Gnomes Woodland Art Journal Page

Just remember, to the outside world we are a normal family!

This is a fun colourful art journal page created in the Dina Wakley Media watercolour paper journal. It is a good sized book, ideal for stamping scenes like this one or using for swatches, junk journaling, collage, mixed media, art journaling, watercolour paintings, drawing and sketching.

How to create this page ... stamp a scene, colour it in, blend with water, stamp characters, colour in and cut them out, stick down on your page, splatter white paint, draw highlights, add wisdom. Use colours that make you smile!

List of treasures used ...
- will be added shortly!

Stamping a Scene ...

To start, pop your tree stamp on the acrylic block and gather the Archival Ink Pads. Start with the lightest colour, apply Island Parrot green ink to the top of the tree, Fir to the lower part of the tree and Chocolate Drop to the tree trunk. Print onto the page and repeat the process until you have grown enough trees.

Clean off your stamps once finished by stamping onto scrap paper or wiping with a cloth. Use Archival Ink Cleanser or Masters Artist Soap to clean your stamps sfter your crafty session if you wish.

Using the same two green inks, apply Island Parrot to the whole length of the leafy border stamp and touch the lower edge of the stamp with Fir. Print along the base of your page.

Repeat the multicolour stamping technique for the candy cane border stamp using Tangerine Dream and Chocolate Drop. Stamp a row of tiny trees in green, Island Parrot.

To create masks for the trees, fold two pieces of paper into four and stamp each kind of tree on top. While still folded, cut around the shapes to create eight tree. Using the pink masking tape, cut little tree trunk sized strips and use to stick each tree mask temporarily to the page.

Ink up the wide Holly Garlands long border stamp with Mushy Peas green Archival ink and print over the masked trees. Repeat the process with the narrow Holly Garlands long border stamp.

Alternate the two stamps, printing them at different heights all across the page.

Lift off your masks to reveal your stamped scene and pop them to one side. They will be reused later.

On spare mixed media, watercolour and or grid pages from a Dylusions Ledger Journal as shown above, stamp out the gnomes, squirrels, birds, toadstools and other characters using a black Archival ink pad. 

Start colouring in your scene. The above photo shows rough placement of the gnomes, crow, squirrel and toadstools, with the wings behind one gnome.

The two flying birds were stamped in place and coloured with blue and black watercolour pencils.

Above photo shows a closeup of coloured trees and the first layer of the background.

This photo shows a closeup of how I coloured the leafy border along the base of the page with reds and oranges for the berries. Once dry, I dotted highlights on the berries with white Sharpie paint pen.

Take your time and enjoy the colouring and or painting of your page. The above photo is showing the progress of my page, waiting for it to dry.

Before gluing on your stamped images to the page, pop the tree masks over the trees to keep them splatter free. Using the Dina Wakley MEdia Glossy Medium in White with the eyedropper topper, flick or shake off white paint droplets over the page. You can also use a splatter brush for creating fabulous spotty dots everywhere. The white does something magical to a background, brings a page to life.

Adding a phrase or quote to your page is always optional, however is always a wonderful way to finish a page. Use stamps, stickers, handwriting, printed labels, cut up magazines to write a story, poem, a single word or phrase. Make it say whatever you wish - funny, wise, heartfelt, snarky, sad, wishful, thoughts, word of the day, anything.

Using a white paint pen, doodle and draw some marks and add highlights to eyes. 

Thank you for visiting! I hope this fun colourful blog post makes you smile and encourages you to have a go. There are no rules in art, enjoy every moment!

Happy Arty Days to You!
:)
Jenny