My Self-Imposed 7-day Art Journal Challenge

Hello, everyone. Today I want to share with you the results of my recent week of art journaling. Bunker down for a bit of a long read, but with lots of sharing on tips, ideas, and learnings!

Like many of you, I'm sure, I've found that I have a lot more time, now that I'm home so much, but at

the same time, I have had a lot less focus and creative energy to get to my projects.

So, I decided to push myself into creativity by giving myself a 7-day art journal challenge - a page a day, that's all!

To help me along, I decided to use this Tim Holtz sentiment (Tiny Text) stamp set as my jumping off point each day. Sometimes, I'd pick a saying or series of sayings first, and then develop the page, and other times, I would work on a page and try to match a greeting to it.

Though I sometimes found this constraining and was tempted to move to another set of words, I stuck with it, because I wanted to see how I could be creative within this constraint - the idea being that once I didn't have the same constraint, I could "go wild" and mix and match a lot more.

But, the other reason for the constraint, was so that I didn't fumble around too long trying to figure out what to do - it was all there in front of me (or at least part of it was!).

Below are the seven pages I created with just a few notes about each. It is funny to look at them as a set, because someone on one of the Facebook pages I participate in, asked the group how they decided on "their style." I think from this collection my answer would be, "I haven't yet decided on "a" style!" But, that's OK, each one was fun in its own way.

Day 1: Hope is Never Lost

Perhaps this was a bit of a "cheat" for the first day, but I just really wanted to get started and not procrastinate, so I used my small, 6 x 6" journal with super-thick watercolour pages for Day 1. I used Oxide inks with stencils for the background.

The sentiment just summed up a bit of anxiety about how things have been going, but yet the optimism that, as Dr. Bonnie Henry says, "This isn't for forever, it is just for now."

Day 2: With Brave Wings She Flies

This one was also put into my small journal, but in hindsight, the paper was a bit too rough for what I wanted to do here.

I chose the small size because I knew the stamped butterfly image would fill the page nicely, but it took MANY tries with my stamping platform to get the image clear enough to colour in, and even then, I needed to "fill in" some of the lines with a black pencil crayon to complete the image. I used my Prisma Premium Pencil Crayons to colour in, as I didn't think Copic markers (or other alchohol markers) would do well on the rough surface of the page. I used the peel-off backing from the stamp (I hadn't used this stamp before) as a "mask" to paint the black around the edges of the butterfly. I also stamped floral images with black ink on the black background, which you can't see here, but which show as a bit of glimmer on the page (thanks to Tracy Scott for that idea).

Day 3: Own Your Dreams

I went a lot more whimsical with this one, using my Art by Marlene, Die Cut Block for the images, and one of my larger journals.

I typically have a hard time not filling the entire background with ink or paint, but saw a post online with this type of background, so I decided to give it a go.

The birds are actually a collection of cut outs that I stacked on top of each other to match the height of the bunny's flower.

I also embossed some scrap cardstock to create texture on the pieces and used those as "stamps" to add some raised areas onto the background.

Day 4: Shine Like the Stars

This was another bit of a "cheat" in that I had the girl image already coloured from a long time ago (it is a stamp from Star Trish Designs in the UK, and I Love, Love, Love, these stamps).

I used my brayer to add the chalk paints to the background and then used Oxide inks with my stencils for more relief.

I added some splatters to pull the image into the background of the page.

The sentiment was done using white embossing powder on black cardstock.

Day 5: Gratitude Page

This was a "live and learn" experience. Though the text all looks pretty wonky here, it was actually straight (my photography skills need some work!) and I liked how the page turned out.

I didn't want to use "flags" as I've done for other words on the pages, so I embossed the phrases onto the background before I applied the Oxide ink stripes. The Oxide ink simply wipes off the embossed layer.

I added stenciled images of the flowers using more Oxide ink and then doodled onto some of the flowers using my Posca ink pen.

Then ... mayhem happened!

I posted the page to the Facebook Group I'm connected to and usually - No, ALWAYS up until now - the page is filled with supportive and kind input and comments.

But this day, someone (whom I'd NEVER heard from before or since, I might add), made a comment about my text not being readable and how I SHOULD fix it, and for some reason, I took this hard and tried to "fix" the page. I knew what they were saying, but I also lost sight of why I had created MY page in the first place. It was proof-of-concept on the embossing, but also part of wanting to meet my own 7-day challenge.

Anyway, suffice it to say that what I tried to do to "fix" the text, just ended up ruining the middle banner of ink, and it looked worse after the fix than it did before. The only two ways I could think to "save" the page was to add these strips with the original sayings, or to paint over the page and start again. I wasn't willing to paint over it (though part of me kept saying "it's only paper, Pamela") so I fudged it to finish it.

As I said, live and learn! This page is in my larger Dylusions multi-texture journal.

Day 6: Creativity Takes Courage (aka my "revenge" page)

So after feeling so disappointed with my reaction to the comments on the above page, and not being true to my own result, I created this page on Day 6. The "Be Authentic" sentiment reminded me to "own" my images, and the "Creativity Takes Courage" reminded me that posting your work means you are going to get comments, and sometimes you won't like those comments. C'est la vie!

The background of this page was already painted with the washi tape attached. I found a stamp set I had with very similar floral images and stamped them and coloured them in with pencil crayons (the Prisma Premium pencil crayons work really well over chalk in). I added some stencilled relief with a coordinating ink colour (Oxide ink) to add some texture to the page. This page was in one of my medium-sized coil-bound journal books.

Day 7: Do What You Love

Ta da! And here is the final image for my personal challenge.

I had painted this page in my coil-bound journal using shimmer paints from Spectrum Noir. I was a bit stumped about where to go with it, but then used Dina Wakley's Collage Collective 2 (Vol 1) book for the idea of the swirl with words. I also used a few of the circle images in her book to cut out the hearts.

The "Do" word on the sentiment stamp came out "blobby" so I decided to go over it even more with black pen and to underline it with white Posca pen to make it stand out (make my accident look intentional!). I added splatters of black paint to finish off the page.

So, thanks for reading. I had some anxious moments with this personal challenge, but also some fun. Looking back, it was a good set of projects and I think I'll be able to "jump in" more quickly as I start to work on more pages, hoping to make it more of a habit, if not "daily" at least multiple times a week.