My scrappin' life

Black Ink In My Art Journal

Black acrylic ink (I'm using Liquitex) has been one of my favourite products for a long time. I love all the different ways you can use it and I created several of my stamp designs with black ink.

I haven't been using it for a while but last week I have been playing with it in my art journal and fell in love with it all over again.

What I like most about using pen and ink or a pipette and ink is the unpredictable lines you get. Working with ink this way you never have full control but I think that is exactly it's charm :)

 

Something I didn't do before is colouring in my inky drawings with watercolours. Normally the ink goes on top of a painting but this time I did it the other way around. Before I started painting I added some white Crayola in certain areas to create a resist for the paint. I used Peerless watercolours here and love the vibrancy of the colors!

 

Thank you for stopping by today and have a lovely week ahead!

Happy crafting!

 

Gelli Printed Art Journal

I've gotten so many questions about how I assembled the little gelli plate journal which I posted on IG yesterday that I decided to do a blog post about it. 

  

 

First I created a nice stack of gelli prints on A5 watercolor paper (200gr.) and folded them in half with the printed side in. So you go from A5 to A6. Be careful, the pages have to be completely dry otherwise they will stick together and you will ruin them when trying to open the book (I know from experience :(). Also make sure to fold very precise, use a scoring board if you have trouble folding straight. If your pages are not straight your book won't be either!

 

 

I glued the pages together, back to back. I used double sided tape to do so. Make sure to line up the pages very precise.

 

 

When all the pages were glued together I took a piece of self adhesive fabric to cover the spine. I let the fabric overlap half of the front and the back page. Then I added the front and back cover which are also a gelli print that I cut in half in stead of folding it. 

 

 

Finally I took some Carabelle Studio stamps and Posca pens to decorate the front cover.

  

 

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Now make some art!

Love,

Today Is My Turn On CJS2016!! Join Me In Creating A Self Portrait

Today is my turn on CJS 2016 hosted by my sweet friend Nathalie Kalbach and I am so excited! I'm going to show some fun tips on how EVERYBODY can create a colorful self portrait smile emoticon
I have watched the videos that went up so far and they are all totally awesome. If you have not signed up so far, you still can! All 25 videos are downloadable and yours to watch forever! And let me tell you... This is soooo worth your money!! Check it out here and join us! Inspiration and fun guaranteed!

Love,

Creative Jump Start Is Here Again!! Hello Jumpers Are You Ready For 2016??

Yes!! It's that time off the year again!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be participating again as an artist in Creative JumpStart (CJS) 2016, run for the 5^th time by Nathalie Kalbach. If you're not familiar with CJS, it's a one-of-a-kind online event to kick your creativity into high gear in January 2016. 

Learn techniques, discover new materials, and connect with artists and crafters. 

Throughout January participants (who lovingly started to call themselves Jumpers in the past 4 years) get 25 downloadable videos from 24 featured artists. I'm proud to be one of those artists, called “JumpStarters” for the fifth time!

See for yourself:

 

Head on over to Nathalie's site for more details and to sign up!

You get 25 videos for just $45 (USD) for a limited time if you sign up before December 31, 2015 at 11:59 pm (EST)!

But wait – it gets better: as my valued reader, you’ll get $5 extra off today. Just use this coupon code during checkout:

cjs2016

*This is a limited offer valid from 10:00 am Dec 4, 2015 to 11:59 pm EST on Dec 11, 2015.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up here, and apply the coupon code during check out process

Looking forward to seeing you in class!!

Love,

Home Is Where The Heart Is - Art Journal Page

Today I created this art journal page. 

I had nothing specific in mind, just wanted to play with paints and colors. So I started out with 2 sheets of white watercolor paper (I bind my journal later) and some spraying, stamping and stenciling. I created permanent spray paints by mixing Liquitex Acrylic Ink with water in a spray bottle. This picture show the first layer/stage.

Then I added some more color. I mixed some Brushos with Matte Medium which resulted in a nice transparent glaze, which allowed me to add a second layer of color still showing the first layer. I also added collage papers, book paper and music sheet.

And more collage paper... I have a big pile of colorful deli paper on which I stamped and stenciled while gelli printing and they are perfect for collage!

When the background was done I took a black and a white pen and started doodling. I also used Liquitex Paint Markers and watercolor pencils to add more color and details and did some more stamping to add texture to the background.

I certainly did not intend to make houses. I have never made houses before and it was not what I had in mind to do. But then I saw an IKEA add and the quote "Home is where the heart is" popped up in my mind. And this just happened. Funny how inspiration comes to you, isn't it?! :) It made me totally happy on this gray and rainy day!

Here's a closer look at the left side:

And the right side:

All stamps used are from Carabelle Studio.

Thank you so much for stopping by! I would love to hear what inspires you!

Pssstt... have you seen my previous post? I will be teaching at Wanderlust 2016! A year long online course with 26 teachers from all over the world. Tons of inspiration and techniques guaranteed!! Check it out here!

Love,

Matka Luovuuteen - Mixed Media Event in Turku, Finland

On Thursday, June 4, I took a flight to Helsinki where I met my sweet friend Nathalie Kalbach to teach together at Matka Luovuuteen in Turku. A mixed media event organized by our wonderful hosts Elina Strömberg and Minna Enqvist.

It was an amazing weekend, filled with fun workshops but also a lot of socializing and some time for sight seeing. 

Here is our weekend in pictures:

The first evening, drinks and an amazing dinner with Elina and Minna in Helsinki

 

Friday morning Nat and I were on our own and we took the opportunity to walk around beautiful Helsinki, taste some lovely and some less lovely Finnish food and enjoy the nice weather.

Later that day Minna picked us up for our drive to Turku where we would spend the weekend teaching on the boat the Bore. This amazing picture was taken by Minna around midnight. It was 2 weeks before Midsummer Night and it never got really dark and we lost all sense of time...

On Saturday, the first workshop day, Nat and I taught our Monoprinting workshop together. I really enjoyed that and I think we worked very well together. The group was amazing, fun, cheerful and a lot of laughing going on.

On Sunday Nat and I both thought a separate art journal workshop. Nat started in the morning with her "Artvergnugen" class.

 

And in the afternoon it was my turn with my "For the Love of Layers" art journal class.

Here is some of the beautiful student work:

I think our students were pretty happy too :)

Here are Nat and me with our lovely hosts Minna and Elina.

  

And with the whole group.  

And this is what happens at the end of a photo session :)

And then, with the blink of an eye, it was Sunday evening and we had to clean up and pack. Wow, that was fast but I guess that is how it feels when you're having such a good time!

As a bonus we got to spend the last night at Minna's house and meet her lovely family.

What an amazing place she lives! In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and woods. Deer walking in the garden. We got to sleep in a beautiful little house with an amazing view. It was so quiet en peaceful and beautiful that Nat and I sat on the terrace until way to late before going to bed.

After breakfast on Monday morning Minna drove us to the airport where we ate a reindeer burger as we thought we had to try that while we were here. Not a big succes unlike the reindeer tartare we had on the first evening.

And then we had to say goodbye to Finland... it was awesome!

I want to thank Minna and Elina for inviting and hosting us and all the lovely ladies who joined us for 2 days of creative mess :) I had a blast and hope to come back soon!

Nat came to spend the week at my place before our next teaching adventure at De Craftorij the next weekend but that is for another post :)

Thank you for stopping by!

Have a lovely weekend!

Love,

 

 

A Day In Liquitex Heaven

Oh man I have so much catching up to do on my blog! It's been ages that I've posted and I have done so many awesome things in the last weeks that I want to share. Tons of pictures too... So I will do some eye candy posts in the next couple days. Lots of pictures, little words. Easier for me and more fun for you probably anyway :)

Today I want to start with our visit to ColArt Benelux in Breda on May 18 where we were invited for a Intermixability training. We is Marsha and I and the Scrapbookzolder crew, Jeroen, Saskia and Yvonne.Check out the store, you will find loads of Liquitex products and much more!

Our host was Lennaert Koorman, who is a really nice, good and entertaining instructor and an inspiring artist too! Check out his website, I love his portraits!.

Here is our day in pictures...

It all starts with some color theory:

Our instructor Lennaert and one of his portraits:

 

And then we are free to choose whatever we want to work with from all of this (heaven is a place on earth...):

 

As I have used most of the products frequently except for the spray cans I decided to go wild with spraying:

 

Can you tell I'm having fun???

What a great day this was! I was already a big fan of Liquitex products and now I'm even more!!

Do you want to know what Liquitex intermixability is all about? Click here!

And here are the products we worked with this day: 

Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic Paints	Liquitex Soft Body Paints	Liquitex Acrylic Ink	Liquitex Palette Knifes
Liquitex Brushes	Liquitex Spray Paints	Liquitex Paint Markers

Thank you for stopping by!

Have a wonderful weekend and don't forget to create some art!

Love,

InLinkz.com

Craftorij Event/ArtFusion - Workshops with Nat Kalbach And Me - June 13-14

Wouldn't you LOVE to get away from everyday normal for a day or two? A day or a weekend all for yourself, being amongst people that have the same passion for their hobby as you have? Just let go of everything and only focus on getting paint on your paper, create something beautiful and getting your hands dirty? Does that sound like a dream?? …. it doesn't have to be just a dream because Nathalie Kalbach, de Craftorij in Ede (The Netherlands) and I teamed up for a dream weekend!

You can book the whole package, which means you will have both days of workshops, stay in the hotel, food included, no dishes, no house keeping, no worries, just dig in the creating process deep!

Or you can choose to come only on the saturday or the sunday, or even come both days but sleep in your own bed. 

 

On Saturday Nat and I will be teaching the whole day a mono printing workshop together, each with our own personal and specific style and techniques. See more details on the poster below:

On Sunday we will both teach our own art journal class, so you will have two different classes, one with me and one with Nat. 

 

It starts the moment you sit down, an experience that is distinctly Art Journaling. A quick exhilaration, a sense of control, the art media’s surprising responsiveness as if they were simply an extension of you.
There is a word for this creative experience: Artvergnugen! Artvergnugen is what makes your journal a piece of art.
Join Nathalie for a half-day workshop and play with different art media and supplies. Learn techniques, tips and tricks to take your art journaling further and turn it into Artvergnugen.

Does that sound like heaven to you? For all the info and to sign up you can go to the Craftorij website HERE. In Dutch and English.

The Craftorij crew, Nathalie and I would definitely love to see you there!

Love,

My Canvas Collage Challenge - A New Way Of Creating?

A long time ago I ordered quite an amount of small 6x6" (15x15cm) canvasses for a workshop I had in mind but that I never really worked out to teach. While looking for something else I came across these canvasses and thought I should do something with them.

I decided to challenge myself by working on several canvasses at the same time and started adding paper collages to them. I used paper from magazines, books and my gelli plate prints on deli paper. I had never thought that it would be so much fun. Just randomly stick paper to canvas and then adding paint, with still no idea in mind.

When I was finished with the first layers I took one of the canvasses to work further on but any left over paint I randomly added to the others adding to the layers. Fun, fun, fun!

For the whole last week I didn't have to start on a blank piece, there was something I was already working on every morning on my desk and it was so easy to sit down and continue! Way easier then a clean desk with nothing going on and having to start blank!

So far I finished 7 canvasses (6 little ones and one 8x8"(20x20cm) since last Sunday and messed up one. But I'm sure that one has great layers now to start something on top :)

I loved working like this, I felt inspired all the time just by looking at what I already did, I was in this perfect flow of feeling creative.  I'm pretty sure I will work like this more often! 

Here's an overview of the general process. I will do separate posts on the individual canvasses with more details on how they came together later.

Tell me what is your favorite way of creating, what keeps you going? How do you get in that flow of not wanting to stop and just create, create, create?

I would love to hear!

It's Friday, Yippie :D

Have a good one and happy weekend!

Love,

 

 Products I used in these projects:

Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic Paints	Liquitex Acrylic Ink	Liquitex Paint Markers	Liquitex Matte Medium
Reeves Water Soluble Wax Pastels	Pilot PermaBall	Archival Jet Black

InLinkz.com

How A Control Freak Learned To Let Go Of Control

My previous post was about the For The Love Of layers Workshop that I taught in my studio 1,5 weeks ago. 

The atmosphere was very relaxed and easy and gave me the opportunity to work on my example during class. I liked where it was going at the end of the workshop so much that I couldn't put it aside and kept working on it the next day until I finished it.

When I put all the canvasses I made since I started teaching this workshop next to each other I notice that I'm getting better and better in letting go of control and go with the flow. The thing I tell my students all the time about not thinking, just do it and so on, has been a hard thing to do for myself for quite a time.

A while ago I (in my "Around the world blog hop" post)  talked about how I had always been a perfectionist in my "art", so much that when I made a scrapbook page I didn't glue anything down until the point that I knew exactly how the page would look like when I did. It took tons of time and thinking and rearranging and sometimes I felt like getting nothing done.

When I started using paints and inks on my scrapbook pages I had to try and let go of that control as paints and inks simply don't always do exactly what you want. A splatter may end up in a different place than you planned, colors might accidentally mix… But still, once the background was painted or inked I started controlling the layers that came on top again.

Starting to art journal made it better. I didn't feel like I HAD to create something beautiful anymore, I could mess up and nobody had to see it. And even if they saw it, it's an art journal, right? It's meant as a place to try out stuff and mess up. Nobody cares so why should I?

Besides, what is the worst thing that can happen… that you ruin a piece of paper! Big deal!! LOL, right?

If I look at the first period I did art journaling I see that there is still quite some control in the pages. But it got better in time.

I learned to start a page without any expectations, without a result in mind. Creating for the sake of getting my hands dirty and have a good time. It was very liberating. I now have quite some pages in my journals that I don't like at all, but they are there and that's ok with me. At least I had fun when I was creating them.

So when I started teaching this workshop I thought that I was already there, but looking at all the canvasses I guess I still had a way a to go :D

Anyway, I never lied to my students, I never said it was easy, I only said that it feels good! And it does!

Constantly telling my students to come with no expectations, no end result in mind, telling them to just add colors and let go of control and showing them who to do that helped making it easier and easier for me to actually do it myself. Because I really liked the outcome every time I was able to do so… 

So here is the result of one of the first times I taught this workshop, about a year ago, and the latest one.

There is quite a difference, don't you think? Of course, you could say it is a matter of taste which one you like best… for me it's a matter of freedom. And therefor the second one is my favorite :D

BTW the first one is published in Marieke Blokland's book Art Journaling & Mixed Media. A great book stuffed with tips, tricks and facts for both the beginner as the more experienced artist. You can find the book here (in Dutch only)!

Thank you for stopping by and reading all my ramblings :) I'd love to hear if you are a control freak or not :D

Have a great day and happy crafting!

Love,

 Products I used:

Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic Paints	Pilot PermaBall	Carabelle Studio Rubber Stamps	Carabelle Studio Stencils & Masks
Archival Jet Black	Liquitex Paint Markers	Talens Indian Ink

InLinkz.com