Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Cult of Stuff

Author's note: you will probably never see any of those cute and lovely art journal pages on this blog, my art journal is more sketchbook and test area than "art journal", I confine my journaling to writing  for which I have a separate journal. 

Leslie from ComfortableShoes is also the creator moderator zookeeper of the wonderful Art Journaling community on Ning.  I have been an absent member of Art Journaling since December of 2009 and really have not participated much, but I was recently drawn back into this community and, let me say, just in time.

Monday, Leslie announced two new free (yes, free) workshops.  'In the Sun' is guided by Natalie Malik the barista over at Awkward & Beautiful and 'Cult of Stuff' guided by Leslie.

If you have any hobby or interest that you have begun, you probably have experienced the overwhelming accumulation of stuff and not knowing what to do with it.  Leslie is challenging us to experiment with our stuff' and see what happens.

So, week one is to identify something in that vast array of stuff that we have all accumulated and test, play, experiment with it in our art journals.  For me this item is oil pastels.  I bought them, used them once and into the drawer they went.  I think part of the problem is all the dust that they create.

So, I pulled them out of the drawer, looked at them, looked at my journal, back at the pastels and I thought, hmmm - that watercolor ground from Daniel Smith might give them a good surface to adhere to.  I brushed in on with a really coarse, cheap, wide brush which gave my surface a lot of texture, then I applied the pastels, blending some with my finger, leaving some as is - I then applied a coat of Golden Soft Gel (Gloss) with a broad palette knife.

The result:


Not sure if I'll add to the pages or not, like a said, they normal "art journal" stuff is not really me, but I kind of like the results so I decided to do some mail art, for MailArt365, using this technique.  I think they turned out ok.







8 comments:

Twisted Scrapper said...

When using oil pastels what do you use as a sealer? They tend to stay quite "greasy" which can be a terrible mess in a journal.
Please let me know :)

Okami said...

I sealed everything with Golden Soft Gel (Gloss)

mia said...

they turned out more than okay, you know. so very much more than okay.

Teddi said...

what you did looks very pretty! i was thinking you could put clear gesso over the top, then write over it, if you wanted to julie, but it's beautiful as it is.

Trece said...

Julie, these are gorgeous!! I'm glad you followed your impulse!

Anonymous said...

Rock on! Those look awesome!

peonyblue said...

I <3 oil pastels. Call that a disclaimer. :)

Get 'em out of the drawer more often -- these are AWESOME.

If you want them to be more blendable, put down a coat of gesso, let it dry, lay down a lot of color with the pastels, then shoot it with a hair dryer or heat gun and smoosh them around with your fingers. (It'll be hot, be careful.) What ends up happening is that you get the texture of the gesso's brushstrokes and amaaazing blends. It makes the best backgrounds *ever*.

Okami said...

I'll get my hair dryer out tomorrow - I used Daniel Smith watercolor ground for these, since it seems to have a rough texture, I may try the fabric paste - who knows where it will end!!