Don't question my sanity until you have eaten my crayons!
ha ha ha 🤣  I don't recommend eating crayons, they taste awful 😂 lol Crayons are much better used for colouring or melting cheap ones to make encaustic art or those cool drippy waxy artworks.
This art journal page uses the most colourful of crayons, Dina Wakley MEdia Neon Scribble Sticks. I worked inside my 6"x6" sized book with cold pressed rough textured watercolour paper.
Colouring with the neon crayons on dry pages, start with a curved wide diagonal line around the middle using yellow. Next colour similar widths of stripes on each side of the yellow using orange and green, then blue and pink on each side of those, lastly with purple in the corners.
Have a rummage through your stencils for a large mask. It doesn't have to be anything particular, one that makes you smile. Here I've used a large flower mask.
Using black acrylic paint and a blending foam tool (or a stencil brush if you prefer), blend the black paint over the mask.Â
Lift the mask to reveal the beautiful neon pattern. Repeat the process on the right hand side of the pages creating two neon flowers.
While waiting for the black paint to dry, colour in your focal point. I didn't take any progress photos however, luckily, I took pics of the one I did for the previous journal page shown further down.
Choose one of Dina Wakley MEdia Transparency faces or use a black StazOn Ink Pad to stamp an image onto clear transparency sheet (let dry completely before colouring).
Using a white Sharpie paint pen, colour in the eyes of the face on the back of the piece first, then add colour to the rest of the features. When colouring a clear piece, the background colours are added last. To check it's going as planned, flip over the piece to see how it looks.
Gather other pieces of printed transparencies and your clear scraps to create some abstract collage pieces. Let each colour dry before layering over the next colour.
Acrylic paint will take longer to dry than Sharpies or Posca paint pens which only take a few minutes. If you paint a scrap of plastic at the same time as your collage pieces, then you have something to check now and then to see if it's dry - without marking or scratching off the paint from the pieces you want to use.
Acrylic paint and paint pens are opaque, which makes them great for layering multiple colours over each other. Alcohol inks or solvent based markers can be used for colouring clear pieces too, although they need to be layered differently. To make the alcohol ink coloured pieces opaque, so that the background of the page does not show through, simply apply white gesso last so from the front, the image appears to be on a white background.Â
After all your collage pieces are dry, layer them over your rainbow patterned background. Using paint pens or acrylic paint, draw some doodled markings, splatter spots, and add highlights wherever you wish.Â
Lastly, tell your story, share your feelings or write a funny message using rubber stamps (alphabets or quotes), your own handwriting, alphabet stickers or die cut letters, Dylusions Bigger Back Chat stickers or Tim Holtz Idea-Ology quote stickers.
The above photograph shows the finished art journal page I made (inside my DWM 6x6 Kraft Journal) using the transparency I demonstrated earlier using Sharpie paint pens for the eyes, cheeks and lips with acrylic paint for the face.
Also used on this page are the gorgeous Tim Holtz Snarky Cats (stamps) and Idea-Ology butterflies over a stencilled background painted using both Dyan Reaveley Dylusions and Dina Wakley MEdia acrylic paints.
This tutorial is fabulous for journaling, greeting cards, tags, scrapbook pages or wallart. You can repurpose all kinds of plastic packaging and cellophane for creating see through layers using these simply techniques too. Its not rubbish if it can be used in art!
I hope this tutorial has helped with any questions you may have had about using transparencies. If you have questions, I am always here to help.
Create art your way, lose yourself in the process, enjoy how  it makes you feel ... Art is Amazing!
Happy Creative Days!
:)
Jenny
