How I Made 2 Halloween Art Journal Pages

Hi everyone and welcome back to another mixed media Tuesday and today I'm going to share two art journal pages. The inspiration comes from the new collection by Olen Creat and I have some of those cuties here. I also have some of their ephemera packs. So I am going for Halloween backgrounds today. I'm going to show you two different ways to create easy Halloween backgrounds that um they are going to work for you every time. Uh on one of the pages I will be working with oxide inks. On the other one I will be working with oxide sprays. So let's start with the sprays. A combination that never disappoints is if you use spasted marmalade with wilted violet. I'm going to spray all my page. The page is completely dry. I didn't wet with water at all. And uh you see how those two colors blend beautifully together. By the way, I'm working on an art journal that has watercolor pages. They are 300 gsm. I'm letting those two colors blend into one another by lifting the page. And you can see how the oils drips into the wilted violet. Absolutely gorgeous result. And of course, you can have this background instantly. Just two sprays and you are done. I am going to use my heat gun to make sure that this is completely dry. or you can just leave it to air dry and I will proceed to make the other background. I will be working uh next to each other so you can compare and see the different looks. So for this page I'm going with distress oxide ink pads. I started with twisted citron. Then I am applying it with a blending brush. I'm using this jumbo blending brush but you can use whatever you have. I even go uh over it with um my ink pad just to make sure that um I oversaturate the page. And then I will move on to the second color. For that I went with peacock feathers. And uh I want to have kind of a transition in between the green and the purple that I will be using later on. So that's why I decided to go with peacock feathers. And you will see that the end result is going to look really Halloweenish and um those three colors really blend beautifully together. You can see how it transition from one color to the other. Now I oversaturate the color in this page and just because I'm working on watercolor paper with oxide inks. It is super super easy to blend them. You see I go with the ink pad directly on the page and then I'm even able to blend out all those smudges. So I am even using the brushes with the previous color to make sure that I have a smooth transition. And then once I'm happy I am going to move on to the second step and that is to add some splattering with water. Both the oxide sprays and the oxide inks are uh reactive to water. So I'm adding some water. I'm going to let it react with the ink that is underneath. I'm going to place a paper towel on top of both my pages. And look at the result. Just gorgeous. Again, just because I'm working on watercolor paper, it allows for this effect to be super visible. So, it really lifts color from the page. Also, wherever you have darker color, it is going to be more visible. Of course, now I'm inking up the edges on both my pages very lightly. um where I have darker colors. I'm going to go a little bit um more with black. But notice that here I'm using distress ink from uh not from the oxide uh line, but from the normal one. I find that this goes darker over oxides, and I just love the effect. So, I'm going to do that on both my pages. And let's move on to the next step. Now I'm going to do some stamping with black ink. And uh you really don't need to have any Halloween background stamps. If you do, even better. If you don't, just use any background stamps that you have in your stash. And um just by creating this visual texture with black, it is going to bring that Halloween look and feel even more into our pages. Plus, it makes it look more interesting. You see, I like to use some background stamps that they even have butterflies. I'm just not going to use that part of the stamp. And I'm switching in between a couple of background stamps that I have. By the way, everything I'm using uh you will be able to find it linked down below. And uh I'm uh repeating the same exact steps on both my pages. Uh however, I'm using a different stamp. I used different uh uh methods for creating my background. But really, it doesn't matter. No matter what you have, you see, you can pretty much come up with a background that looks really beautiful. And if you have watercolors, you can create similar effects by using your watercolors with brass and similar colors. Now, for the next step, I'm going to do some splattering. This time with black ink. I do have this uh black calligraphy ink. And uh I'm going to just splatter with a fine brush. A good idea is to tap a couple of times outside of your paper uh of your page just to make sure that you don't end up with bigger blobs unless you that's the look that you are going for. So now I'm going to tap a few uh times on both my pages. Again, beautiful visual texture. And for the next step, I'm going to play with stencils. Again, this is not a specifically Halloween stencil, but just by using black base, I'm going to bring even more black uh real texture on my page, which is going to add those extra elements that are going to turn my page into more Halloween looking. So, you see, I'm just um applying this texture in different areas. And I'm going to use the same stencil on both my pages. Just because this stencil has so many different areas, it allows me to use different designs here and there without them being identical. Now I have a orange and green acrylic paints. I'm going to dilute them with water. And with the green, I'm going to add splatters on the page that that doesn't have green already on the background. And with the orange, I'm going to go and add splatters on the other page that doesn't have orange at the back. So, just adding a splash of color. This is not going to be to be super visible, but um at the same time, just because I use acrylic paint, it is going to stay on top of uh the oxides and it's not going to blend in with what is underneath. And now, let's take a look at the cuties with the costumes. I am trying to decide which ones I want to use. You know, I love them. I collect them. Uh but in any case, you can go ahead and check them out. You will find something definitely for you. I chose six of them for my pages because I decided to use three of them in uh each page. I'm going to stamp all six of my characters so that I can color them. And uh the fun part about the packaging is that it gives you two suggestions of coloring. So, if you don't want to think at all, you can just follow one of these two suggestions and you know it's going to look just great. I am going to stamp uh my characters by using dye black ink because I'm planning to use alcohol markers to color them. So, it really depends on u the medium that you decide to use to color everything. If you go for example with watercolors then I would suggest to use um archival ink permanent ink for that uh dye ink black dye ink is um perfect for alcohol markers. So that's just what I'm using. And because I like to stamp many characters at once, I did use my Misti stamping platform for that. And they all look absolutely adorable. Let me know in the comments which one of those costumes is your favorite. So, I'm going to proceed and color everything. Mainly, I'm just following the example. I don't want to think too much. I usually uh stay with a very small palette of uh colors since uh I don't like to make my life uh difficult. So for all those images, I'm going to go mainly with the same greens, the same purples and the same oranges which I'm going to repeat again and again for all the images. This is going to make all the characters coherent as if they are part of the same project and they will help me to uh bring together their composition later on. So I'm going to switch into having everything colored and cut out for fuzzy cutting. Trust me, I didn't do the perfect job for coloring. Uh, not the perfect job either. But when you look at them all together finished, they look perfect. Trust me, they are not. So anyway, there are areas where I didn't cut out uh the uh details. You can always color them with black or um just uh will be a little bit um uh creative and try to cover up what I haven't cut out perfectly. I also like to use a black marker, a black alcohol marker, and go all around the edges, which uh really makes a difference. And also for some of the gaps I just cut out directly through the image to go on that white space to cut it out. No one will ever know if you don't tell them. So anyway, I always try to make my life easy. If I find something that I cannot cut it out, just chop it off. Nobody knows how this image looked before I cut it out. Really, when it comes to art journaling, I want to have fun. I don't want to make my life difficult. And now along with my characters to build my composition. So I'm going to bring in the frame packs that I have. These are all for Halloween and they are just adorable. Plus the color combinations that I used for my characters match perfectly with those ephmera packs because actually it has oranges, greens, and purples. So, they are perfect and I don't have to do any fuzzy cutting for the little details. I'm just going to h put them inside those uh plastic boxes that I get from Amazon. And this way, I can easily uh go through them and you can see how some of the adorable images from this pack. In any case, just because I do have them, I'm going to show them all to you. So, uh you can choose maybe your favorite. So, here is the second pack that I have. And um they are all adorable. I think that they are great if you want to create a really uh quick uh mini art journal pages. Look at them. Just adorable. And they are not shiny at all. Uh if you want, you can definitely go over them with um your blending tools or your markers. It's not shiny, so it is easy to color on top or tint. So, here is the third pack that I have. And um just keep in mind that down below in the description, I will have not only links to everything I use, but you'll also find coupon codes. On some of the shops, I do have exclusive coupon codes like 10% for you. There are other shops that do have everything on discount right now. So, you can get these new Halloween products in great prices. So, now let's put the composition together for uh my pages. I'm going to start with the first page. And I just um uh teared off some black cards stockck just to have something uh as a ground where I can uh place on top all my characters. Now, in order to introduce some extra texture, I like to use cheesecloth. Um you can use cheese tissloth or medical go. uh that uh this actually is medical go I believe that I got from my local pharmacy and um I can easily manipulate it and have it um with lots of threads coming out here and there. It sticks very nicely with white glue and it gives that extra texture perfect for Halloween because it reminds me of a spiderweb. So, I like to use that as an extra element and it doesn't add a bulk into my page at all. So, now I'm just using my glue and I'm sticking down my characters after auditioning them. And uh I made sure that I place them cleverly so that I cover up any mistakes that I did while fuzzy cutting. And I'm going to bring in one of the ephemera packs and just try and decide how I can build the composition and add even more elements. You see, by not adding glue all over the back of my characters, I'm able to tuck things behind. So, you see, I used a pumpkin, I used a bat, [laughter] and other bits and pieces here and there. I even added a little heart on one of my characters. So, uh the difficult part here is uh knowing when to stop and uh really I'm just having fun so I don't put any pressure into myself. Now, I did have this dye with those drippings at the bottom. So, I thought um let's cut out this part of the dye only and I can uh just stick it underneath my composition just for some extra detail. Absolutely love the result. and I placed that in a couple of areas at the bottom. I'm also going to glue down the heart in one of my characters. And then I want to create kind of a border. You can definitely do some sketchy lines with your marker. I decided to use one of my stamps that give that lovely stitching effect. And I'm just going to use black and stamp around the border. not everywhere, just in a few places here and there. And since I had that stamp out, I decided to go ahead and repeat the same process on the other page as well, just to have my border ready. And now, let's build the second page with similar techniques. I'm using uh again black cards stockck to ground my character somehow. But this time instead of using uh the go, I'm going to show you another way to add texture. I'm just using this moss. This is mo for craft for crafts. It's not real moss obviously, but uh it adds that pop of color. uh lots of texture and plus it is vibrant green which um is perfect for Halloween. Absolutely love the effect and it's not bulky at all. Once you close the book, it's going to lay completely flat. So again, I'm going to place my characters on top, try to decide where everyone is going to live, and then I'm going to use my glue and stick it down. So, I grabbed again some of uh the ephmera from the packs. I decided to give those a little cut just because it is adorable. I'm also going to give them a moon because why not? Plus, the colors are matching perfectly with the coloring I did. So, uh you can't really tell which ones I colored and which ones are already made. I am also going to give them a crow and a butt of course because you cannot have a Halloween without butts. Now I'm going to do the finishing touches. I always like to add phrases on my art journal pages and on all those uh stamps with the characters. There are many uh phrases that you can use. So I stamped a couple a couple of them with black ink. I'm just going to use my scissors and cut them into thin strips. And then I'm just going to try and decide where I want to stick them. I went with black ink on white just because this is going to stand out against all those colorful uh images that I have. And I'm going to use a fine black marker to outline my phrases. I am also going to bring in a white gel pen and add some highlights. I don't pay too much attention on where the light is coming from. After all, this is just a fun art journal page, and I don't have to think at all about that. But all those highlights kind of bring all the characters more into life and somehow makes it look more whimsical. I'm going to finish it off by adding some white splattering. I'm using white calligraphy ink. This is going to blend in a little bit with the oxide. is not going to stand out uh as much. But you can see here some close-up photos on both the projects. I had so much fun today. Let me know in the comments down below what you think. Links and coupons can be found down below in the description. Thank you all so much for joining me today and I'll see you all next time.