Art Journal Joy: Mini Art Journal Challenge Week 2

There's been a lot of acrylic paint this week. I prefer to use acrylic paint in this mini art journal because the paper is just too thin for watercolors. Otherwise, the books are holding up surprising well. I wasn't sure that these mini journals would be up to the full mixed media experience but so far the spine is intact and there isn't any seepage in between pages. I haven't used any masking tape to reinforce anything either. It's great.

If you're curious about last week's pages and the journals I'm using you can read all about it in last week's post. 

Here's a closer look at this week's pages.

Still inspired by flowers, I made this sunflower inspired page. I think it looks more like a gerbera daisy. Either way, I used a palette knife to get the shape of the flower and then used my fingers to blend in more color. 



I love the texture on this one.



I had a lot of fun making the blue background for this page. Lots of mixing and blending with my fingers. I made the flower by cutting up joint tape. I have a few rolls in my stash that I'm hoarding. You can't get this stuff in Canada so I had my husband pickup some up the last time he was in the US on business. He's the best!



I cut and layered the petals to create the flower. I just kept going until I liked the size of my flower.



This background was another experiment in finger painting. It's so much fun but you go through a lot of wipes. I cut the flowers from manila shipping tags that I keep on my desk. I swipe any acrylic paint that's leftover from a project onto the tags. I'm not trying to make anything but they look pretty. I cut up the tags and made these flowers. This is one of my favorite pages so far.






Sadly, this page met with disaster and stuck together.



I still have the photo I posted on Instagram so this is what it looked like before. I have been using Dorland's wax medium on all my pages with acrylic paint to keep them from sticking together and it works fine. This page was made with India Ink so either the wax doesn't on India Ink or I didn't put enough on the page.



And now for something completely different...



I love this page. It's my other favorite page this month. I could look at it for ages. I painted with my fingers and added marks and doodles. It came together so easily.



I tried another abstract piece the next day. I didn't have as much time so it doesn't have as many details. The color palette is more subdued and I think I would like it better if it were more colorful.






Here's my last page. I painted an abstract background and then painted the pod/tree shapes in Liquitex Acrylic Ink - Carbon Black with a brush. Then I added a wash of white paint to the background to knock it all back. When all the paint was dry, I added some marks and doodles with the Carbon Black acrylic ink.





I am at the mid-way point for this challenge and it's getting harder to start pages. It feels like I'm running out of ideas and I don't have a lot time to sit down and come up with some more. Life is busy with all kinds of new responsibilities like school pick-ups and after-school activities and it's taking a lot of my time and attention. It's hard to be creative when I'm rushed for time.

It would be easy to stop this challenge or take a break or cheat and make a bunch of pages on the weekend when I have more time but I'm not going to do that. Something similar happened last month with my watercolor flower challenge. Halfway through I found it really hard but I kept going and it got easier and I created some of my favourite pages. I'm betting on the same thing happening this month so I'm going to keep going. Wish me luck!

If you want to see my daily progress, you can find me posting these pages and other creative endeavours on Instagram. My handle there is @cathiereed.

I hope you have some time this weekend to make something that makes you happy.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Cathie