get messy Archives - Studio Katie

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

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

A Kindness Art Journal Zine

It’s been a while since we’ve had a zine to share with y’all, so I’m happy to be posting this today!

This time the zine squad (Julia, Vanessa, and I) collaborated with Serena for a Kindness themed zine for Molly! This was a really sweet one to put together, and this zine got to Molly at such a perfect time to cheer her up.

The cover above was a collaborative effort. I added a lot of the white collage, and then stenciled the heart hands on top. Below are the pages I created in the zine.

The girl on the right below is mine. The rest of the spread is by my fellow ziners!

Left page below is mine, I used a photo I took on a beach trip.

I love collaborating on art journals like this! I highly encourage you guys to go visit their blogs (linked at the top) and see the rest of the zine, because the rest of the pages are amazing!

Art Journals

Get Messy Season of Play – Week 3

It is the Season of Play at *Get Messy. So for the next few weeks I’m working in this altered Bambi book journal.

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

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Okay, so I did 2 and a half pages in my journal this week. My first page was this one, I had a lot of fun with rainbow watercolors and stamping, and I loved that quote. And I cut a window into the right half of the spread, which you can see through to the next page. Which I haven’t finished yet. I painted a really quick chubby purple bear, but I’m not sure he’s going to stay or not. 😉

So, my 2nd page spread for the week was a really fun one. I covered 2 whole pages with stickers. And barely made a dent in my sticker stash. haha.

Which sticker is your favorite? Mine would have to be the Iron Man stickers, but I love the teeny pandas too.

Art Journals

Get Messy Season of Play- Week 2

It is the Season of Play at *Get Messy. So for the next few weeks I’m working in this altered Bambi book journal.

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

It’s week 2 for the Season of Play, and I’ve got 2 new pages to share with you! For the first one, I followed one of the tutorials from the site about stamp carving. I didn’t carve new stamps, but I had a couple of repeating stamps I carved a few years ago that I dug back out of my stash, so it was great to use them again!

I’m not great at painting florals, so the girls hair on the right is actually a piece of patterned paper.

For my second page of the week, I played with collage. It’s not something I do toooo often, so I had fun playing and using up some of my saved scraps. The bear peeking through is actually the original page (in the bambi book), and then the forest girl is a photocopy of an oil painting I finished this week.

I use gel medium for my collage adhesive if the papers are pretty heavy, but everything here was pretty lightweight so I just used my favorite Tombow MONO Adhesive runner. It works pretty good for collages. Also no mess. Thumbs up for that.

This week also included oil painting (as mentioned), crafting on future design team projects, and helping my Mom out with some quilt projects. So overall a pretty good week.

Did you get any art journaling time in this week?

Art Journals

Get Messy Season of Play – Week 1

It is the Season of Play at *Get Messy. So for the next few weeks I’m working in this altered Bambi book journal.

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

This season Get Messy Art Journal put out a challenge to work in an altered book, so I decided to work in this vintage (1970’s) Bambi book I’ve been saving for just the right project. It’s vintage enough to have really adorable illustrations, but not to be worth anything. So it’s perfect for this project.

I actually made the cover page to help promote the launch of my new online class, Sketching Faces, which came out just before this season started!

My other page for the week is inspired by Alicia, who posted a fun art journaling game/tutorial on the Get Messy blog. I did a lot of collage and paint on this page, but I left Bambi and some text showing.

So that’s it for me art journaling-wise. I also started a 100 day project, painted a new bear canvas, and have been helping a friend organize her studio this week.

Art Journals

An Earth Element Art Journal Collab

Hey friends, today I have a completed journal to share with you! This one is a collaboration journal. My friend Sarah came up with the idea to create 4 journals based on elements, so Sarah, Vanessa, Jaimee, and I each created a journal focusing on a particular element: Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

My journal is the Earth journal, so I started it and then mailed it off and letting the other project members add to it as well. So the pages below are made from 4 different artists!

When I was binding my journal I used a lot of mixed papers: book pages, magazine images, gelli prints, and transparencies, so that we would have a variety of surfaces to work on.

We also have an article published in Issue 2 of Brush Mag talking all about this collaboration.

Tutorials

Sketching Faces Online Class

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

Hey everyone! I’m so thrilled to be able to announce the launch of my newest online class for Get Messy Art Journal today: Sketching Faces!

I’m always getting told I should teach how to draw my signature style of faces, so I’ve been working on this course for the past few months and it’s finally out! Here’s the official class information:

Sketching Faces is an online, video based course that will teach you how to sketch and paint girls faces, taught by illustrator Katie Smith.

The ability to draw life like faces will help take your artwork to a new a level allowing you to dive into the world of portraiture. Experienced illustrator, Katie Smith, will teach you her very simple method for drawing beautiful faces no matter your skill level. This course starts at the very beginning and will walk you through, step by step, in clear easy to follow videos helping you learn to draw a variety of facial features, different profile views, experiment with different hairstyles, and you will learn Katie’s secrets to coloring in your sketched faces with watercolor paint.

The course includes multiple printable templates to help you practice and grow your skills and step by step guides, video tutorials and ideas and challenges to help you use your new artwork into other art forms you love. Join today if you want to take your drawing skills to the next level and begin sketching lifelike faces in your art.

There is also a free lesson! In the free lesson I include 4 face templates that you can print out and use. Get the free lesson here. You have access to this even if you don’t sign up for the full class.

Sign up for Sketching Faces here.

I love working with Get Messy Art Journal. They’re a fantastic group of ladies and I’m honored to teach classes with them. You can find my first class Painting Galaxies here.