Ombre Art Journal Page Tutorial

Hello friends! I hope your weekend was good. We had practically summer weather here and went on an outing to the sea on Saturday. Yesterday, I was also outdoors most of the day, first to a playground and for a walk with Leo, and then on a bike ride with Anton. 

It is a new month, and May might even be my favorite month of the year, if I had to pick one. This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have an Ombré theme. Since this is the first Monday of a new month, the team is showcasing a specific designer / company and this week the turn has come to Dina Wakley and her vibrant line of paint, crayons, stamps, journals, and stencils. You can find Dina's products here. You don't have to use Dina's products to join in the challenge, but it is always fun if you do. 

During May, Alison Bomber is our guest designer, and she always creates the most amazing projects, so don't miss checking her blog.

I am very fond of ombré effects for backgrounds, since the graduating colors add interest without being overwhelming. Here I used shades of pink, red and purple to create an ombré background for this art journaling page. The page was done on one of the cotton-rag pages in Dina's Media Journal, which is such a fun journal to work in, because of the four different surfaces it contains (cotton-rag, canvas, burlap and kraft). 

I used Scribble Sticks to color the page. They are one of my favorite coloring media, and are crayons with high quality pigment. The pigment is water-soluble like a watercolor pencil. 

Start by coating the page with white gesso using a palette knife. I left an uneven edge around the page.

When the gesso is dry, scribble with Scribble Sticks in the following order from the top: Blushing, Magenta, Fuchsia, Ruby and Blackberry. The crayons come from both Set 1 and Set 2.

Use a paint brush and clean water to turn the background into watercolor.

I used Dina's Collage Words tissue paper and tore around some of the phrases. The torn edge blends better into the background. Apply a layer of gloss multi-medium where you want to place the tissue, and then another on top of the tissue. On many backgrounds, tissue paper disappears almost completely, particularly on acrylic paint backgrounds. Here you can still see the edges slightly, but it doesn't matter, and the effect is reduced in the following step.

Sponge white paint through the Alphabetic and the Halves stencil. Also add some white paint around the edges of the tissue paper to make it blend more into the background.

Stamp a bird from Scribbly Birds and Scribbly Small Birdies on a lose sheet of Cotton Watercolor paper. I am happy that this paper comes in lose sheets too now. It has such a nice feel to it, almost like fabric.

Scribble color on the birds.

Dissolve with water. If you want a stronger color somewhere, you can pick pigment up with the paint brush directly from the tip of a crayon.

The Scribble Sticks are also great to splatter with. Dip the tip of the black crayon in water and flick a paint brush against it.

I used a black pen to add back some of the lines that had been partially covered in the coloring process. The same pen was used to scribble branches for the birds to stand on.

The white acrylic paint used for the stenciling adds a great effect on top of the Scribble Stick background.

I really like this sentiment.

The Big Chat and Chit Chat stickers were colored with the yellow Scribble Stick, and turned into watercolor with water.

This piece of printed tissue paper was the inspiration for my page. I really like the repeated 'be' and all the important messages.

If you want inspiration for the other types of surfaces in the Media Journal, you can check out the following posts:
kraft - Grungy Time
burlap - A Moment in Time
burlap - Magical Butterflies
canvas - Scribble Sticks Journal Page
canvas - Exploration
cotton-rag - Doodled Wildflowers

I hope you will join us this week in our Ombré challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies: 

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.