Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Art Journaling: Steampunk Marie

It's been so much fun following along with Jenny & Aaron's art journaling classes! After last week's super girly page spread, I thought I'd go with something a little different this time! Ever since coming across the Steampunk craze a few years ago, I have to say I've been fascinated by the design side of it. It doesn't really fit my usual style, but it has definitely been in the back of my mind.

A little while ago, I came across some cute Steampunk bird scrapbook stickers on sale. Then a book of Steampunk scrapbook papers, also on sale. I gradually started my collection, but I haven't made anything in the theme yet. Until now!

Per Jenny & Aaron's very good advice, I secured the binding with washi tape (no masking tape to be found). Selected a piece of scrapbook paper from the book mentioned above. Brown with a lightly printed grid and very cool textured cogs all over. Cut it to size and secured it to my Moleskine pages with Mod Podge.

Next, I mixed up some paint. As much as I love my pastels, it was a refreshing change going for dark colors this time. Mixed up black, green, and shimmery metallics. Starting in the lower left of the spread, I dabbed it on with my paint brush, trying to enhance rather than cover up the textured cogs.

Stamped a partial movie ticket border in black on the bottom right side. Mixed up a dark gold-ish paint and stamped up the left page with a hot air balloon stamp. Stamped white & grey clocks. Painted a bit of light grey-blue in the lower left corner. Added a dark Marie Antoinette ephemera image I bought from an etsy shop a while back. Added decorative dark blue-green washi tape. Stuck on another random scrap image on the bottom left. Painted over it some with watered-down paint. Added my Steampunk bird sticker.

Added a tag I bought from another etsy shop plus some cappucino baker's twine. I didn't have any gold washi tape, so I painted over a strip of gridded white & blue washi tape. You can't really see the grid lines, but I used a watered-down gold paint mix to leave them visible. Stuck that at the top.

The tag felt too blank and incomplete, so I drew up a quick beaker + my signature skull design on a white index card (most of the drawings I use for my art are on white index cards - they're cheap and sturdy!). Outlined in pen, then painted over it with my dark green paint mix.

I cut out my beaker from the index card. Took advantage of the dotted texturing on the tag and used the white-metallic paint mix to make it look cloudy. stuck on the beaker. More random paint spots to highlight the cog texture.

It still felt too plain, so I cut out elements from a few more pages in the Steampunk scrapbook paper book. Wasn't feeling particularly creative, so I chose "m" and "A" for Marie Antoinette. Added some handwritten text to the ticket. And yeah, again I couldn't think of anything profound... so "industry" it was! Covered everything in a layer of Mod Podge.

I'm not totally sure what I think of this week's page spread. I am pretty happy with it overall, it's just very different from the kinds of things I usually make. Plus, it's just very brown for me... But that's the point of art journaling, right? To try different things - different themes, styles, whatever. No rules! I'm determined to experiment more with Steampunk-themed spreads in the future. But maybe I'll wait until I pick up some more Steampunk elements as I felt very limited in making this spread. Then again, that's what drove me to add things like the brown tag and the Marie picture, and to draw the beaker. Creativity is born out of necessity, right? Right. I'm going with that.

********************************
Art Journaling is a weekly feature where I share a page spread from my art journal. The idea began with Jenny & Aaron's classes, which they share weekly on Everyday is a Holiday. You can see all of my art journaling posts here.

10 comments:

  1. Oow, I love your 'darker' side Kelsea! :o)
    I haven't had that much time myself to do some artjournaling, but now that I see your pages, it makes me want to make some time. So thank you :) Maybe I should take my scrappings and journal with me on my holiday haha.

    xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Heh yeah this was fun! I want to do more "dark" posts... it's funny. I used to always love red and black color schemes, and recently it's been all pastel. But I haven't forgotten the dark side! Hehe. I hope you do bring your journal on vacation!!

      Delete
  2. We love this spread! And love how you used one sheet of paper to span across the two pages. I know Tim Holtz has some great elements that work with this theme...all sorts of keys and metal findings...everything is new in the package but look like antiques. And his inks will give you that industrial gritty look.
    We so admire all of your customization. That's what it's all about...you never let a tag simply be a tag...you even customize your washi tape. That is so cool.
    xo, Jenny And Aaron

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aww thanks!! Yeah I do have some Tim Holtz products - in fact I think the "ticket" stamps (that turned out not very visible in the photos) are from his line. Cool stuff! I'm always eyeing it at Michaels. =)

      Delete
  3. I love the gritty antiquie look of your pages. I have been watching Hell On Wheels a lot lately and it just brings me right back there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks, Nykkey! I do like sometimes going gritty - definitely plan to do some more of these in the future. =)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes!! Trying new things is one of the best things about art journaling. We can try things out and decide what we like and what we don't. ;) Great pages. It's fun to change up the color palette sometimes. I like brown, but don't use it often. I'll have to give it a try!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jen! Totally agreed - I hope you try one yourself!!

      Delete
  6. love this! i like steampunk very much and this is just so cool. I do some art journaling as well, thanks for the inspiration!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooo I'd love to see your art journaling pages! Following your blog now so maybe I will. =)

      Delete

Thank you for leaving me a comment - I appreciate it so much! I moderate, so don't be worried if your comment takes some time to appear. =)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...