Subtle colour creates cohesion

Hi everyone! Kiki here with another art journal post for you. This time with a little twist. Lori has a fabulous challenge going on over on the message board right now. She's already provided some wonderful techniques for you to follow to get your first art jouanl page done using the fabulous kits you get here. You have everything you need to do mixed media, scrapbooking or art journaling. 

Most people that ask me about art journaling have told me that the reason they shy away from art journaling is because it's messy, or disorganized, or just doesn't "feel" right to them. They might think that it looks like a "hot mess". You might be one of those people.

I challenge you to try Lori's art journal challenge this month and if you find that you are getting uncomfortable, try this technique: use some subtle colour over many areas of the page, because it helps brings a page together. For example, in my art journal page below, you'll notice that I used the pink Distress Paint in many different areas of the page.

I used the stencil provided in the Fortune kit this month to add some colour to the blank page (which incidentally also frightens many people away from art journaling). I used quite a few scraps of paper from the different patterned papers this month and layered them on with a glue or medium, depending on the texture I wanted. Although the kits are well thought out and the patterned papers work well together, not everyone is comfortable with using many patterns on their page. So how do you make it feel like it all works together?

• Use the same paint over papers that feel too bright.
• Add the paint to other mediums, like I did with the glass bead gel.
• Paint over some embellishments, like I did with the tag.
• Add paint splats or drips to make the page more cohesive.

A variety of ways to use the same paint to make the layout cohesive.

So the next time that you do your art journaling, and something just doesn't feel right, try adding some subtle colour in different ways to bring your page together in an eye-pleasing way.

Hope to see your pages in the gallery as you complete Lori's art journal challenge this month!