Art Journal Tips

Bird Series in my Art Journal: Part 2

The second step of my bird series was to add doodles. See the Part 1 post here.

View the other parts of this series:

Part 1
Part 3

Supplies used in this journal spread (These are affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and buy certain items, I will receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) to help keep the lights on in the studio.)

Bird Series in my Art Journal: Part 1

I got a free subscription to a bird magazine for filling out a survey. I was charmed by all the photos of birds and cut out a bunch of them.

I particularly liked the chubby chickadee and cut his shape out of other photos from the magazine. I had more cut-outs than I could use on one page, so I decided to create a bird series spread in my art journal.

Spread 1 has the lone photo of the chubby chickadee.

Spread 2 has two of the bird shape cut-outs.

And Spread 3 has four.

Spread 4 has a heron-shaped cut-out and a photo of a Cedar Waxwing.

I’ll be posting Part 2 and Part 3 of this series in the next couple of weeks.

Sketching in My Art Journal

I’ve been drawing on and off for most of my life but have never been satisfied with my results. A pattern design course from Make it in Design inspired me to start sketching again. I decided not to worry so much about the result and enjoy the process.

I debated whether to use a separate book for my sketches but finally decided to do them in my art journal. I like having all my inspiration in one place.

I’ve been drawing flowers and nature.

And also some objects.

I’ve been paying attention to how I arrange my sketches on the page to make an attractive composition.

Here I placed the drawings in a more collage-like arrangement and even added a patterned background.

Improving an Art Journal Spread

My art journal is my place to play and experiment. Unfortunately, not all of these experiments are successful. Lately, I’ve been seeing what I can do to improve the less successful spreads.

This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and buy certain items, I will receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) to help keep the lights on in the studio.

I’ve been experimenting with using more color in my art journal. While I like the paper weaving area of this spread, I wasn’t happy with the doodles. It’s too busy, doesn’t have enough contrast, and the colors I chose are too bright.

I decided to color in some of the areas with a sanguine brush pen. This new version is much more successful. It’s less busy and has more contrast. And the sanguine color blends in better with the paper. I even like how the original pattern is partly visible through the pen. Maybe this will become a new technique?

Turning a Mistake into a Feature

I was so annoyed with myself when I made a mistake while creating this art journal spread. But I decided to make lemonade out of lemons and made the mistake a feature.

I started out by choosing a magazine page with colors I liked, 2 flower punches, and a wavy grid on the spread.

Then I punched out flower shapes and glued them onto the intersections of the grid.

Next I drew concentric shapes inside the grid.

I then colored in every other space in each grid with a black marker. Can you see where I made my mistake?

Next, I added white dots and lines to the black areas.

Now it was time for some lemonade. I colored in the shapes in the area with the mistake and added some black dots. I turned my mistake into a feature!