art journal Archives - Studio Katie

Dual Brush Pens + Gesso Mixed Media Art Journal…

Hey guys, I wanted to let you know that I have a new tutorial up on the Tombow blog (my first for 2019!) showing you how to create a Mixed Media Art Journal Background using Dual Brush Pens and Gesso.

This is a really fun technique for a colorful, but bright and airy background.

Click here to read the full tutorial on the Tombow blog.

Want some Tombow tutorials? Check out my online class, Tombow Techniques! or check out my Tombow archives here on the blog.

Art Journals

A Mark Making Art Journal Zine

I had so much fun working on this zine! It’s full of bright, happy colors, and fun, abstract marks.

As you might know, I’m a member of the Zine Squad. We make collaborative zines for and around people and subjects that inspire us! I love doing these- It’s fun to have a miniature art journal done in one theme. You can see all the past zines I’ve collaborated on here.

This time the zine squad (Julia, Vanessa, and I) collaborated with Molly for a “Mark Making” themed zine for Divyam!

Above is the cover and below are the pages I worked on in the zine.

I did the “Make your mark” page on the right. I love this creative word washi tape, and I brushed on some watercolor brushstrokes.

My double page spread above, and my little take on Starry Night. Because if I’m doing a zine on mark making, there has to be something about Van Gogh, right?

I did some zentangles & a mini galaxy above.

I also did the end page next to the sign off, so I wanted to draw a mini portrait of Divyam in her happy cartoon style. I made the background with a bunch of simple marker strokes using Tombow Dual Brush Pens.

I’m only sharing the pages I worked on here, so I highly encourage you guys to go visit the other contributors (linked at the top of this post) and see the rest of this beautiful zine!

To see sneak peeks and progress shots, follow @zinesquad on instagram!

To learn more about zine squad, how we started and how we co-ordinate the process, listen to our podcast episode on how she creates here.

Art Journals

A Crystal Art Journal Zine

Today’s post rocks. 😉 As you might know, I’m a member of the Zine Squad. We make collaborative zines for and around people and subjects that inspire us! I love doing these- It’s fun to have a miniature art journal done in one theme. You can see all the past zines I’ve collaborated on here.

This time the zine squad (Julia, Vanessa, and I) collaborated with Becka for a Crystal themed zine for Elly!

I started the zine, so I painted the crystal on the cover above, and then someone else added the title. 🙂

My page on the right above. I also painted the bottom triangle on the left, and I love the other triangles that Vanessa added. Oh, I also added the washi tape tabs, because I had these shiny tapes that I just had to use!

My double page spread, the flap opens up!

For my page on the right above, I used Prima Metallic Watercolors for the crystals, so they shimmer like crazy in the right lighting!

And the last sign off page above. I added the little owl sticker, which it and the crystal ball sticker I added on my double page spread are both by Gracemere Woods, and while neither are necessarily crystals I thought they fit nicely. 🙂

I’m only sharing the pages I worked on here, so I highly encourage you guys to go visit everyone’s blogs and see the rest of this beautiful zine!

Art Journals

A Fungi Art Journal Zine

Ooooh, aren’t you a fun-guy? 😉 Today’s post is a fun one! As you might know, I’m a member of the Zine Squad. We make collaborative zines for and around people and subjects that inspire us! I love doing these- It’s fun to have a miniature art journal done in one theme. You can see all the past zines I’ve collaborated on here.

This time the zine squad (Julia, Vanessa, and I) collaborated with Alicia for a Fungi themed zine for Moriah!

Living in the pacific-northwest, I have come to know a good bit about mushroom in the past few years, so I had a lot of fun with this zine. Fun fact: I was actually actually a member of the Puget Sound Mycological Society last year. And I don’t even eat mushrooms. (My Dad does, and I go foraging with him.)

I started the zine this time around, so I wanted to share what the zine looked like when it left my hands, and then what it looks like completed.

When the zine left me:

And the completed zine:

I love the echo lines that Jules (?) added around my mushroom fairy.

I’m only sharing the pages I worked on here, so I highly encourage you guys to go visit everyone’s blogs and see the rest of the zine!

Julia
Vanessa
Alicia
Moriah

Art Journals

How to Gelli Print with Tombow Dual Brush Pens

This post contains affiliate links, which help pay for this site. That being said, I never promote anything I don’t love! If you purchase using them, I might get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Hey everyone! Did you know that you can use Tombow Dual Brush Pens on a Gelli Arts printing plate? I tried it for the first time recently and you totally can! It can take a bit of experimenting to find the right amount of water to use, but it makes for very fun, vibrant prints!

If you don’t know, A Gelli Plate is used for making “monoprints”, which can then be used for collage or patterned paper, etc.

Today I’ll be showing you how to create some pretty gelli prints to use in your art journal.

Supplies:

Gelatin Printing Plate – As I said, I’m using a Gelli Arts gelli plate, but there are a couple of other brands, and you can also make your own.
Tombow Dual Brush Pens – I’m using the Galaxy pack.
Spray Mister with Water
Mixed Media Paper

How to Gelli Print with Tombow Dual Brush Pens:

Watch the video below to see how I made my prints:

View this post on Instagram

It’s @studio.katie back to show you how to use @tombowusa Dual Brush Pens on the @Gelliarts plate to make one-of-a-kind prints to use in your art journal! . Step 1: Begin by scribbling Dual Brush Pen ink onto the surface of the gelli plate. . Step 2: Mist the plate with a little bit of water so that the ink beads up. . Step 3: Place a piece of mixed media paper on top. Press it down good to transfer the ink, and then lift it up. . Experiment with different color combos or drawing in patterns. You can also pick up “ghost prints” by taking a second piece of paper and pressing it down to pick up any ink left over from the first print. I think it would also be fun to experiment with stencils! . Wasn’t that fun? Do you have a gelli plate, if so, will you be trying this technique? I’ll be using these prints in my art journal, which I’ll share in my next post. #tombow #tombowusa #tombow2018dt 💕 #craft #create #adhesives #crafty #artsandcrafts #crafting #crafts #handcraft #crafters #creativity #diy #imadethis #makersgonnamake #papercrafts #papercraft #papercrafting #crafter #handcrafted #mompreneur #craftime #papercraftingaddict

A post shared by Tombow USA (@tombowusa) on Aug 30, 2018 at 9:57am PDT

Begin by scribbling Dual Brush Pen ink onto the surface of the gelli plate.
Mist the plate with a little bit of water so that the ink beads up.
Place a piece of mixed media paper on top, Press it down good to transfer the ink, & then lift it up.

You can experiment with different color combos, or drawing in patterns. You can also pick up what is often called “ghost prints” (in the gelli printing world) by taking a second piece of paper & pressing it down to pick up any ink left over from the first print.

I think it would also be fun to experiment with stencils and the markers.

For this page in my journal, I used some of the patterned monoprints I made. I love using prints like this as backgrounds, the Dual Brush Pen ink makes for such lovely watercolor style prints.

I adhered the prints to the page (I recommend using Tombow Xtreme Adhesive for attaching thicker pieces of paper like the mixed media paper I used for these gelli prints), and added a couple of drawings onto the right half of the spread. Next I scraped on a little white acrylic paint to lighten a section of the print on the left and added a quote on top using the Fudenosuke Brush Pen Twin Tip.

Do you have a gelli plate, and if so, will you be trying this technique?

Want more Tombow tutorials? Check out my online class, Tombow Techniques! or check out my Tombow archives here on the blog.

Art Journals

3 Ways to Use the Tombow XL Blending Palette

Today I wanted to do a little product feature of Tombow’s new XL Blending Palette and show you some of the ways that you can use it! The concept of the blending palette isn’t a new one, they’ve been selling their original Blending Palette for quite a while, but they’ve just come out with this new size and I love it.

The XL Blending Palette is an 8×10″ sturdy laminated card with a nice white surface (to see and blend inks) on one side, with a Dual Brush Pen color chart and blending tips printed onto the back.

Let’s see a few ways to use the XL Blending Palette:

Technique 1: Blending the Colors.

This was one of my favorite things about the smaller Blending Palette, and the XL Blending Palette just gives me even more room to play around with this technique.

Here’s how to blend the markers and get some ombre style lettering:

1: Apply a darker color of ink to the Blending Palette.

2: Pink up the dark ink with a lighter color marker, make sure you’ve pretty well covered the lighter tip in the darker ink.

3: Letter onto your paper with the lighter marker. As you write, the darker ink will wear off, and your marker will go back to it’s original ink color.

The Dual Brush Pens are self cleaning, so all you have to do is write with them, or scribble on a piece of paper and they go back to normal. This technique won’t hurt any of them. 🙂

Technique #2: Watercolor Drips.

While not actually watercolors, the Dual Brush Pens are water reactive, so they can act similar to watercolors and can be used for many of the same types of projects as you would the paint.

For this technique you’ll need the XL Blending Palette, a Dual Brush Pen, a misting bottle with water and a journal.

1: Apply a generous amount of Dual Brush Pen ink to the top third of the XL Blending Palette by scribbling it on.

2: Mist with water, and tilt the blending palette so that the ink runs down toward the bottom a little.

3: Lay flat again and lay your journal face down on top of the blending palette. Press down to transfer the ink and then lift up.

4: Let dry.

I found a new EASY way to make a drippy “watercolor” page. How: scribble ink onto @tombowusa new XL Blending Palette, mist with water and let the ink run downwards. Next place your journal fave down onto the ink to transfer it, and then lift it back up! 🎨so much fun!💗 The XL blending palette is brand new & available in @tombowusa’s VIP box, but that’s supposed to sell out SOON. 😬 you can find the link to it on my blog. . #Tombow #tombowusa #tombow2018dt @tombowusa #tombowvipclub #dualbrushpen #archerandolive @archerandolive Notebook #bujo #bujoinspiration #bulletjournal #dotgrid

A post shared by Katie Smith (@studio.katie) on Jul 25, 2018 at 7:48am PDT

As you can see below, I didn’t have any ghosting/bleeding through to the next pages of my journal. You want to make sure you don’t use TOO much water or they could ghost through, but the pages in my Archer and Olive notebook are very thick so I didn’t have that problem.

Technique 3: Mixed Media!

The XL Blending Palette is so handy for mixing mediums on! Here I’m using Dual Brush Pen ink to color Modeling Paste.

1: Scribble the Dual Brush Pen ink onto the blending palette.

2. Use a spatula to mix a little bit of modeling paste into the ink.

3. Use the spatula to apply your new colored medium through a stencil (or however you want to use the modeling paste!) onto your art journal page!

4. Remove the stencil, and wash the stencil, spatula & blending palette.

So there you have 3 fun techniques you can use with the Blending Palette, but those aren’t the only 3. Feel free to experiment and play with the palette to see what you can do!

Here are a few more projects I’ve used the Blending Palette on:

You can find the XL Blending Palette available for purchase here.

Art Journals

New Class: Art Journal Prompts 01!

Hey you guys, exciting news! My newest class for Big Pictures Classes goes live on Monday (July 23rd, 2018)! I absolutely love working with BPC to bring you some really fun techniques and ideas in my classes.

What’s the new class?

Art Journal Prompts

What’s it about? Exactly as the title suggests, this course is a prompt based class. In the class I share 5 journaling/writing prompts and 5 art technique prompts to use in your journal, as well as process videos using both types of prompts to create 4 spreads from start to finish and to help inspire you to get started in your art journal!

Do you ever get “blank page syndrome”? Where you open up your art journal, but then you’re not sure where to start? I occasionally do, which is why I created this class! I find prompts to be the perfect solution to get over the blank page. You can follow them to the letter, or just use them as a starting point. My favorite lesson in the class is lesson 5, because I show you how to make a messy collage, that will totally cover up the scary white page, without fear of “making a mistake”.

There are 7 lessons included in this class.

Lesson 1 is the the introduction, but I’ve also included a tutorial for binding your own Traveler’s Notebook insert, which is the type of journal I use in the course!

Lessons 2 and 3 include the prompts we’ll be working with.

And lessons 4-7 are all process videos where we’ll start making art journal pages! The fun stuff!!

To sign up, you can start a free 2-week trial of Big Picture Classes!

If you sign up for Big Picture Classes you get unlimited access to all of their classes, including my other classes: Tombow Techniques, Sketching in Your Art Journal! And Watercoloring in Your Art Journal!

You can learn about ALL of my classes here.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this course and what’s included! I’d be happy to answer! Comment below or send me a message!

Art Journals

Get Messy Season of Story – Weeks 1-3

*This post contains affiliate links. which help pay for this site. That being said, I never promote anything I don’t love! If you purchase using them, I might get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

*Get Messy Art Journal is an art journaling program that is a school, art playground and family. We are a group of like minded art journalers who have come together under this art form to learn, share, practice our skills and push past our creative limits with hopes to inspire. Our community values consistent creating, encouragement and support and trying new things. We would love to have you join us as a member of Get Messy Art Journal.

You can read more about why I love the Get Messy community here.

So for the Season of Story at Get Messy Art Journal, I decided to create a small storybook. Words are not my strong suit, so this is going to be a really simple storyline, with lots of visual storytelling. I really enjoyed the #kandrstorybook collab I did with diekleineriet, so this project is definitely a bit inspired by that one.

My story is about a girl who doesn’t fit in on earth and longs for the stars.

So far I’ve only done 2 pages. I have no idea exactly where the story is going, I’m just taking it one page at a time.

I think this is going to be a fun project. What are you doing for the Season of Story?

Art Journals

Easy Highlighter Drawings

Hey everyone, fun project today! I recently took over the Tombow USA Instagram account to share a project using their brand new MONO Edge Highlighters, and I wanted to show y’all too! I discovered a fun way to really make drawings pop by coloring them in with highlighters, aren’t the colors so much fun?

Supplies:

MONO Edge Highlighters
MONO Drawing Pen or Fudenosuke Brush Pen
Paper

Okay, for these drawings I’m working directly into my journal, but you can use whatever paper you like best. They don’t bleed through most papers, so I was able to draw directly into my art journal without them bleeding through to the next page. Yay! I’ve found that the highlighters work nicely on smooth paper!

Step 1: Sketch out your girl (or whatever you’re drawing) and ink it.

Step two: Color it in! This is the super fun part. The MONO Edge Highlighters have a really cool palette, I think their yellow is unique because it’s a golden yellow, which makes for a nice skin tone.

I like to leave a couple of spaces on faces white, for skin highlights. And I use the red, pink, and blue highlighters for the face shadows to give it dimension.

Click the video below to watch the process!

Highlighter art! Today I’m taking over the @tombowusa acct, using their new MONO Edge Highlighters. I would love it if you could hop over there and say hi!! ❤ . #Tombow #tombowusa #tombow2018dt @tombowusa #getmessyartjournal

A post shared by Katie Smith (@studio.katie) on May 14, 2018 at 11:20am PDT

Now that we’ve learned how to draw with highlighters, try experimenting with the colors. Give your girl some wild and colorful hair, or stick to just the one color. The neat thing about highlighters is that you get even more shades by layering the markers.

Feel free to comment below with any questions you have about the MONO Edge Highlighters and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Have fun creating with your highlighters!

Tutorials

How to Draw Maps in Your Travel Journal

Hey friends! I wanted to let you know about a new tutorial I have on the Tombow USA blog! This week we partnered with Webster’s Pages who sent me some of their products to try out, including this lovely Travelers Notebook!

For my tutorial I am showing y’all how to include maps into your journals.

Find the full tutorial on the Tombow blog.