Art Journaling with ATCs and Stencils (Tutorial)

Welcome! Today I’m sharing a spread in my art journal that measures 12″ wide and 8″ high when open. Stick with me till the end and you’ll find 2 prizes for National Craft Month.

I started out with a mix of DecoArt fluid acrylic paints (Diarylide Yellow and Quinacridone Gold) and a bit of stenciling with ink.

I often use Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) as practice ‘real estate’ and today I decided to raid my box of ATCs-in-progress to get this page started. Most have some color and maybe a bit of stenciling.

ATCs make great additions to larger projects. I pulled two from the orange/red family to start.

I stamped the face on two ATCs thinking it would look neat layered this way. In the end I found it was too dark, so I stamped it over and over again on other ATCs from a similar color palette and cut and layered a new face/eyes. I also stamped another ATC with this beautiful “Breathe” stamp from Stampers Anonymous.

This next piece was in the box with the ATCs, but it’s not really one… just close in size. It was embossed with one of Tim Holtz’s texture fades and colored with ink.

I wanted to give the lady some words and decided to go with Lost & Found.  Imagine my delight when I spotted the word ‘and’ in the middle of the word “Wander” on this stencil!  Sooooo much better than stenciling each letter individually.

Lots more stenciling finished it off, and that’s a strip of washi tape down the center spine.

NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAYS:  I’m celebrating National Craft Month with a gift of two free seats in my Craftsy class, Inventive Ink: Colorful Mixed Media Effects.  You can see a 2-minute preview video below, and leave a comment on the two Giveaway  Posts (One Free Class) (Four Free Classes).  I will announce the winners on March 14th. Good luck!

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