2020 Review Art Journal Page

Hi everyone! I can't believe the year is almost over. I have one last tutorial for this unusual and difficult year. It's an art journal page using stencils, acrylic paint, markers, glitter gel and stamps. You can of course use the techniques for other types of projects too. 

At the end of every year I do either a scrapbooking page or an art journal page summarising the year. This year it is an art journal page, a double page in my Large Dylusions Journal. When thinking back on this year, my first thought was that I wanted to paint the entire page black, but there have also been many moments of joy and light, which is why the colorful circles are shining in the darkness. I hardly ever use black backgrounds.

This page started out like this. It has been a page on which I have smeared left-over paint during the year, which makes it even more suitable for this topic. If you want to make your own background, start with a layer of gesso and then just add acrylic paint with a palette knife. It's a mix of Dina Wakley and Distress Paint.

I wanted to use the SSS I Like Big Dots stencil since I just got it. I drew circles with a black pen. You can skip this step if you want to, but I hadn't yet decided what to do and I wanted the dots to line up as they did on the stencil.

Draw circles through the stencil on SSS Masking Paper. Cut out and place over the dots on the page.

Paint with black paint. 

Remove the masking paper and the colored circles appear. There might be some paint that has seeped under the edge here and there, but that doesn't matter.

Stamp the circles with circles from the SSS Mix and Match Circles set. Designing stamps for Simon Says Stamp has been one of the main highlights of my year, so some of the stamps had to make their way onto this page.

For the title, I printed the numbers and cut them out. Draw the outlines with a white gel pen.

Paint with acrylic paint. I wanted a rough look and visible paint brush marks. 

Stamp sentiments and images into most of the circles. Stamp the page here and there with the Circle Pattern Background stamp and white paint. Always clean the stamp immediately after using it with paint.

I added a border, journaling and some dots with a Sharpie paint pen.

Apply Stickles Moon Dust on some of the dots, through the stencil with a palette knife.

Since the background was a random mix of color, all the circles look different.

The paint circles add texture to the black background while also toning down the black a little.

The glitter gel looks real nice on some of the dots and is perfect for New Year.

I really like small sentiment stamps, since they can fit in many places. 

I used the stamps with the people hanging from strings on my Honeycomb Patchwork Journaling page too. They were meant to hang from balloons, as you can see here on the Just Miss You set.

I am trying to hand-letter a little more on my projects and here I wanted big bold numbers with a rough look, which weren't so hard to do.

The Make Most Of stamp is by Darkroom Door and was white embossed on vellum. You could also white emboss it directly on page.

Part of writing more by hand was also the hand-written sentiments on this page, written with a Sharpie Paint Pen.

I had a penguin left over from another project on my desk and decided to place it into one of the numbers. It was die cut with the Memory Box Snowglobe Backer set from Frosted Glitter Paper.

The Moon Dust Stickels has a mix of small and larger pieces of glitter. It looks particularly cool overlapping the painted number. 

I always enjoy nature, but during this year, it has been even more important than before.

I liked the look of this half circle, which happened since there was already some black paint on the background when I placed out the circles.

Thank you so much for stopping by here today! I will be back tomorrow with a year-in-review post about some of my favorite projects. 

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

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