MIXED MEDIA ART JOURNAL GIRL

1. Mixed Media Art Journal Girl Intro : Hi, I'm Michelle from Michelle Parquet Studio. I'm a mixed media artist, floral painter, and I love creating whimsical girls in my art journals. And painting loose and expressive whimsical girls in my art journals is my favorite way to create. I've licensed my work, been featured in magazines, but the thing I love the most is teaching on Skillshare. And one of the comments I received the most is, I wish I could create beautiful art journal pages like you do. Well, in this class, I'm going to show you exactly how you can do just that. I'll teach you how to create a fun and easy art journal girl using all of my favorite mixed media techniques. This class is great for beginners because I'll walk you through each process step by step. We'll be creating lots of beautiful, colorful layers. I'll show you some floral painting techniques, and of course, we'll be experimenting with lots of mark making. We're going to have so much fun creating together. So let's get started. 2. Supplies: Okay, so let's go over your supplies. First, you'll need a sketchbook or a journal. The sketchbook that I'll be using is a moleskin writing journal. But for this class, a journal or sketchbook that will open to a two page spread like this one will be your best option, and also that will lay flat. Or if you don't have one, you can even use a notebook because I'm going to be showing you how to prep the pages with Gesso. I don't want you to have to go out and buy a journal just for this class. And so as I mentioned, this is a writing journal, so I'll be prepping my page with gesso to give the pages more weight and some more texture because they're very thin. This is a 4.5 by 7.5 moleskin journal. So a journal that is close to those proportions will be great. So for the blue and green paint, I'm using mostly craft paint. I have an aqua, an avocado green, sky blue, a teal, and also a darker blue, and the names of all the paint is listed below the video. I also wanted to mention that you do not have to have the exact colors I have, and if you don't like blues and pinks, then I want you to absolutely use the colors that you love. For the pinks, I'm using a dark red violet light pink, and my favorite color of all bubblegum pink. I'll also be using a couple of liquitex heavy body acrylic paints in Vidian and light portrait pink. I will be using gesso as the first layer of my journal page to get my paper ready to paint on. I always use gesso instead of white paint. But if you only have white paint, then that's perfectly fine. And for my brushes, I'll be using two flat brushes and a really stiff bristle brush. And I'll explain why this brush is a really old brush. I got a **** Blick and the bristles are pretty damaged, but I'm going to use this brush to add a layer of gesso to my page for the very first layer, and the gesso will give the paper some more wet. And the texture from the brush will give the paper some texture when it dries, and I'll show you how I do that in the next lesson. And for the other brushes, I'm using a small and large flat brush. These are size 12 and size eight, but any brushes you have will work just fine. And lastly, you'll need a small palette for mixing paint in a water container. I'll be using this tup ofware bottom for my water and I use the top for my palette. We won't be mixing up a lot of paint colors, so this size is perfect. Let's get all our supplies together and start painting. I'll see you in the next lesson. 3. Project Description: So for your class project, I want you to create a whimsical girl in your art journal or your sketchbook with whatever art supplies you have. I don't expect you to go out and buy all the supplies and the paint colors I'm using. And I also want you to use colors that you love. If you don't use a color palette that you love, you won't enjoy yourself, and I want you to have fun creating your girl in your journal. I also want you to add a quote, a Bible verse or your own words, maybe a journal entry, whatever you like. To your page as well. And something to keep in mind before we get started is to keep your journal girl to the right side of the page spread. The leaves and flowers will go in the middle third and your quote or your verse, that will go on the left third of the page. So if you're following my sketch, this is how I will be laying out my page. So keep those proportions in mind. Also, I mentioned in the sketch lesson that her head height is about the same height as her neck and shoulders, and I want you to keep those proportions in mind as well. You have your supply list in your project instructions. I just want to tell you, I want you to have fun and not worry about being perfect. I want you to play with your supplies. You can use your fingers if you want, create like you were a little kid again. I don't want you to worry about the outcome of your painting because really it's in your journal and your sketchbook and that's a place of safety and a place for creating and a place for creativity to flourish and bloom. It's a place to experiment creating with your supplies. Keep in mind, I'm going to walk you through all the steps. So if you're beginner, not to worry, you're going to do just great. And also, don't forget when you're finished to take a photo of your journal girl and upload it to the project gallery below. I can't wait to see your final project and what you create. And if you have any questions at all during this class, you can leave me a comment under the discussion tab below. So let's get painting. I'll see you in the next lesson. Mm. 4. Painting the First Background Layers: A so first, I'm going to prep my journal page with a layer of gesso. And this journal is really made for writing. The pages are pretty thin, so they'll need some more weight to them. And so I'm using gesso to do that. And if you're not familiar with gesso, it's a primer that artists use on canvases as the first layer of their painting, so the paint will adhere better to the canvas. Another reason I'm adding gesso is because I want some texture on this first layer, and I'll get that texture using this stiff and kind of beat up old paintbrush. When it dries, I'll show you what it looks like. And next, we will be starting on our background layer, but just make sure this layer is completely dry before we do that. So here you can see the texture now that it's dry, and the stiffer your brush bristles are, the more texture you're gonna get on your page. Now that the white layer is completely dry, it's time to add some color to the page. The colors I chose were the dark violet, the viridian green. It's an emerald green, the dark blue, and also teal. Now, this layer will be pretty much covered up and the color will be peeking through a little bit, it really doesn't matter which colors you choose, but it should be fairly dark. Just put some color down and start covering the page. I squeeze a little bit out right from the tubes and I'm using a flat brush here, but use whatever brush you have I always have some water nearby in case the paint gets a little dried out. I usually wet my brush a tiny bit to start. Then just smudge them all together. I'm not worried about them mixing together. We just want to get the page covered with color. When these colors show through the top layer of your painting, they will look really pretty peeking through. I always like my first layer to be the darkest also because that gives the painting a lot of depth. Acrylic paint does dry pretty quickly, so it is really good to have your water nearby. Mine's drying out a little bit. Now there is a really nice mix of blues, greens and purples, lots of pretty colors together. I love it. All right, so let this layer dry completely. Sometimes I get a little impatient, so don't be like me and let it dry. And in the next lesson we'll be sketching out your whimsical girl and the flowers. 5. Sketching your Whimsical Girl Practice Sketch: Okay, so in this lesson, I'm going to do a practice sketch on a lighter background because in the next lesson, I'll be sketching with a dark pencil over the dark background, and some of it may be just a little bit hard for you to see, especially if you're watching it on your phone. First we're just adding basic shapes for your girl and for the flowers. You want to keep your girl, if possible, to about the right side, third of the page spread. And first I'm drawing a light circle for her head here as close to a circle, as you can get it and a couple of lines for her neck and her shoulders. And her head should be about the same height as her neck and her shoulder. So just kind of keep those proportions in mind when you're sketching. And for the flowers, I'm going to draw a circle here, tucked in between her head and neck and a little bit bigger circle on her left side. And a third one, a little larger up here. I like that this flower will be on both pages. Makes it a little more interesting and fun. I also want to add some smaller flowers, some smaller circles and fill in some of the space in between the larger flowers. Then I want to give her a collar. And for her hair, I'm going to add some side bands, which I'm really partial to. Usually wear my hair like that on the right, and then a smaller on the left. Okay, next, I'll be sketching the leaves. They're really easy. I want the tip of the leaves to stop at about the middle third of the page spread because we'll be adding our lettering to the left side of the page. So just keep that in mind when you're sketching. And so first I want to draw a stem coming out between the flowers and then just adding the leaves, they're just loops, and I'm adding them on both sides of the stem. I'm not really concerned about the shapes and the sizes of the leaves right now, just basic shapes because we'll be painting over them and also adding some details. And I want to add another stem coming out here, just like the last one. I'm just adding loops all the way up and down the stem. This is the way I draw my leaves. If you have a different way of drawing leaves, then by all means, draw them the way that you're most comfortable. Then let's start one more at the bottom here. When I'm sketching this in the next lesson on my actual journal page, the sketch won't be exactly like this one because it's a freehand sketch, but it'll be pretty close. And at the bottom, I'll add one more stem with a set of leaves, and we'll be finished with our sketch. Okay, so let's get back to our journal page. I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Sketching Your Whimsical Girl and Flowers: M and as I mentioned in the practice sketch lesson, try to keep her head around the same height as her neck and shoulders. You might want to keep those proportions in mind while you're sketching. And also, remember to leave enough space on the left side of the page for your lettering. And again, I'm using my blue stabil pencil. So now we're back to our journal page for real this time, and I apologize if it's a little hard to see the pencil lines, but you can always go back to the previous lesson for the practice sketch to see it better. And I'm drawing a circle for her head, first of all, and two lines for her neck. And then a couple of lines for her shoulders, really simple sketch right now. And I'm drawing in her here some side banks, and a little collar. And so now I'm adding some circles for the flowers. One here tucked in between her head and neck on the right side and another one little bit larger on the left side. And a third at the top of the page. Now I'm going to add some smaller circles to fill in the spaces, and these will be the smaller flowers. Okay. Now, I'm just going to darken those lines up a little bit more so you can see them a little bit better. I want to add a little bit more of a side bang there. That actually looks a little better now. So I first want to draw a stem coming out of the flowers, and I'm just adding leaves to the stems. Mine are just simple loops. They're like teardrop shape. Really easy simple shapes, and I'm just kind of randomly adding them onto the stem on either side of the stem. And another stem coming out here. Again, it's a little different than the previous lesson sketch because I'm freehand sketching. I'm not tracing it. So it's not exactly the same. But I'm getting a little bit more creative, and I want you to get creative too with your leaves. You can add as many as you want, larger or smaller, and if you have a different way of drawing leaves, then please just do your own thing. You don't have to follow what I'm doing exactly. I'm adding a lot more at random, and I kind of like this sketch a little better. And I think I'll add a few more leaves. Try not to go too crazy with the leaves, 'cause we want to keep that left side of the page available for our lettering. Okay, I think I will stop here. I'm going to darken those up a little bit. So next we'll get back to our painting again. 7. Painting the Second White Layer: In this lesson, I'll be painting the background in whimsical Girl with gesso in my larger flat brush. If you don't have gesso, any white paint will be just fine. I'm starting to build up the layers on the flowers first, but I don't want to paint the center of the flower because it creates a lot of depth and also I don't want this white layer to be super thick because like the flowers, I want some of that first layer, those beautiful blues and purples to show through underneath. Also another reason I paint this white layer, not just to create depth, but to have a brighter layer to paint on. And now I'm going to add a white layer over her face, neck, and shirt, as well. And I'm gonna leave her hair that color because I have something really fun I want to do with it later. Now we want to start filling in the negative space around the leaves, the background. Again, for a brighter layer to paint on and also for more depth. We can always use another layer. The more layers, the better. In the lessons coming up, we'll be adding another layer of paint and lots of mark making to this layer. So it's going to be really, really fun. M. Again, I don't want this layer to be too heavy because I want the colors underneath to be peeking through. So not too heavy a layer of white for this layer. And going back to her hair, another reason why I didn't want to paint over her hair. So we have some contrast between her face because her face is going to be a little bit light. For this background, I don't have to paint around everything perfectly. I personally love this part of the painting because to me, it's relaxing. I'm not a super fast painter, but go at your own pace and paint as messy as you want. And that's what I love about flat brushes. They're great for getting in between small spaces, using the tip of the brush in between the leaves. And you can also get a lot of paint coverage on the backgrounds using the side of the brush. So I'm going to speed up the video and let the music play, and I'll meet you back here when I'm finished painting my white layer. Okay, it's looking good. So in the next lesson, we're gonna be adding some color and some more detail. Oh 8. Adding Color and More Details: On my palette, I have white, I have pink and light portrait pink. Light portrait pink is a great color for flesh tones. I use it all the time, and I'm mixing up a lighter color. But if you want it darker, you could always add some brown or a little less white. It looks pretty good. And I'm just lightly going over her face. I don't know if you can see it, but the texture from the first white layer is still coming through. It looks really nice. I love that. But again, you don't need to put that layer of white gesso on the page. And it looks really nice. And I don't cover it up super heavy because we still want to see some of that dark underneath, which we can. So we still have all that depth and all those nice layers underneath, and we're going to add a lot more and so also with these colors, I'm going to start adding another layer on the flowers just sort of randomly. I don't think about it too much. I'm just laying down color with the flat brush. And so I'll grab some color from my palette, and I lay down color with one side of the brush, and then I flip the other side of the brush over and use whatever paint is on that side. And it doesn't matter if one side is a different color than the other. Just right now I want to start working on layering the colors on the flowers with all three of these colors together. And start that layering process that I love on the flowers. This is how I work most of the time. I've really never been that much into mixing a lot of color. I prefer to layer colors on top of each other than to mix them. I've done that since art school, and even when I was working in watercolor, I would layer watercolor and never mix colors. So that's just how I work. But later in the class, I will be mixing some colors together. And so now I'm adding some of these colors to the background as well. Just like I did the flowers, I just grab some color and put it on the background. Wherever you think you want it to go, just have fun with this. And it's my favorite part of painting in my journals. It's just intuitive, and I just go with the flow on this one. So I don't want you to stress about where the paint's going, grab a color and just have fun with it. And please feel free to use the colors that you love. I know some of you might not like pink as much as I do, but use the colors that you love that's so important. You have to use the colors that you like or you really won't be enjoying this process. But you're also welcome to use the exact colors I'm using as well. Whatever colors you have on hand will be just perfect. And we'll be using a lot of mark making as well soon, so it won't be so pink when we're finished. We're going to be using a lot of those beautiful blues and greens and oranges. And for this side of the page, since we're going to be adding our words here, I try to make it a bit lighter so I add a little bit more white to the background here. That way, it'll be a little lighter so we can use our darker pen or pencil, and the words will show up a little better over a lighter background. And so start thinking about what you'd like to write in this space. Maybe a quote, a Bible verse, or maybe you just want some journaling here. Whatever you want, it can be anything at all. Again, here, I'm painting with one side of the brush, I flip it over and use whatever paint is on the other side of the brush. Then I go back to my palette and grab some more paint. It's looking so pretty. I love building up these layers of color. It's such a fun process, and I hope you're enjoying the process, as well. So I'm gonna let the music play until I finish the page, and I'll be back in a minute. Next, I want to go back with my Stabil pencil and go back over everything, so the lines are a little bit more defined. And I'm going to see the outline of the flowers and leaves a little better. Some of them may have been covered up with the paint, so this will help to redefine them again. Yeah, it looks much better. And I want to redefine the flowers. I'm also going to go over her hair a little bit and her face and her shirt. Just a little more definition. Now I want to add some detail to the leaves. I'm adding a line down the center of the leaves. I'm doing that so there'll be more detail for us to paint. Then I'm going to add some veins, and I'll show you in a minute how I do that. So sorry, it might be a little bit hard to see, but I just add little Vs on each leaf. Just two little vis on each. Here you can see it better there. And some of them are a little small, so you don't have to paint the vis in every single leaf just wherever you can. These are kind of abstract flowers anyway, so they don't have to be perfect. Now I want to add some details to her face, and the eyes are usually halfway down on the face, but I like to put them a little lower than center and a little further apart. It makes a cuter face. So just two lines for her eyes. And her nose is about halfway between her eyes and chin. It's just a short line to keep it super simple. Her mouth is between her nose and chin. I'm going to give her a big smile with some dimples. Here we go. Perfect. And a couple of eyebrows. And I'll just lightly draw on her lips just connecting the top with the bottom. And we'll go over it later with more detail. In the next lesson, we'll add some more color and some more detail to the leaves and flowers. 9. Adding More Color to the Leaves and Flowers: In this lesson, we're going to add more color and more details to the leaves and flowers. I have my dark and light pink and light green and light blue, and, of course, my white. With my smaller brush, I want to start filling in between the veins on the leaves, but in a loose way with really quick little messy brush strokes. I'm randomly filling in some of the areas with green first. And then some pink. And if they mix together, that's totally fine. Makes it more fun. And then maybe just a little bit of blue And I think I will lighten up the pink for a pretty pale, peachy color, too. But I don't want to cover all the leaves completely because I still want some of those background colors to show through and want to keep also some contrast, as well. So now I'm going to wash my brush and grab my larger flat brush and add some more color to the flowers. And so the same thing that I did before, I'm just picking up colour from my palette. I'm picking up colour and brushing it on with one side of my brush and whatever paint is on the other side, I'm going to use that color as well. A and I want to get the blue and the green on there, too. So all the colors that we used on the leaves will be added to the flowers, and that will help unify the painting, and it'll move your eye around a bit. And you can see how adding all these layers causes the flowers to have some really nice depth to them. I love that look. And then I want to add a little bit of white for some highlights. And I'll wash my brush again and go back to my smaller brush, my smaller flat brush, and add some dark pink to the center of the small flowers and a few little brush strokes on the leaves are a bit more contrast. And let's add some color in the center of the larger flower, as well. How about that? And then I'm going to mix the two pinks together and paint around the dark pink in the middle of the smaller flowers. Just some light messy brush strokes. And while I have this beautiful pink mixed up on my palette, I want to add this to her cheeks. I don't want to waste that beautiful color, and our girl has been a little bit neglected here, but we're going to fix that coming up soon. So now with my small flat brush, I want to add some whimsical detail around the leaves. I'm going to add some tiny dots of color using the tip of the brush. These can also help fill in some of the blank spaces in the background too. I use that technique a lot with my Posca paint pens, and I add poka dots everywhere and it fills in those spaces where it needs a little something. And then real quickly, I want to redefine my blue lines again with the stabil pencil to really make the leaves and the flowers pop. So in the next lesson, we will finally be painting our whimsical girl. 10. Painting your whimsical girl: The first thing I want to paint on our whimsical girl is her shirt with my larger flat brush, and I'm going to start with a layer of green I like that a lot. While that dries, I'm going to clean my brush. I'm going to grab my smaller flat brush, and next, I want to add some color to her lips. I'm mixing up some of the bubblegum pink and the dark pink and a little bit of the light pink. Maybe just a little more pink. And then dab it with my finger and just a little more cheek color as well. That's a tiny bit heavy, but no worries. I'm just going to clean my brush and dry it, and then I'm going to take my brush and then lightly brush just the outside edges of her cheek color to soften them up. Let's give her some eyelashes. I'm going to darken up her lashes and eyebrows. A little bit more around her face. And let's give her lips a little more definition, too. Usually what I do for her eyelids is to add a little bit of white to them. Then I give it a dab with my finger, and that gives her a little more life and just brightens up her face a bit. And I think since I have white on my brush, I'm going to add a little pink to it and add some highlights on her neck and face. It's okay if it's smudges. I like smudges. And maybe a little on her chin, too, and how about a little touch on her nose. And now that the green on her shirt is dry, I'm going to add a layer of this blue on top of it. It's a really light layer so we can still see the green underneath. I love it. That's very pretty. So I want to define her facial features a little bit more. So I'm gonna darken up her eyelashes, and then I'm gonna give her a couple of eyelashes sticking out just to make her look a little extra pretty. I usually add some kind of a collar. Let's try some more blue and give her a little ruffled collar to give the look of a ruffle. Not a lot of heavy paint. I'm really loving that blue so much. I'm going to add another layer to the flowers with this color. Maybe a little more over here, just lightly I added the white dots with my brush tip, and the leaves, I think could use a little more blue as well. So now for the really fun part, I'm going to grab my white posca pen, and I'm going to add some details. I'm going to move my paint over here, get that out of the way. And I'm going to add some leaves in her here. We have all those leaves over there. Why don't we just add a little leaf motif, almost like a head band in her here. So really easy. I just draw a line and then some teardrop shaped loops on either side of the line. And I'm going to add another one above that. And why not? Let's add one more. And I'm also going to do the same thing with her collar right underneath the ruffles. And that paint isn't totally dry yet, so it's giving me a little trouble, but we're going to do it. There we go. Okay, she's looking awfully cute. So in the next lesson, we're gonna have even more fun with Mark making. I'll see you there. 11. Mark Making: For this lesson, I'll be using paint pens and No Color two crayons, but please use whatever you have on hand for your mark making. Color pencils, crayons or markers will work just great. In this lesson, I'll be showing you some of my favorite ways. I like to make marks using my Nocolor two, water soluble wax pastels and my Posca paint pen. So I'll start first by using my neo color twos, using jade green. And I just scribble some color over the paint, and I usually start going over paint colors that are similar, like her shirt and the blue green in the flowers. But our background needs a little more color, so I'll just color in a little there, and then I'll work my way around the background with the color to add this beautiful green to a few places in the background. I just scribble little marks here and there. And I'm gonna move these over for a minute. So how about this peachy color? And I don't want to add any of these neo colors to the middle left area where I'll be writing my quote because they're so waxy and most pens and pencils won't write very well over them. So I'll just be adding color around that space. And maybe a little on her cheeks and the side of her face and neck for some pretty highlights. Let's add some lime green to the leaves and the flowers and a little on her shirt. I think we need some indigo blue to darken up the outside of the flowers. The color is pretty close to my blue sibilpencil. And we'll add a little more in the background, too, and all that texture from the first layer of white is still coming through. So I want to go easy on this because it's so dark. And how about some purple? And it would look really nice mixed in with the indigo blue. Oh. Let's try some lighter blue over that indigo blue. Let's add some to the flowers. That's really pretty. Okay, so now I want to start making some dots with these. I do this all the time. It's kind of my go to mark. And I think some of this dark green would be really pretty over the peach and the pink paint. And a little more jade green on some of the flowers. And now I'm going to grab my white Posca paint pen and add some little dots around her collar. Kind of adds a little lace effect. And let's put a few in her here for some extra detail. And some on the flowers. And this white really pops over the darker paint colors, too. Looks great. And these marks are starting to look like little hearts, so I'm just gonna go with that. And so you can make scribbles, circles. You can doodle some flowers, whatever marks you like making. But for me, I can't ever have too many dots. And how about a few on her cheeks? We'll make her look sparkly. So have fun and just play with your marks. Markmking is all about creative play and not overthinking anything. And it's one of my favorite things to do is just playing in my journals and creating different marks. It's so fun. And for our last bit of mark making, I'm going to go grab my indigo blue No color two again and outline these flowers one more time for some more definition. And that's it. So I think we're ready to add our lettering. I'll see you in the next lesson. 12. Adding Your Lettering: All right. So as I mentioned in the first lesson with your supplies, I wanted you to think of a quote or a verse to add to your journal page. My quote is from CS Lewis. I love this quote so much. It says, a friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. I'm using my blue stabil pencil. I use it a lot for lettering and it writes beautifully over acrylic paint. My printing, it's quirky, but it's made up of a cross between capital and small letters. I've been writing this way forever, but you don't have to write the way I do. You can use your own lettering style, and if you like, you can use a gel pen or a colored pencil or a paint pen or whatever you have will be great. And just get creative. You can even cut words out of a magazine and glue them down on the page. Or I've used in the past the rubber stamp letters. They work really well and they're fun. So just get creative and have some fun with it, and I can't wait to see what you do. 13. Thank you for taking my class: Thank you so much for taking my class. After uploading your project to the gallery below, you can ag me with your photo on Instagram and you can also follow me on YouTube. I have lots of painting videos on my channel. You can visit my Etsy shop at Michelle Parquet etsy.com. If you enjoyed the class, please leave a review. I'd really appreciate it. Thank you again for taking my class. I'll see you again soon.