I love art journaling!

I love art journaling, because it is so versatile: painting, stamping, collage, journaling, drawing..and much more! I believe my mind is translating every thought and every thing I do to an art journal page or technique. Luckily I don't actually DO every crafty page I think of....(lol). It would be a 24/7 activity!
But to give you an example..I was in a DIY store last week because our thermostatic crane (is this the right english word?!) had to be replaced. So we needed a new one. Searching the store I passed the wallpaper section. And as you might know all these different wallpapers are presented with a small sample which you can take home for free, to see if it matches etc. I couldn't resist taking 'some' (..sssshh..don't tell it was a few more...!) but not because I wanted to renew my wallpaper at home. No, my mind screamed 'art journaling' when I saw these pieces of beautiful structured wallpaper!
Look what I got:

My first thought was to use the wallpaper for stamping.
With these two pieces...

I created this background: 

I painted the background first, by scraping yellow and lime paint with an old creditcard.

I cut out the designs of the wallpaper, covered these with different colors of acrylic paint and stamped the design on the background. Love how it turned out!

And how about this one? With this piece of paper...

I created this background:

I first painted the background red and then stamped with some golden acrylic paint.

But I wasn't done yet...I stamped some more:

I painted the background turquoise and stamped some borders with different wallpapers. I tried some doodling too. I cut out a piece of each wallpaper and glued it to the page, so I know next time which paper pieces to 'rob' from the DIY store!

Slowly, I'm learning to play in my art journal and blocking my mind for wanting to create the perfect page.

Of course, I finished some more pages too:

I wanted to play with masks after I found my Tim Holtz mask again. (I did a page with a Heidi Swapp mask too..will show you later!)

I used the TH mask with three different colors distress ink. I splashed some water afterwards, with a toothbrush. Love the effect! I added some magazine cut outs, stamped with some borderstamps and I managed to do some journaling. Yeah, I love this page!

And last but not least....

Have you ever heard of Zentangles? I did...last summer!

Zentangle is the official name for the doodled patterns you make, when you are on the phone or waiting for someone, etc. Zentangles are beautiful created images using these patterns.

You can read all about Zentangles here or google 'zentangle' or 'tangle patterns'.

I created a few Zentangles last year, I loved doing it...it really is a Zen moment!!!...but I didn't know what to do with them. So it faded to the background...untill a few weeks ago! The Dutch ATC Group on Flickr was doing a Zentangle ATC swap and so I discovered the Zentangles again. (Can't show you my Zentangle ATC's yet, but I was extremely satisfied about my results!) One of the ladies of this Dutch ATC Group started a Dutch Zentangle Group too and invited me to play along. Of course I couldn't say no!

They post a theme every one or two weeks and invite the members to create a Zentangle with this theme.

The first theme was 'Spring'. I googled for a drawing of some tulips, printed it and used it as a base for my Zentangle by tracing it with a pencil. This is the original:

And this is my first Zentangle of 2011:

I filled all the sections with different patterns. Once started, I couldn't stop! I finished it at about 1am...

And the reason why I renewed my love for Zentangles is obvious now: I can incorporate them in my ATC's and in my art journal! I made this Zentangle in my art journal, added some journaling et voilà: an art journal page! (Yes, I kow...an art journal page doesn't have to contain words! But to me it does!)

I have some more pages of my January Daily to share too, but this has become quite a big blogpost, so I will show you later!

TFL!

Sandra