Doing Art Journaling

Today I spent a few hours working on my art journal.

In the magazine Art & Life issue #9 Teesha Moore recommended using a certain Sharpie paint marker to write on top of water soluble oil pastel crayons. She recommended using Sharpie Poster Paint markers. I had an error in my memory and ordered Shaprie oil paint markers, so I'm using the oil paint markers.

Inspired by Teesha Moore, and needing a portable art material, I decided to finally do more art journaling with the water soluble oil pastel crayons. Today I made about 12 backgrounds for pages.

Then later when they were very dry I wrote for the first time with the oil paint markers. Wow they were great. The white was opaque, going down darker but drying quite opaque. It was too hard to read on the color background that I tried.

The black Sharpie oil paint markers are fan-tas-tic!

I don't know the pound weight of the paper that this journal has. Whatever it is, these markers bleed through to the other side.

I also tried writing with a regular fine point black Sharpie marker. That worked for a while then it got clogged up. Darn.

My younger son was curious about the work I was doing with the water soluble oil pastel crayons. I let him do some of the work. He liked the part where I was smearing the crayons with a damp facial tissue (instead of using a paint brush).

I plan to also collage on top of these pages. Tomorrow I think I will have even more time to make some backgrounds.

I am really feeling the drive to do more art projects just for me rather than being tied to swapping with other mail artists. It feels great to just play and not have it connected to a deadline.