Tuesday Tips and Techniques: Experiment With Color

We all have our favorite palette of colors that we tend to gravitate to without even a thought.  Mix it up a little and choose colors that you wouldn't ordinarily use together or for a particular subject.  Now, I can assure you that you probably won't end up with your most beautiful pages, but, hey - you should be having some fun experimenting in your journal!

I was tired of lugging around large tubes of acrylic paints with me to class, so I picked up a 24 set of Reeves acrylic paints (why didn't I think of that sooner?).  I was browsing through the tubes of color Saturday evening, and flipped to the first page in my journal (which happened to already have been painted with left over paint from another project).  I really wasn't inspired by what I could see in the paint, so I decided to just experiment with some of my new tubes of paint.  I was really most curious to see what this "Flesh Tint" looked like.  Um....I don't think I've ever met or seen anyone with that flesh tone (I digress), but I had fun playing with it anyway.

It was fun overlapping colors using a limited palette.  I used no more than 3 or 4 colors plus white for any of these faces.  I didn't care about the final result or following the "rules".  I simply roughed in faces with a single paint brush and explored the color palette.

I think it's quite evident that I'm serious when I say I didn't care about the results!  Each woman grew more ugly than the previous one, but what I had was FUN!  I also learned some things about moods and color.

I hope you'll open up your journal and paint just to paint.  Paint a series of something using different color palettes.  Paint faces, or pears, or trees, or butterflies....   You get the picture!  Don't worry about backgrounds.  Don't worry about layering or composition.  Don't worry about having a pretty page. Just experiment with the paint and have some fun!

Tuesday Tips and Techniques: Let Your Muse PLAY!

So most of the holiday festivities are winding down and you finally find the time to turn your attention back to journaling.  Where do you begin?  It seems like weeks since you picked up a paintbrush (maybe it really has been weeks!), and you can't remember what you were working on.  How do you get those creative juices flowing again?  Let your muse come out and play!

Begin with a blank spread or some of those pages that you've prepped with left over paint.  Remember easel painting in kindergarten or 1st grade?  So does your muse.  Prop your journal up or use a table top easel - especially if you tend to work with your journal flat on the table.

Let your muse choose whatever colors appeal to her, and put blobs of those colors on your palette. I use a paper plate for this.  Grab a brush and a large container of water and you're ready to begin.

Pick a color and begin applying paint to the page.  No thought.  No rhyme.  No reason.  Just enjoy the process of applying paint to the pages.  Let your hand travel in it's own way.

Rinse your brush.  Choose another color and continue the same process.  Enjoy the movement of your brush on the pages.

Continue with successive layers, applying paint wet-on-wet, or wet-on-dry.  It doesn't matter.  Just keep applying paint.

Use the paint you have on hand.  Here, I'm using tube acrylics, but craft acrylics would work quite nicely too.

Don't be afraid to paint over areas that look "finished".  Just keep applying paint.  Enjoy the swirling motion of dipping and twirling your brush into the paint.  Paint as wildly as your muse dictates!

Don't worry.  Your muse will let you know when she has finished and is ready to move on to the next set of pages.

Add additional paint to your palette.  Add additional colors.  Get as swirly and twirly as you can with your brush, and look at just how luscious that paint looks.

Before you know it, your muse may even produce something that looks recognizable.  Expand upon it if you want.  Here I've spotted two tulips in an Italian vase, and I added the pear as my muse went scurrying off to leave me to finish.  Just like a kindergartner to leave me with the clean-up!

I hope you'll give this a try.  It's great fun, and you'll find that your creative muse is more than willing to come and play when there's no pressure or expectations.

I hope you're enjoying this holiday season, and I hope you're finding more time to "Celebrate, LOVE, and Create in your journal!"