’t have a busy background, a lot of writing and a lot of other elements. That doesn’t mean that you aren’t allowed to use more than one color or element, but before you start decide what your focus will be. The focus in this lesson will be on the background. With simple techniques we’ll create detailed bases for our message.
Scar Tissue: creating collaged hands of forgiveness
Kindness Hey everyone. Tiffany here with my very first post on the Get Messy blog as a Creative Team member! I'm so excited to begin sharing with you all different ways to...
Healing Heart: Using painted paper and collage to encourage self love
Kindness Hi, Sarah here! I'm so excited to share this tutorial with you all! I love that we're starting a new year of Get Messy with the Season of Kindness. What a great way to...
Spreading kindness: Using our art journals to leave kind words for others
Kindness Hello artists, Alicia here to share with you a special tutorial that is near and dear to me! When I lived in New York City, it became a habit of mine to take in all the...
Translating Music to Paper
Nature Hey friends. For todays post I wanted to show you something that I absolutely love doing in my journal. And that is, making playlists or working with...
Doodling for beginners
Nature Hey everyone, It's Katie here! You've probably heard of zentangles, right? It's a method of line drawing where you create repeating patterns and turn them into designs. I...
How to use the language of flowers in your art
Nature Hi creative peeps! It’s Riet here. I can’t believe it’s nearly the end of my time as creative team member. I feel quite nostalgic writing this as I can remember the...