featured Archives - Studio Katie

Sketching In Your Art Journal Online Class

I’m a little bit late in posting this, as my class came out 2 weeks ago, but I’ve been dying to tell you something: I’m officially a teacher at Big Picture Classes!

I’ve been a fan of Big Picture Classes for years, so I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when they asked if I would be interested in teaching in art journaling course! Obviously I said yes.

What is my first class? Sketching in Your Art Journal.

It’s just what the title implies- a course showing you my tips and tricks for adding sketches into your art journal.

Here is the class description:Incorporate sketching into your art journal! In this class, Katie Smith shares her tips and tricks for sketching a variety of subjects to include in her art journal pages.
Start with the basics and learn to draw the shapes you’ll need to sketch almost anything! Then put your skills to work creating flowers, plants, butterflies, faces, and more! Each lesson showcases how Katie then creates stunning art journal spreads featuring her sketches! When you combine sketching with mixed media art journal techniques, the results are one-of-a-kind!

If you’re a member of BPC, please go take a look at my class. If you’ve been wanting to start adding a bit more sketching into your work, then I think (and hope!) you’ll enjoy my class!

If you’re not already a member, Big Picture Classes offers a free 2 week trial that you can use to take my class! Learn more here!

Uncategorized

Art Journal Workshop: 21 Secrets – Tell Your Story

(As a 21 Secrets teacher, this post includes affiliate links)

I have exciting news to share with y’all!The latest (and last!!) edition of the 21 SECRETS art journal workshop by *Dirty Footprints Studio is now available for pre-order! and I am so honored to announce that I am one of 21 different artists teaching a course in it!

If you don’t know, 21 SECRETS is a 150+ page downloadable eBook filled with 25+ hours of
videos, full colored photos, templates, and clear instruction intended to inspire and
deepen the way you approach art journaling.

This edition of 21 Secrets is titled *Tell Your Story and is so full of inspiring tutorials!

In my workshop I show you how I use art journaling as a way to connect deeper to myself and to my environment. My workshop, Connected to Nature, is about showing you how to bring nature into your journal, and how to be inspired by the world around you. We’ll work with found elements and paint to bring a forest aesthetic to your work.

I show how to gelli print with ferns to create some really cool collage papers.

The class launches October 30th, but is available to pre-order now, and if you use the code STORY you get the class at a discounted price, however the coupon code is only good until 11:59pm Friday, September 29th, 2017.

Learn more & pre-order the class here: *21 SECRETS TELL YOUR STORY ART JOURNAL WORKSHOP
(*If you purchase through this link, I might receive compensation at no additional cost to you)

What you receive when you sign up for the Tell Your Story workshop:

A downloadable 150+ page eBook that contains 21 art journaling workshops packed with 25+ hours of videos, full color photos, templates, and clear instructional content that is yours to keep.
Unlimited access to all workshops at once! (Starting on Monday, October 30th.) You pick and choose which ones you do and when. There is no time limit or deadlines to meet — these workshops are yours to keep!
Membership to the private 21 SECRETS Facebook community where you can share, be inspired, and receive warm, supportive feedback.
The opportunity to learn a variety of art journaling tools and techniques from the comfort of your home/studio.
Belong to a supportive online artist community that has been growing strong since 2010! At 21 SECRETS we celebrate everyone’s unique expression and support artists in becoming confident and courageous while creating from the heart!

I hope to see you in the class!

Uncategorized

Painting Galaxies Online Course

I have some exciting news to share! I have an online course with Get Messy Art Journal launching today! I have been secretly working on this course for the past few months so I am thrilled to finally have it out in the world.

What is it about? Painting Galaxies!

It is a technique based coursed, showing you all of my secrets on how to create stunning starry scenes.

I use multiple mediums including watercolors and acrylics and in the 7 lessons I show you how to use them as well.

I am extremely grateful to Get Messy for giving me the opportunity to teach this course. If you haven’t yet heard about Get Messy Art Journal, than I would recommend that you go take a look.

*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.

You can grab a free lesson from the course here.

If you are as star studded as I am for all things super nova, then you’ll love this class! Grab your watercolors and let’s start painting together!

Please go check out my new online course, Painting Galaxies, here.

—
*I am an affiliate for Get Messy Art Journal. This post might include some affiliate links. If you purchase using them, I might get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Uncategorized

How To Create A Traced Portrait

I’ve got a fun sketching technique to share with y’all today! I love to sketch portraits freehand (drawing nerd!), however sometimes I want to do things the easy way- tracing! So today that is what I’m going to show you.

For this project I am creating a portrait of one of my favorite artists- Frida Kahlo, but this will work on just about any photo, I think. 🙂

I recently received Cricut’s new Bright Pad (Thank you Cricut!) and I am using it in this project. The Bright Pad is a low profile light box, and it’s extremely handy for tracing. I’m also using some of my most favorite Tombow products to create this portrait.

Supplies:

Light Box
Mixed Media Paper
2b MONO Drawing Pencil
Light Eraser
05 MONO Drawing Pen
Dual Brush Pens
Blending Palette and Pen

1. Place your photo onto the lightbox and turn it on. Place the piece of paper that you’ll be sketching on over top of the photo. I’m using a piece of 90 lb Mixed Media Paper by Strathmore.

2. Trace the photo using a pencil. I like the soft bold lines of a 2b pencil for tracing.

I recommend keeping your sketch fairly simple- trace the main facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, etc) bu don’t worry about getting too detailed and placing lines for every little shadow.

3. Go over your pencil sketch with a black drawing pen. I used a bold 05 MONO Drawing Pen for thicker lines, and erase the pencil.

4. Time to color! You can use a number of mediums to color in your portrait drawing, however I am using Tombow Dual Brush Pens!

To achieve a soft look with the markers, color your ink onto the blending palette, and pick it up with the blending marker, and color with that.

Here is my finished Frida next to the photograph!

I think this is an easy technique for anyone to do, even if you think you can’t “draw”. You can! Use you portraits to create customized cards, or even add them into your art journal!

Who would you create a portrait of? I think I need a Bob Ross to go along with my Frida.

Uncategorized

DIY Butterfly Resin Tray

Hey guys, today I have a project to share with you that I’m really excited about!

I created these “Lepidoptera Display Trays” for Walnut Hollow and I LOVE how they turned out! Lepidoptera is the order of insects that includes moths and butterflies, and I’ve always loved the bug displays so that is what inspired this DIY.

With a coat of resin on top, they look like they are under glass! I’m super pleased with how they turned out.

Grab the full tutorial here.

Uncategorized

Get Messy – Taking the Heart Journal Class

This past week Get Messy launched a new online course – Heart Journal

The course was created by my friend Essie, who has such a whimsical and magical collage style and I was excited to learn she was teaching a class. The Heart Journal course is designed to help you work more emotions into your art journal, rather than just make pretty pages. Although pretty pages are always good too, yeah?

As a part of the Get Messy Creative Team, I got early access to this class, so I’ve been experimenting on a few art journal pages!

A Happiness page with a Matisse inspired collage on the left. I’m really in love with that technique.

The Heart Journal class has 6 different lessons, and Essie breaks them up into different emotions, such as Joy, Sadness, Peace, etc.

My Peace page. I’m most at peace whenever I’m out in nature, so that’s definitely what inspired the butterfly, maps, and tree.

You can learn more + sign up here.

*I am an affiliate for Get Messy Art Journal. This post might include some affiliate links. If you purchase using them, I might get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Uncategorized

DIY Wood Burned Cactus Art

Hey Y’all, Today I am over on the Walnut Hollow blog sharing a few tips for doing wood burned illustrations, like these cactus above!

You can get the full tutorial on the Walnut Hollow blog here.

Uncategorized

DIY Tissue Paper Pineapples!

Hey y’all, today I am up on the Tombow USA blog sharing how to make some pineapple decor inspired by honeycomb tissue paper!

Get the full tutorial here.

Uncategorized

Celebrating National Scrapbok Day! – Mountains Mini Album

Hey guys, today I wanted to share this mini album I made!

National Scrapbook Day falls on the first Saturday of May, and *Tombow sent those of us on their design team a package to celebrate the day! It inspired me to finally scrapbook these photos from my trip to Colorado last year (right before leaving for this years trip!!).

Tombow partnered up with a few amazing paper crafting companies, and they sent us so many goodies! I want to thank them here and then I’ll get on to showing you my mini album:

Diecuts With A View
Paper House
Graphic 45
Amy Tangerine
Papercakes by Serena Bee

For this mini album, I used *Tombow MONO Adhesive+, Dual Brush Pens, and the MONO Twin, papers by DCWV and Paper House, some Paper House and Amy Tangerine embellishments/stamps, and a bit of washi tape from my stash too!

I love making my own embellishments sometimes, so I used *Dual Brush Pens to create watercolor circles, and then stamped over top of them. I cut them out and then covered some of them partially with glitter paper.

There wasn’t a tree stamp, so I simply doodled those and then colored them in.

I love making mini albums! They’re my favorite way to scrapbook.

Are you doing anything to celebrate National Scrapbook Day? I’ll be traveling on the day of, so that’s why I’m celebrating early!

*I am an affiliate for Tombow. This post might include some affiliate links. If you purchase using them, I might get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Uncategorized

DIY Acrylic Paint Galaxy on Wood

Hey you guys, I have a new tutorial up on the Walnut Hollow blog! This time I am showing you how to paint galaxies and night skies on to wood, using acrylic paint!

Usually I paint galaxies on paper with watercolors, but I do love a good acrylic galaxy as well.

You can get the full tutorial here.