Styling Art Journals for Social Media

1. Class Intro: our journals and art journaling are great way to practice your art as well as communicate feelings and become proficient in techniques. One way to share your art is by posting it online on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook or any other social media. It's a great way for artists to get noticed to form an online community and get feedback for your work in today's class. Styling our generals for social media I'll show you a few tips on Had a Style Your art journal to make clear, effective photos that showcase your work. I'm Daniella Melon and author and artist here on skill share. Welcome to my class in today's class. I'll show you how to create simple yet intriguing layouts for your artwork that you will be proud to post on any social media. This class is about styling. Your Argenteuil both completed pieces and works in progress. The journal themselves, as well as the artwork inside, could be photographed also, and I'll give you a few tips for that. Our general span from sketchbooks bullet journals illustrated Bibles to scrapbooks, portfolios and diaries. There is personal and unique as a creator, and they pose interesting challenges to photograph in this class, I'll show you how to take your artwork and create square format photos. I'll show you 11 techniques for everything from a standard six by nine inch journal toe, larger ones, tinier ones and even some made of unusual materials like shell. Or would we will use supplies that you probably have on hand and a few that you can easily acquire. Our goal when styling our artwork is to create scenes that showcase it and complimented. Our artwork is the focus, and we we will use some simple props to set a mood or demonstrate the art process. I've included lessons for styling to page layouts, single pages, works in progress and even ideas to emphasize unusual elements in our journal for your class project. She was either an art journal layout, a feature or a unique characteristic that you're particularly proud of and style it. Using some inspiration from class, please post your work in the Project section or on Instagram and tag me Daniella Mylan artist. If you like this class, please consider leaving a positive review, and if you have an idea for class, please share it in the comments section. Thanks for joining me. Let's get started 2. Basic 2 Page Spread: for the first chapter in styling art journals. We'll start with the basics, which is just a simple spread of your art journal. So this is just your focuses on creating the entire spread both pages, and so you can just do that. And then just with your camera, you can capture it. You can capture it straight on. You could tilt your journal captured that way, Um, or you could just add a little bit of a few props here. This book sits open very nicely, but if you had a book that didn't sit open is easily, for example, a Coptic six stitch binding. You'll need something to prop it open. You can use weights of some sort either cup or a drinking glass, or you can use clips. So these air just standard clips that you can get at either a hardware store or an office supply store. And you could just clipped the book and it holds the pages together, and it adds a little bit of weight. And so you could take your photo just like that with the clips. Or you could look at different ones that maybe don't interact too much with your artwork, for example, these little gray ones here and these air definitely from the hardware store put couple from this side. And that's it's just enough to hold my page, my book open so I can use that photo and you just stick them in and see how many you need on one side to weigh it down. You could play with either folding them over or not. It's up to you and you'll get a different effect, depending which clips you use. And even though I don't need one on this side, I might put one here just to tie it all together. And I think I'm gonna keep them open, has a little slightly different effect, looks more temporary that way, and so I can just take my photo that way. 3. Hands As Props: for our next chapter. We're gonna work on using our hands as props by holding open the book. So this is a fun prop to use. Everybody has hands. You have a friend that can help you with it. And you're either you're just going to hold your book and snap a photo, or you can have a friend hold it for you and they can hold it with both hands. They can hold it with one hand. Or you could take it outside where there's different scenery and I'll show you some photos that I snapped outside. I took this one here while we were by the pool. That way I got a view of the water and then besides the color in my photo, and I did the same thing with the beach have the background to you. And then I took one right here in front of this pretty bush. And again, you're adding the human element to this factor of your hands without using your face or your body. So that's another fun way to add another look to photograph in your art journal. 4. Single Page Spread: in this chapter, we'll talk about photographing a single page spread on your art journal so you have your art journal, and then you could choose one page. So you take the art journal, set it up. How you like, and the important thing to focus on, and this one is to capture the fact that it's a one page spread, so you'll want to capture the binding. You can even keep your page open, and you're just when you photograph it your crop. That one page and it really gives you an emphasis on the one page indicates that it's an art journal and you can take your photograph while focusing on just one part of the layout . So if something's very personal or something, you're not interested in sharing or work that you that wasn't your best. In your opinion, you can just focus on the one page that you really like. Likewise, you can focus on just the one section you really like, and just take a photo of that as well 5. Props Inspired from a Page: another way to style at your Art Journal is to take your journal page and use the what's on the journal page and use props from that. So here I have a beach scene on something that washed up on the beach that we were kind of interested in when we found it. And so now I'll just stick some items just around that are reminiscent of that scene, and then I can crop my picture accordingly. I am also taking just one page of the of the two page spread like we discussed in an earlier chapter, so I'll be sure to get some of the binding to indicate that it is a journal. 6. Create a Mood: another way to style. Your art journal is to set a mood with, um So here I have my art journal. It's completed. I'm not focusing on the fact that I'm currently working on it. This is a Bible journal, so I'm trying to set the mood for that. I'm perhaps reading it or going through my journal afterwards, So I'll have my journal here. I have a cute little ribbon that's part of the the book in this case, but I can also add some other props, like perhaps a cup of tea and a cookie, and that might, um, give a nice effect, as if I'm just sitting down to read my journal that I've worked on. So I'll play with aspects here, and then when I take my photo, I might not get the entire image, but just enough of it to give Set the scene. So I have the page with the artwork and then the cup of tea, emphasizing reading and relaxing. So that's a different effect 7. Small Art Journal: another way to style. Your art journal is if you have a little art journal that's completed, or at least a layout is completed. Here I have a very tiny little book, Some watercolors. What I wanna do is surrounded with art supplies. Even though I've already completed my art journal, I give the effect of how it was created. So with this, I'll also be combining it with some other techniques we used with the clips to hold it open . So put my clip here. Maybe one more clip on this side to hold it open just like this. And then I'll surround it with some art supplies. Because I used ink on this medial start. I'll put just my little, uh, marker I could use a paintbrush is. Well, I think maybe we'll put some flowers since it was a flower journal. And then I'll just crop my photo as I like and snap my picture 8. Works in Progress: another way to photograph your art journals is to show you're works in progress. And in this case, um, I have to that I'm going to show you one. I'm going to show you the process, or I'm gonna attempt to show the process in my photograph. And in the 2nd 1 I'm just gonna show the mood of when I paint. So in the 1st 1 I have here just a little folded journal that I'm in the process of creating, and I'm going to sew it together. So the first step is to fold the papers and burnished, um, so I have that in the next step is to add the, um, spine. Just so the spine in. So I made a little tool to view that as well. So I will take a photograph of all my materials, and so that shows my work in progress. If I feel the, um, layout is kind of drab or not enough colors, I can throw in a flower or so maybe a colorful art supply as well. And that will change it up just enough toe, add some interest without taking away from the point of the work in progress for the second work in progress. I'm working on a painting inside a journal. So I have my painting. That's I'm in the process of creative. So I want to include some supplies that I used to paint and, um, something to set the mood. So I'll have a cup of coffee, maybe in the photograph as well. And they will put some supplies that I use. Maybe a paint in the brush could also include a marker. And so that gives me that gives the mood that I'm currently working on this journal. Maybe I'll move these two over here, put this one back here, and so then I'll just snapped that photo. 9. Journal Binding: for next. At original, perhaps you have an art journal that has an unusual cover or unusual binding or something you wanna really showcase that that makes it stand out So you can do this by focusing on that one item. So in this case with Shell, I want to focus on the fact that it's a show and that it has the binding. So I would maybe prop it up like this and take my photo and I could get was close or get whatever angle I want. And it creates a very interesting look. If I wanted to prop the book open and maybe show more of a shell like this, I could just take either a roll of tape or some item prop it underneath. Takes a little, uh, little skill here to get that to stay. And then I could just take my photo. Can you square similarly, but with a much smaller one here I have a little art journal made with just wouldn't rounds for the covers and a little painting on it. And so I don't really want to focus on the pages so much as I want to focus on the depth here, so I'll do the same thing. Hero put it this way. And just like this is not really attractive. So I'll try and find something that I can prop it up with an open the cover. These are the little binder clips that may work from lucky, and it can take a photo. Or I can use maybe a shot glass, something proportionate to the size that I'm using here, and it can snap a photo of that, and I could go with different angles as well. I want to avoid the shot glass, but still give the effect here. If this is too simple and I want to incorporate something some props intuit that are from, particularly a Coptic journal, I might take a needle and thread and put that around, maybe play with this needle a little, give it a little shape, take a photo of that, and that gives the impression of having made the journal. It's kind of a cute effect 10. Multiple Spreads: if I want to make an art journal layout where I show multiple pages and multiple spreads on one photo, what I'll do is I'll take all my photos of the pages that I want, and then I'll go and use a different app. My instagram app called layout. And so from here I have all my photos on my photo stream, and what I'll do is out select the photos I want to use in the same image. So I have here. I have all three of my photos that I want to use for this layout. I'll choose the formation that I want the image to be. And because these air long photos I think three right here will look really good. And then, from here, I can choose the layout that I want. What I do is I select each one, so each image here's three and then I'll just extend it or shrink it to fit as I like extended just a little, and I click on each one and they online at the way. I'd like it and then I'll go here, do the same and then I can decide if I want to have a border surrounding each one, which I like the way that looks. I think it better change the order of the layout, however, so tap on the one. I want to move, hold it and drag it toe where I want to put it. See if I'll do that. Find spot that I like the best. If it moves during on that process, I'll just go back in and align it the way I'd like it. I'll just select no border and then border. I think I'll keep the border and then I'll save it. And so from here I have my completed photo. Um, just like I want to upload. 11. Journal Collections: Another idea that's a little unusual for photographing your art journals is instead of showing your layouts, show your collection of our journals so you don't have to use all of them or you can. But your goal is to just show the scope and how. It's kind of a constant presence in your life of having the art journals, so you'll photograph a bunch of them together. Our stack. If you were photographing it straight on, you could pile them up nice and tall, or you could just photograph all of them now to make my stack of journals that goes vertically tall. I'll just arrange the journals in a fashion that seems somewhat pleasing. Here we have a big flower as a prop. I may or may not use that, depending on how it looks. So then I'll just add my stack of journals just in a very simple way, and then I'll play around with seeing how I like the look of it, maybe putting some at an angle. What I did was I draped my paper over something in the background to create the height, and now I'll just add my journals as I see fit This might be a little big for that. So put it this way and I just play around until I have the image that I like. I'll take a few pictures moving them around as I see fit if I want, and I want to really showcase a particular book, prop it up somewhat, get a few things to prop it up with or I'll just change the order. 12. Vertical Orientation: And lastly, if I want to showcase a book in the vertical position, what I'll do is I'll take this little journal and I'll try and find a pleasing, waited to demonstrate the size of it, or this shape or something original about it. So here I have some shells and a little turtle bead hanging off this driftwood journal, so I'll put some of things that correspond with it, like this little turtle here that corresponds with the turtle and the color, and I'll add some shells. So it's kind of reminiscent of my trip to the beach and the creation of the journal. We'll snap my photo. I can move these around to make sure they're in the right place and then if I want to do something, So I have my beach theme coordinated here. But maybe I want to emphasize the journal aspect in the background. I'll put just Here's a little pink, um, container with a sharp calligraphy penned, and that kind of gives the impression. Move this just so it's in the right position. It gives the impression of journaling in the journal, The Beach Journal 13. Class Wrap Up: today's class focused on various tips for styling our genitals. Well, our channels are more of a personal nature than, say, a finished painting. They're an important part of the art process. Our journals control it progression and document the way an artist finds their individual style. When you share a peek inside your art journal, it's a great way to share your journey as an artist and creator. Posting your work on social media is a simple way to get feedback from others and a way to make the art process a priority in our lives. If you've enjoyed this class, you may be interested in my other class styling artwork for social media, where I show some tips to style various artwork and complement your creations. Thank you for joining me. If you've enjoyed this class, please consider leaving a review and follow me here on skill share. I sent out quarterly art tips and you'll be notified of new classes. I look forward to seeing your styled artwork. Please post your work in the project section or an Instagram. Thanks for joining me