F for Focus! | ABC Motivation Art Journal Page

Click here for the YouTube video.

By the time I got to making this page I had seen quite a lot of painting videos on YouTube. So here I attempted to paint my own beach. I know I got the perspectives all wrong, but I’m still happy with my frothy waves :)

Moral of the page is that your priority is YOU and your own goals. If you do not focus on your goals, no one else will…. so unless you do it, they won't be realized, not for you anyway. I remember that around that time I also heard it said that if you are not working on your own goals, someone will probably pay you to work on theirs. And, in the end, what have you got?

Art supplies used:

- Duct Tape

- Gesso

- Acrylic paint

- Permanent markers

E for Expect | ABC Motivation Art Journal Page

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E, what to do with “E”... think of a good positive word that starts with “E”. This is how i was talking to myself before I got to make that page. Had no idea what to do with “E” and so decided to watch some online videos/seminars. One of them was from Gregg Braden and he made a statement that stuck with me, he said “a miracle that is possible for anyone, is possible for everyone!” I think this is also mentioned in his book “Spontaneous Healing of Belief.” Anyway, I thought “Hey, Expect Miracles!” :) and that is how this page was made. The idea for the background was to depict a starry sky/universe. It doesn't come out very well in the scanned image, but I’m quite pleased with the final result of the actual page. Took me hours to make, but I learned a lot. I could have achieved the same final results with a lot less work :) It seems that the more I learn, I realize the less I really need. Have you ever had that feeling?

Art supplies used:

- Gesso

- Soft Pastels

- Acrylic matt varnish

- Acrylic paint

- Water based color pens

- Glitter, lots and lots of it :D

D For Dare | ABC Motivation Art Journal Page

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D for Dare, what else can I say? The day before I made this page I found the little “smiling sun” stencil on the street. I believe it is one of those glow-in-the-dark toys that you can stick on the ceiling that will glow at night. Well, I found it and immediately thought “hey, this may work as a stencil, my first stencil” :) So, I decided to use the smiley face on it and the rest of the page seemed to grow of it’s own accord. Daring to dream is an important human activity. If we didn't have dreams to realize, why are we living? It is important to me to keep moving forward and growing (mentally not physically) as a person. There is so much knowledge out there that we can learn and use. They say “The sky is the limit”, what is the sky really? it’s nothingness! So there is no limit, or is there? You decide!

Art supplies used:

- Acrylic paint

- Gesso

- White marker/paint

- Water based coloring pens

- Stencil that I found on the street

- Hairspray to seal

C For Change | ABC Motivation Art Journal Page

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This page was made as a result of the “B” page. When thinking about our beliefs, it makes me wonder what would happen if we changed them. There are a lot of limiting beliefs that we carry around with us that were never ours, but were “inherited” from the people that were around us when we were open for believing what they have to say to us, this includes teachers and adults. Some beliefs were installed due to fear and are actually not true at all. In this page I decided to change my techniques and try to cut and paste some pictures from advert folders i received in the mail. Even though I started the page with black Gesso (homemade mixing black acrylic paint with white gesso) I decided to try the pictures anyway. To be honest, the end results seems to be a huge mess, but i learned a lot from it. One important lesson was also that Less can be More :)

Change can be scary, only in the sense of it being unknown to us, like uncharted territory. But! it can also be good. You’ll never know, until you take a bite!

Art supplies used:

- Acrylic paint

- Gesso

- White marker/paint

- Water based coloring pens

- Recycled folder/flyer

- Glue Stick

B for Believe | ABC Motivation Art Journal Page

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So, I have done the “A” page, what do I do for the B? The first word that came to mind was Believe, but in what? So, I decided to believe in myself and my creative abilities and do whatever felt good on this page. A lot of people around us may tell us what we should and should not do, what we are and are not good at. This advice is very biased because people make these statements based on their own abilities and thus not yours! So, why should we care what other’s believe we can or cannot do? While doing this page I decided to look up the meaning of the word “believe” and the dictionary said “Believe, believing, believed: to have confidence in the truth, existence, reliability or value of something.” Makes one wonder, what would it mean to believe in yourself? Choose what you believe in, you might be amazed at what you can achieve!

Art supplies used:

- Soft pastels

- Acrylic paint

- Gesso

- White marker/paint

- Water bases coloring pens

- Wall/hole filler (hardware store)

- Stencils: home made

- Duct tape to stop bleeding on previous page

- Hairspray to seal

A For Action | ABC Motivation Art Journal Page

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Action seems to be the best word to start this project. Since by doing this page I’m actually taking the first step/action towards setting my creativity free. While doing this page I was thinking about the reasons we always come up with in order not to do things. This inspired me to change that way of thinking and focus on the reasons why to go ahead and take action and do what i want to do. It’s always easy to come up with a reason/excuse to stop in your tracks and stay where you are. Then again, there are also reasons why you came up with the idea to do something in the first place.

Art supplies used:

- soft pastels

- gesso

- coloring pens

- hair spray to fix the water based colors

- car wax to protect the page (had a bottle of green car wax that i never used for anything else)

ABC Motivation Art Journal Project (The Beginning)

How it all started:

After watching a lot of art journaling videos from you-tubers like Aaron, Jennibellie, Franc Papillon and other, I got the itch to also make my own art journal. As I didn't know where to start or what to do I kept on watching more and more videos, until I came across Aaron’s ABC's of Art Journaling Series. That was when I thought “AHA, There is a good idea.” I decided to start my own ABC Art Journal Series but focus on motivational words that would help motivate me to free up some of my creativity. And that was when ABC Motivation Art Journal Series was born.

What did I have to start this project?

In most of the videos that I saw on YouTube, the artists had so much fancy art supplies, like sprays, stamps, stencils...etc As I didn't have all that, I decided to start with the little bit that I did have, which included:

- A Drawing/painting pad (A5)

- Gesso

- Soft pastels

- Coloring pens (water soluble)

- Permanent markers

- Acrylic craft paint that I got from a local store

- Painting brushes, that I got years ago with an oil painting set that I never used and had to chuck out.

- A Camcorder (JVC)

The plan is:

- Do an art page for each letter of the alphabet (A to Z totaling 26 pages)

- Record the process

- Edit the video into a fast-forward mode (time lapse with music)

- Upload the video to YouTube.

Face Of Many Colors | Art Journal Page

About this page:

I made this page while I was going for a short trip abroad, so I only used pens and no paints at all. I started it because I was pretty bored on the plane, that is why the creative process was not filmed. I was seated between two women who are actually traveling together, but one of them likes the window seat while the other was a bit scared of flying. Proof of that was that she got sick during the journey. So, what do you do when you have two people talking to each other over your head? you get out your art journal and plug your ears into some music and start drawing lines. That was how this page started, just drawing lines and curves and voila, you have a face with sunglasses. I only managed to do the outline during the flight, later on during my stay I managed to sneak away some time to fill in the rest. The rest was filled in using gel glitter pens that I got at a good price, low enough to buy them just to try them.

Supplies used:

- Permanent markers

- Gel glitter pens (water based)

What worked:

It is nice to draw with permanent markers, this way you can not go back and draw over it. I liked the way the glitter pens worked on the paper and filled in the whole face nicely. Very good for detailed work.

What was challenging to use and how I worked around that:

The first challenge I was facing was keeping a steady hand during a turbulent flight, ah this will explain why my fellow travel got sick! Anyway, what I did learn during this experience is that when mistakes are made (or so they are initially classified as such) it is always possible to change the plan and adjust it accordingly. That is actually how this face ended up with sunglasses instead of eyes :) Also during the trip from the airport to the location where I was staying, we had to make a stop on the way and I got to wait in the car, guess what I did!!!! I got out my pens and started drawing on that face :) So, if you want to create art, nothing will stop you. If you don’t want to create art, nothing can force you!

Heartfelt | Art Journal Page

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About this page:

This is actually the first page where I have enough courage to use my acrylic paint. Even though I only colored one heart with it, it was a good start.

Supplies used:

- Base layer: gesso

- Background, soft pastels & water with a layer of gesso

- Permanent markers for both the red and the blue hearts, as well as the leaves and black outlines

- Acrylic paint for the yellow heart

- Water color pens for shading

- White paint pen (not water based) for the yellow heart base as well as the dotting/dots

- Hair spray as fixation (diluted the permanent markers a bit, note for next time)

- Car finishing wax to stop the page from being sticky. This was a bottle of green finishing/shining car wax that I had from my old car that I never used. It was easier for me to apply by hand directly.

What I learned from making this page:

Even though it was my first time to use acrylic, I realized that it is more efficient to use acrylic paints to color bigger objects where detail work is not required. When coloring with markers it uses quite a lot of the ink.Also that hairspray will reactivate permanent markers and let your detailed lines bleed all around.