Art Journaling Like Frida Kahlo: Emotional Expression with Mixed Media

1. Art Journaling Like Frida Kahlo: Emotional Expression in Mixed Media: Hi, everybody. Are you looking for some inspiration? I got you back. We're going to learn from the queen of art journaling, Frida Callo, and I'm going to teach you how to steal like an artist. This class is for anyone who is just looking for a bit of inspiration. Maybe you have a day where the juices aren't flowing and you need a little bit of help to get started. By the end of this class, you'll have a fun journal page that is filled with little faces created just by inky circles and ink ten pencils. And I'm going to teach you how to create these little pass without getting stuck by perfectionism, because when they're in a group like that, it's not going to matter. It's about emotion and not likeness or beauty, you know. The most important thing is that we have fun, and that's what it's all about. And that's what I'm all about because I always forget to introduce myself. Hi. I'm Journey Marsha. I am a Dutch art teacher living in Antwerp in Belgium. And the thing I love most is to break the creative process down in manageable steps and make it as enjoyable as possible. So are you ready to create with Joy? Let's go. 2. A Peek in Frida's Diary - a Snippet of Inspiration: O Let's take a peek at our source of inspiration for today. This is one of my favorite art books my art teacher recommended to me when I was studying art therapy. And it's the diary of Frida Kallo. What's interesting to me is that you can see her evolving from just a journal with some doodles here and there, maybe using some different colors and then at a certain stage, very suddenly, you can see her diving way into our journaling. When it wasn't really a term yet. I love her bold use of color and dark lines. It's very vulnerable and powerful at the same time. He use of her art supplies is very interesting. I love how she uses inks stains as an inspiration. It's something I like to do a lot as well. I'm very grateful for, for inspiring me. I love her quirkiness. There's room for wonky weirdos. It's so different from her paintings, which are also amazing, but I really like this diary way better because of the simplicity of it all and the freedom. Here you can see that she starts to open up a bit more in her safe space where she identifies with this figure that's falling apart showing her frustration about her accidents. Which also left her infertile and it's also something that pops up every now and then. And I love this page for a very different reasons because she shows us that not every page needs to be very cohesive or beautiful. It can be just getting out that frustration and doodling some things, splashing on some ink and get lost in the process rather than having the need to perform. I can really recommend that, especially on those days where it feels a bit hard to create. We all have those, right? And by doing something, the muses will come back to you if you worry about ugly pages in your journal, which is totally fine, but you can use this as a jump off point later on, maybe in a week or a month or so, you can paint something over the parts that you don't like or you can put on some text, whatever. I consider my art journal to be a living thing that can change through time. I love this one. This was the inspiration of one of her paintings. I really love this concept of everyone holding each other. But I will go through this very quickly from now on because otherwise, I will talk for half an hour and that's a bit long on here. What I'll do is I will put a link to a video with a full flip through and some extra inspiration and extra art project in the PDF that you can download in the class resources. That way you can still see all the pages and hear my thoughts about them. But for now, we're going to focus on this page because what I really like is all these circles, these inky circles with tiny little expressive faces in them. They're very imperfect and this one makes me smile as well. It's basically smiley. I love how she lets herself have the freedom to just do something weird in between. But we're not going to copy this page. No, we're going to take it as an inspiration to do our own thing. And you can follow me with a formation of the faces or think of something else. You know, I like to encourage you to go rogue on me. And yeah, let's have some fun with that. We're going to give our own twist to it. Now, let me tell you about the art supplies. 3. Art Supplies : Let's talk art supplies. I'm just going to show you what I used. But keep in mind that I encourage you to use what you have and what you like. And if you want to branch out, then here's some inspiration. First of all, I use some Indian ink for the circles. This one is my favorite brand from Windsor and Newton. Then for the little portraits, I use these ink tens pencils. You can use watercolor pencils, of course but I like these because they're more pigmented than the ones I used to have the watercolor pencils. I'm not sure about every brand. But another difference is that when these dry, they stay put, so they can't be reactivated by water. And I just want to say that you don't need to buy a whole tin like this because it gets rather pricey, but you can also buy them separately. You can just pick and choose which colors you know you love and use. I also use my Stabil pencil that's also water solub and can be reactivated again. And the beauty of this one is it will write on everything. I haven't found something that it doesn't work on. So that's a good thing to have on hand. I also use my fabricstle pit pen, the bold one. Very nice to doodle with. You have some more control than regular brush and Indian ink. Then for my background, I use the Ecoline that is similar to inks, but it's liquid watercolor. And I'll use my inks more, but I really like them. So if you have them, you go nuts. If not, use some inks or regular watercolors, whatever you like to use again. And I also use my neocolor crayons from the two series, which is water soluble as well from corn dose, and these are one of my favorite art supplies. And a little tip. I have this very dirty MNR pencil sharpener with two holes, and this one, this large one is perfect to make these nice and pointy. And I think you can use almost any sketchbook or art journal. Even if the papers are a little bit thin and it will buckle, but you can use it nonetheless. But if you don't enjoy the buckling paper, make sure you use watercolor journal or just a le sheet of paper, whatever works for you, or something mixed media. I think that's it. Now, let's get started. 4. A Journey Of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step: Et's begin by placing our circles. You can take some Indian ink and a brush like me, where you can use a brush pen, whatever is more comfortable for you. And we're just going to fill a part of the page with these circles. And you don't need to make them shape like little faces. We're going to place the faces in there, you know, however they fit. Try to let go of your perfectionism. And if you have already some idea of a particular end result, you can place your circles according to that. But if you're like me and you like to wing it, just, you know, either follow me or place them in a way that you think is interesting and just take it from there. Follow your gut. If you are not pleased with your composition or you're a little bit insecure about it, just try to continue with the steps because I think you'll experience that after you have filled in all those circles with the imperfect little faces and different colors, it's going to look completely different than yeah, what you have now. So take some risks and try to relax, put on some music if it helps. And if you're ready, let's continue to the next lesson. 5. Little Inktense Portraits - Perfectly Imperfect: Now, for the next step, we're just going to take our ink tens pencils and try to observe our reference photos best we can. And by that, I don't mean that it should take a long time, that you try to observe the shapes and maybe the shadows that you're seeing. That's all. Just try to have fun and be forgiving towards yourself and allow yourself to make little mistakes or make weird, wonky, or even ugly little faces. It really doesn't matter. And when you're done drawing, just take a brush with some water in it and move it across your little portrait. This will bring some color to your face, and when you're done, you can trace some of the lines, so that the features will be a bit more prominent again. And you can serve the shadows a bit more and wet it again. And that's how you create form your portraits. Just take it step by step. And if you want to create a bit more contrast, you can take a darker pencil like this deep indigo to do some accents, you know, maybe put some more emphasis on the eyes and separate the lips. But it's not needed, personal preference. See what you like. And when you're done, just pick out a new reference photo and a different color and repeat the process. As usual, I will include a link to my Pintresbard with these photos and many more in PDF, and you can download it in the class resources. And try to have some fun with it. See if you can make some of them interact with each other, whether they are looking directly at each other or maybe one of them looks away in disgust, you know. Try to see if you can find a fun story between some of these little guys. Now, I will keep on creating some of them and notice how quite a few of them really are very imperfect. So I have no fear. Just join me, put on some music, and see that's a mindfulness exercise. And imperfect as they might be, they all help you to understand faces better. So it's never waste of time, no matter how they come out. I hope you enjoyed yourself. Now let's move on to the next lesson. Oh 6. Filling in the Blanks - Pull Out Your Liquid Media: Now, select a couple of colors of your inks or watercolors that you enjoy and so that you can create a bit of contrast. So we want light and bright colors, and we want darker colors. Because of that contrast, you will see shapes in there that can remind you of figures, symbols, animals, flowers, whatever. Don't overthink it. Just play with your art supplies, and maybe whenever you already see something while you are creating, you can work on that a little bit, like I'm going to do in a couple of minutes when I start to see face at the bottom. Just relax and feel your cut. When you're satisfied with your background, let's move on to the next lesson. O. 7. Give Them a Background Story: Doodling and Finding Figures: Let's have some fun, shall we? Now it's time to go into that background with your favorite drawing tools, and just observe the shapes and see if you can find some faces, figures, trees or flowers, you know, whatever you see in the inks, and if you don't see anything, then just make something up or collage something, you know? You can't do nothing wrong in your art journal. Maybe you can do something that you don't really like. You know what? If that happens, then you can cover it up. So I hope that will give you some sense of freedom to just doodle and have some fun with it, bring out weird stuff, and maybe connect some of these figures. Whatever comes to mind, do it. And if you need a little bit of inspiration, then just go to Pinterest. There's so much art on there for you to observe. There's no shame in that. But if you're feeling brave, just follow your gut. Embrace that inner weirdo hiding inside of you. You can experiment with pattern play and repetition to add a bit of interest to your journal page. And if at anytime there is a particular thought popping up in your mind, looking at it all, then just work it in there because that's our subconscious communicating with us through our art, and it's nice to have these little reminders for ourselves. I hope you enjoyed watching my process. And more importantly, I hope that you allow yourself to do this in your own and unique way because all our styles are different, and that's okay. Now, let's move on to the next video. 8. Class Project: I hope you had fun. Now, for the class projects, it's just as simple as putting some inky circles on your journal pages and filling them with faces, then create your own surroundings or follow me, whatever you want. And yeah, share them in the group because it's so inspiring for all of you when you see what you all did here and how you interpreted the lesson. For example, one of my lovely patrons created this Frida and I love how she incorporated those little faces in her hair as her earrings and yeah, it's such a great way to see what other artists do with the exercise. I'm hoping that you'll take the time to upload it to the classroom also because I'm curious and I always like to see what you're doing. And remember, if you would like to see a full flip through from the diary of a Clo and a little bit more inspiration from a different page from the book, then you can download the PDF from resources, and I will put instructions how to get to it. For free by becoming a free member of my Patron page. And I will reward you with little fun art prompts and art videos every now and then when I can. And I hope to see you there. And let me think. Is there something else? Yes. If you enjoyed the class, please leave a review. I would really appreciate it, not only because it helps me to grow on skill share. But also, I'll get an idea of what you guys like, what maybe you are missing. And I'm also wondering if you would like a little sequel to this class where we are going to focus on the mixed media used in her diary. And I think it will be a fun class, but, you know, let me know if you like it. And I think that's it. Happy creating, everybody until we meet again. Yeah.