Oscraps

Hybrid Mixed Media and Art Journals Crafted with Digital Supplies

ArmyGrl

ArmyGrl

Well-Known Member
Hi all! First, let me say how blown away I am with the art journal and mixed media projects already shared here.... :wow:

If you have used digital downloads in your art journals, or to craft an art journal, I'd love to see your work in this thread (or a link to an already established thread post).

I love to use digital downloads in my art journals. One thing I do is print embellishments or ephemera to use as a focal point, painting around the embellishment/ephemera.

Or, as in the project below, I use digital papers as the background and paint on top of those or use the papers to craft a journal.

In my project below, I used A Whimsical Adventures Mixed Media Papers No 34 to craft a new winter themed art journal for 2024.

I designed my "book" in Photoshop first. I love the mixed media arty vibes of the digital papers and knew they could be stand alone pages with a few areas for me to record written thoughts and journaling. Thus, I decided to craft a journal that would have one have one side blank for my analog art and the other side filled with the digital paper. I am limited to standard print sizes such as A4 or US Letter Size and being in the US, letter size is common. So, I went with a 11"x8.5", horizontal spread. I printed on 110lb plain card stock from my home printer.

After stacking the printed pages together and folding in half (and trimming the edges), I applied washi tape to the spine (for no other reason than I love washi tape and it matched the colors). I used an awl to punch through the spine, then bound with threaded white embroidery floss. The top picture is the front and back cover. On the cover I stamped "Winter Came" using Ranger's Distress Archival Ink in Faded Jeans. To help it pop off the page, I outlined the top with a white charcoal pencil.

On the inside I have finished two spreads but have room for five more.

I used the same supplies for the snowflakes and the gal:
  • Clear gesso + white gesso on the bottom: creates a nice protective barrier so I can use watery mediums later, the clear gesso adds a lot of gritty tooth and texture
  • Acrylic paints on top of the dried gesso, Master's Touch paints from Hobby Lobby, Titanium White, Neutral Grey, Prussian Blue, Blue Grey, and Payne's Grey.
  • Gallery Watercolor Crayons on top of acrylic
  • Artecho soft pastels for depth and highlights
  • A splash of acrylic inks
  • Note 1: a 4B pencil was used to draw in the snowflakes and trace over the gal.
  • Note 2: for me this exercise was about creating winter scenes rather than practicing portraits or figures; so I glued in a picture from Unsplash and drew/painted over it (huge time saver and great for those who are developing their portrait skills).

WinterCame-Hyprid.jpg
 
What a wonderful tutorial! I have done very few hybrid projects--I don't get very good results from my home printer--and I truly admire the creativity involved in mixing digi and "real" supplies.
 
Now that I have a printer at home again, I might try my hand at this! I don't have a dedicated scrap place so I have to take everything out every time I want to do something and I just gave up. LOL

Good to see you here at the O!!
 
AZK said:
What a wonderful tutorial! I have done very few hybrid projects--I don't get very good results from my home printer--and I truly admire the creativity involved in mixing digi and "real" supplies.
Click to expand...
It has been a learning curve with my home printer…and me willing to waste several sheets of paper…even photo paper sad to say. But what I learned with photo paper is that it’s best if I drop my layouts into “photos” then print from there (for printing scrapbook pages).

On card stock, such as in the project here, it’s okay to print from Photoshop, but I cannot change any printer paper features. I must leave it at plain white. If select brochure paper or anything else, I get horrible lines across the pages.

I have Epson ET-2850.
 
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pachimac said:
Now that I have a printer at home again, I might try my hand at this! I don't have a dedicated scrap place so I have to take everything out every time I want to do something and I just gave up. LOL

Good to see you here at the O!!
Click to expand...
Thank you!

From the Michaels store I got a little roll away art cart. I keep paints and often used stuff on that. I roll the cart into a closet when I’m done arting. It’s just me and the hubs, though, so I am fortunate to have craft space. I went digi many years ago because I could not stand mess and didn’t have a good space for making art messes. All this is being said because I understand through my own lens how lack of space is a huge barrier to creating physical art (it’s why I only art journal and don’t try canvas painting).
 
ArmyGrl said:
Hi all! First, let me say how blown away I am with the art journal and mixed media projects already shared here.... :wow:

If you have used digital downloads in your art journals, or to craft an art journal, I'd love to see your work in this thread (or a link to an already established thread post).

I love to use digital downloads in my art journals. One thing I do is print embellishments or ephemera to use as a focal point, painting around the embellishment/ephemera.

Or, as in the project below, I use digital papers as the background and paint on top of those or use the papers to craft a journal.

In my project below, I used A Whimsical Adventures Mixed Media Papers No 34 to craft a new winter themed art journal for 2024.

I designed my "book" in Photoshop first. I love the mixed media arty vibes of the digital papers and knew they could be stand alone pages with a few areas for me to record written thoughts and journaling. Thus, I decided to craft a journal that would have one have one side blank for my analog art and the other side filled with the digital paper. I am limited to standard print sizes such as A4 or US Letter Size and being in the US, letter size is common. So, I went with a 11"x8.5", horizontal spread. I printed on 110lb plain card stock from my home printer.

After stacking the printed pages together and folding in half (and trimming the edges), I applied washi tape to the spine (for no other reason than I love washi tape and it matched the colors). I used an awl to punch through the spine, then bound with threaded white embroidery floss. The top picture is the front and back cover. On the cover I stamped "Winter Came" using Ranger's Distress Archival Ink in Faded Jeans. To help it pop off the page, I outlined the top with a white charcoal pencil.

On the inside I have finished two spreads but have room for five more.

I used the same supplies for the snowflakes and the gal:
  • Clear gesso + white gesso on the bottom: creates a nice protective barrier so I can use watery mediums later, the clear gesso adds a lot of gritty tooth and texture
  • Acrylic paints on top of the dried gesso, Master's Touch paints from Hobby Lobby, Titanium White, Neutral Grey, Prussian Blue, Blue Grey, and Payne's Grey.
  • Gallery Watercolor Crayons on top of acrylic
  • Artecho soft pastels for depth and highlights
  • A splash of acrylic inks
  • Note 1: a 4B pencil was used to draw in the snowflakes and trace over the gal.
  • Note 2: for me this exercise was about creating winter scenes rather than practicing portraits or figures; so I glued in a picture from Unsplash and drew/painted over it (huge time saver and great for those who are developing their portrait skills).

View attachment 435477
Click to expand...
Lisa, I have been wanting to :multitasking::busy1: pop in here and say...........:wow: You have done such a fantastic job with this! The painting over the figure is something I have been wanting to do for ages and you have executed this technique perfectly here! I can't draw faces/people so it's definitely on my creative list of to-do's!! Sadly my printer is out of commission at the moment but I really do have a lot things I should be using up right now, but I would really love to print some of Anja's papers out as they are so spectacular!

In the past I have started a thread each month for people to post their hybrid (or full on physical type) projects to share with others and I will certainly start them again in the new year. Thanks so much for posting this beautiful project and for including your process steps as well, something for me to study in more detail. :)
 
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