Transcripts
1. Class Introduction: Hello, Hello. Hello, my
name is Karen Don and in this class we are going to
be exploring time travel. This is an art
journaling adventure and it will involve
three page spreads. You're going to work
on the present, the past, and the future. You're going to learn
techniques that include making these little cutaways so that you present can interact
with your past, and your past can interact
with your future. You're going to learn a lot of art journaling techniques
along the way, and you're sure to get
a lot from this class. Let's get started.
2. Supplies: I have a variety
of materials here. Everything from scrapbook
papers to tissue papers. I have some craft paints and some images that I have selected
from various resources. I have some of this
cotton rag collage papers and a whole bunch
of other odds and ends that I just
intuitively picked out. This is what I'm going to
be playing with today. Now, this doesn't mean I'm
stuck just playing with this, but this is a good start. Let's get started.
3. Scrapbook Paper Background: I'm going to give myself
a little bit of room, put these supplies
just on the perimeter. They're here, they're available. This is how I love to work, just having everything
on hand Today, I'm going to start with my scrapbook papers and I'm going to think I'm
going to save this. I don't know, this will
probably end up in the mix too. I thought I would
start with doing a little scrapbook paper
collage background. I'd just like to start with just tearing some paper
and gluing it down. No rhyme or reason here, just random scraps and shapes. And I'll just tear a little
bit from each one of these. I've got a good amount
of scraps going here to get me started. Okay, I have my
entire page covered.
4. Painting Backgrounds: So I think the next
thing that I'm going to do is I'm
going to pull in some of my craft paints and I'm
going to pick some stencils. So keeping in mind time travel, I don't know which
ones I will pick out, but I always like to kind
of keep that in mind. It's like okay, you know, what is it that I'm feeling into here and now? I think I'm gonna put down a
little bit of tissue paper.
5. Playing with Images: Okay, so now it's time
to bring in some of these images because I have a really nice
background going here. I want to start putting
some images on here. I'm wondering at this point
if I want to push this back. Does seem like if I put on
top of this background, everything's just going to
blend in a little too much. Having some, we
could really help. I think I'm just going
to use a little bit of craft paint and a wet brush. Really wet brush.
Super wet brush. Okay, that's going down,
That's way too much. But I can take a piece of paper towel and rule it over it there. Now I got a little
bit of push back. Okay, that's good. So now I can start
to bring in some of these images without them
getting lost in the background. Now, again, I have no idea any of this has
to do with time travel, except for maybe this one, because this looks
like ancient art. It's funny when I get to
this point in doing my page, the doubt starts to creep. I'm like, how am I ever
going to bring this together and make it look good? It's really easy to
get caught up in those doubts and let
them get in your way. So my solution for that
is to just keep going. You got to move
through those doubts, move through those fears. The only way I've
found to keep them from stopping me
is to keep moving.
6. Tips to Make Pages Lay Flat: Okay. After I have let this dry, I pressed it overnight because the pages started
to curl up a little bit. And I did that by wetting
the backsides of each of these pages and then pressing it under a
heavy book overnight. Now, my page is nice and flat. If you ever run into that where
your pages get curled up, it's because you
put wet medium on one side and the fibers
of the paper expand. Okay? And what you need
to do is you need to make the fibers of
the backside of the paper expand
as well and then press it and you'll get
it to lie nice and flat.
7. Opening Up to Past and Future: I have decided that I am going to do two more
pages to go with this. I'm going to do one
before and one after that is going to give me
that time travel ability. There's more work that
I want to do on this, but for now I'm just going to go ahead and do the
backgrounds of these pages. And I'm going to do them similar to what I did for this page, but maybe use some slightly
different color tones to give it a feel of, you know, going from into the back and going
into the future. For that, I was thinking
when we look at the past, we generally have a
more clear view of it. So you could think that, you could think of it in terms of there's a lot more light, we can see better, right? I could use some lighter
colors then for the future. Maybe make these a
little darker to represent that there's a lot of unknown things in the future. We don't have a lot of clarity. I'm going to be using
color to represent the feeling of the
future and the past.
8. Working with Color Schemes : I did save aside my scraps
that I had already used, which is always a good
idea until you know, you're finished with something. Save what you've
been working on so that you have all
of these things available including your pinks and any other supplies
that you use. I'm going to go
through these and pick out some of the
lighter colored ones. These are bright, see these are a little darker, these
ones right here. These could go on
the future page. Yeah, these look bright enough.
9. Let's do the Past Page: I'm basically gonna do the same technique
that I did before.
10. Adding some Design: Kind of like that. I
really like this idea. So yeah, I think I'm going to
put a handprint down here. Now this I'm going
to use as a mask. So not as a stencil. I do like the idea of
putting a sun down, but I don't think I'm going
to use a stencil for that. I think I'm just going to use paint now. At this point, my hand looks a little faded into
the background. There's some things that I could do to bring that forward. I could draw around
it to bring it out. I could do some more
masking techniques. So I could put a little
bit more paint on top, and that's bring it
on top of the rays, which might be interesting, especially if I didn't
do too much of it. I like that idea, but I don't think I want
to do it in the yellow. I wonder what would
happen if I used some of this distress stain on that. I can just give it a little try. Down here in the corner,
see what I think. It creates an interesting
little effect. Of course, this
is water soluble. If I don't like it,
I can wipe it away. What's interesting is
it's not showing up as well on top of the sun rays, which might actually work. I do think I will do some
outlining with that, But I'm going to let this
paint dry a little bit more before I take
my paint pens to it.
11. Working on the Future Spread: And now I'm gonna flip
to my future page. I think this is good for now. You definitely have
a much brighter page here and a much
darker page here. And that really gives that, I think, a feeling
of passage of time. M.
12. Making it Interactive: Al right, it is time to get interactive in
our art journal. So today I am going to do some little cutaways
and make this. So we are traveling to the
past and to the future. Let's go down to my desktop and see how this
plays out today.
13. Time Travel Portals: My idea is to create
these portals. We can travel to the
past and to the future. Think of this page right here as the now. This is the present. What I want to do is I want
to create little portals, if you will, to
go to the future, past and to the future. I did this all in an intuitive way when I
put down these images. I didn't do it in a way
that makes sense logically. But the first thing that
I thought to bring into the future are this
ancient cave art. Okay. What's really interesting
about that is that even though this is something
from the past, it's going to be my
portal to the future. Which makes me think that
there's something ancient that I with me from the past into
the now and into the future. Anyway, that's what's
coming up for me with this. I'm going to cut this out. I might do a couple
of little cutouts here. Definitely this. Because I knew when
I put this down, this was like a portal. But there might be some
other little things. When I cut these things out, these things are going to
end up on these pages. Okay, I'm going to
glue them down. Now that I'm doing this with these scissors, I'm going, wow, this is so much easier than
trying to cut with the blade. I got that one cut out. Remember, this is
going to get glued down to the page below it. So when you open it up, that's what's going to happen. I purposefully haven't done
anything more on these pages. I keep wanting to call it
before and after the past and the future because
I didn't quite know what was going to
end up on this page. I definitely want
to cut this out, but I'm not going to
be able to get in there immediately
with the scissors. I'm going to try this other. Wait, now I'm going to glue down these elements. Now these are seriously
heavy duty pieces of paper. For this, I am going to want something a little
stronger than Matt medium. I'm going to pull
out the big guns, the heavy gel, the thicker, the heavier, the glue. Now I've got a little portals. I can travel to the past and
I can travel to the future. The other thing that is
interesting when you do that, you never know it's going
to appear through here. I had this that I had
cut out from that eye. See why I saved my scraps. See I could put that
right there and then maybe draw in another E or find another eye
to put in there. I'm holding it in place and
then I'm going to glue half. And half the past is interacting with the present. I'm not quite too sure
what to do with this, but I have a feeling
that I want to cut away a little
bit more here too. That's going to make the
future interact with the past.
14. Past, Present, and Future: This adds a really interesting
thing going on here, because now we have
a contrast between the night and the daytime. That's another little
interaction that's happening. We can see how the past is
interacting with the future here and how the future is interacting with the past. I think this is
interesting that you get this little peak here, but you're not quite
too sure what it is. Really interesting
things happening here.
15. Creating More Cutouts: Okay, so I have finished
doing some putting down some images and some texts on my past and my future page. And then I started
doing something that I had thought I was
going to do in the beginning. And then I changed my mind and then I changed
my mind again. And that was to cut out. I had these little strips of paper that I had
put down over here. I wanted to cut those out and make a little window.
That's what I did. I went ahead and I cut those
out, as you can see here. Then I trimmed them down so that they were a little bit smaller than
the original hole. The page will fit in
there really nice. But then when I opened this up, I realized that
these covered up, these words right here. I wasn't real happy about that. Then I got this idea, why don't I put them
over here on this side. Now, some of the image from this magazine got
lost in the transfer. It didn't quite glue down
the way that it should have. I ended up with something that it wasn't a complete
picture over here. Right? I thought, wow, why don't
I just flip those over so that I have the original little orange
imagery that I had. And place them like
that on this side. Of course, I'll have
to get them recentered in here and then
glue those down. That creates a
unique interaction. Because now those will
show up on this page. I'm not that crazy about the
way these words show up. I may end up covering
up this altogether, But I can decide that
at another time.
16. Finishing Up Techniques: Today, my goal is
to finish this up. For that, I'm going to
turn to using doing some pen work in here
to bring things out, define things a
little bit better. Just give it a finished
look because right now it's still looks like I pasted a bunch
of images down. Yes, I added some interaction. I did some washi tape, and I did some other things, but it's still not quite me. That's what I'm going
to be working on today. The first thing that stands
out for me today is this. Now, this has a bit of
a color scheme to it, and there's oranges,
browns, and yellows. And this pink of
this lady's shirt, which is actually a couple
of different images. This image is separate from the actual
photograph of the lady. I just glue those on there, and then this is glued
on there as well. What I want to do
is I want to change the color of her shirt. I'm just going to use a little bit of craft
paint for that. While that's drying, so I
can put on another layer, I'm going to go ahead and bring a little bit more
definition to things. Some of the things
that stand out for me, this right here, if I put just a black border around this, it'll really make it stand out when I close the
page or turn the page, rather it'll match up
a little bit better because the background
of this is black. This even has these lines on it. I could go ahead and bring a little bit
more definition to my eye by adding some
of those lines in here. Now, these little strips that I'm putting marks
on right now are actually cut outs from this other side that
I glued over there, and so they would show together. I'm almost thinking
I want to find some text or write
some texts on there, but at this point I'm not quite too sure what I
want to do with that. So I'm just freely flip back and forth
through these pages, adding marks where I just feel it needs something a
little bit more to define. It just gave it a little bit more definition
and makes it so that it didn't seem to me like there was a lot of distance
between these two. I wanted to really bring out
the separation in there. I'm just going along whatever
standing out for me. I'm just going with it. Trusting my intuition, trusting my next instincts of what to do. If I add like the
little stars over here, I can add them over here. And that brings together, this is the past and
this page is the future. And while I still have a
little bit of orange paint, I might as well put some
more marks on my page. I love finding ways to use up the supplies
that I have out.
17. It's Ok to Change Your Mind: Now sometimes you
put things down and you're just not
that crazy about them. Now, I'm not that crazy
about love it or lose it. I don't know if that's
necessarily true. Don't just live
life, experience it. Now that speaks to me a
lot more than this does. Another thing that I didn't
like about this is that it shows through these little
windows, which is something. I cut these out after
I put this down. This is just how it works out. When you're doing
something like this, you never quite know
exactly where it's going. You don't really know if
what you're going to do now is going to work in the future. Just looking back
and forth just to see what I might be
able to do here. I did have some other images
that I had originally selected for this
when I started, so I'm going to pull
those back out and see if any of these still fit in. Maybe one of these will cover something up that I
wasn't that crazy about. I guess is the really wonderful
thing about working in an art journal is
nothing is permanent, can always cover things up. When you work in
layers like this, your pages can shift and
transition and change. In that respect, you really
can't do this wrong. There is no right or
wrong in art journaling. I think it's one of
the things that really attracted me to doing
art journaling. It's a free form of expression. There's no rules. You could do it your way. And being part rebel that
really appeals to me. Now this one doesn't
actually cover anything up, but it will help bring these two together and make it a
little bit more cohesive. Now here I've got
this image too. This is interesting.
That might really work. I didn't really plan on putting this on here,
but I'm thinking, yeah, that will cover
that up really nicely. Make it a little bit
more interesting peeking through that window. The windows, Okay. So now I have a little
hard line down here and another edge up here where the original
image gets cut off. I might go back to
this little scrap and see what I might be
able to do with that. First thing that stands out for me is to cut out one
of these butterflies, because it adds a
little bit of mystery. When you're looking
through these windows, you're like, oh, what is that? You know, you're peering
into the future. It's like, oh wow, mushrooms,
mushrooms are fascinating. I just about to start
reading a book on fungus and it is
fascinating. Fascinating. Let's go again, looking
at my leftover scraps. Now these stand out
a little bit, right? I could do something
to blend those in. Maybe take one of these
distressed crayons. Either blend it in or do
something that overlaps it to the background so it doesn't look like I just stuck it down there and
it doesn't belong. Right. Anything that you do that that overlaps from the image to the background is gonna help it to fit onto the page better.
18. More Tweaks!: Actually I want to put a little bit of paint
over the top of this before I do a little
bit of pen work on top. Of course, I'm going
to have to wait for the paint to dry,
but that's okay. But you can see that it's white. So it really stands out. Putting some color in
here from the background. Just help it blend in. The may choose to not put pen over the top
and bring that out. Maybe I just leave it like that. It just fades into
the background. There's a little pattern
on the background here for the craft paper that I use. I'm just going
over that with my, my paint brush, making
it up as I go along. Now again, this is going from the
background onto the image, which is helping it to blend in, fit into the page
a little bit more. These lines also help connect
other things on the page. I had a little, oops there. My paint or my pen
wasn't quite dry, so it got smeared. That's okay. I can always draw that back in a little splash
of green there. Just helped to bring these together because
they've got some bright green here and that really brought together
the middle of the page.
19. Reflection Time: This is the future
page and I really like how it's dark and mysterious. There's a lot of questions
going on here like the butterfly can actually several butterflies
represent transformation. Mushrooms are also Fungus does some really
interesting things. We don't generally think
of them as transformative, but they underlie so much of
our reality of nature and they're like the
unseen parts that our whole nature and reality is built upon
in the present moment. I love how it has explore. Don't forget to explore
in the present moment, because right now it's the only time that
you have to explore. Of course, the reminder, be in your moment. I think the key word
here is your moment. It's yours. You can be in somebody else's
moment all you want, but that's not going to
necessarily help you. Then going back to the past, there's a lot of
fantasy dreaming. There's still yet
this watchful eye that comes forward into
the present moment. Then this excitement. Maybe things that are new. I love this caution poison
and yet there's hearts here. I really want to bring this out a little bit more.
Especially the hearts. I think in my past, there's
a lot of poison in love. I fell in love
very early in life and it really changed
the course of my life. I ended up leaving home at a very young age because of it. And that really changed
everything for me. Then of course, the contrast
between day and night, of course, that comes forward
into the present moment. It comes forward into
the future as well. One of the things I really
love about this page is how things are part of it. The future is part of the past. The past and the
future are part of the present moment of everything that came before
is part of our future. Lot of meaning, a
lot of symbolism. There's so much to be gotten
from doing something like this and allowing yourself to just explore freely
without expectations, without the need to do
something that you think, oh, this is going
to be beautiful, or this is going to
work out just to explore and see what happens.
20. Share Your Class Project: Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I really appreciate
you watching. I appreciate you. Just you. Okay. Until next time, have a wonderful art
journaling adventure and I'll see you later. Bye bye.
Karen Dawn, Creative Soul Journeys
