Author: Christina Lorraine Young (a.k.a. seena)

Junk Journaling, Part 1

| Christina Lorraine Young (a.k.a. seena)

Hi everyone! I’ve just finished an art journal video which will be posted on Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft’s blog next week. You can see my other Design Memory Craft designs here and here. In the meantime, I’m having a lot of fun in my junk journal. When I was first introduced to this concept I had a difficult time understanding what a “junk” journal was all about. Why would anyone want to journal junk? Isn’t every page sacred?

Well guess what? No pages are sacred, that was just my perfectionism talking. I am now a complete convert and here’s why: Junk Journals = freedom! Freedom to make mistakes and experiment, which in turn frees your creativity from perfection. You can do no wrong. Make sense? Here’s a peek at my junk journal. The cover is made from a Trader Joe’s grocery bag. I’m not worried about messing up a grocery bag, that’s for sure!

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The inner pages are made from junk paper (envelopes, old book pages, scrap paper scraps, etc.). This cat illustration was cut from an old children’s book. I embellished, add some new elements and decorated the page.

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The red bird is a collage item from a color laser copy of another of my projects. I added the tree and buds.

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Pages aren’t the same size, the same color, nor even from the same source (although you could use a cheap notebook)! If you are having some challenges with a blank page or wondering how to start art journaling, I highly recommend giving junk journaling a try. It’s a wonderful antidote to the fear of mistakes! Stay tuned for more of my junk journal pages… happy journaling!

CLICK HERE for a list of the materials I used.

xo, seena

Art Journal Video: Distress Ink Background Tutorial

| Christina Lorraine Young (a.k.a. seena)

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Hi everyone! Today I’m sharing a new video featuring a quick and easy way to make backgrounds for your art journaling pages. This technique is easily applied to other art projects including card making, canvas creations, ATCs and tags. If you enjoy the video I’d love it if you’d leave me a comment and share it with a friend!

CLICK HERE for a list of the materials I used.

xo, seena

 

 

Follow Your Heart When Making Art: Chagall’s Paris Opera Ceiling

| Christina Lorraine Young (a.k.a. seena)

My husband and I visited Paris for the first time during an October eons ago where it proceeded to pour rain for the entire week. Undaunted, we worked our way through a hefty ‘must see’ list which included Chagall’s painted ceiling at the famous Paris Opera House. We arrived, soaked and chilled, propelled by memories of Phantom of the Opera we’d seen years before.

Opera House foyer

Unable to afford the premium tickets that would take us to the performance hall to see the famous work of art, we shadowed an English tour to learn what we could about the monument. As the tour entered a side door we followed, unnoticed, with no idea of where we were headed. This is the sight that greeted us:

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Imagine our surprise. We were speechless in the midst of one of the most breathtaking works of art I’d ever seen, Chagall’s famous Paris Opera ceiling. Its beauty brought tears to my eyes.

“When Matisse dies,” Picasso said, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is.” To see this painting one can’t help but understand what Picasso meant. The colors are so vibrant they seem to glow. You might have no trouble convincing yourself that what you see is really a HD cinematic trick, but you’d be wrong. As my heart filled with joy my head was busy trying to puzzle it out. How could Chagall have taken something so ordinary like paint (440lbs worth) and turned it into something so extraordinary?  Yet I imagine a master like Chagall didn’t waste much time over thinking the artistic process. He understood that our head inhibits creativity. I’m endeavoring to make this quote by Chagall my mantra.

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As we strive to reframe our fear of the blank page and let go of perfectionism, who better than Chagall to encourage us to follow our heart when making art?

Battling Your Inner Critic: Turn Creative Mistakes Into OOPS

| Christina Lorraine Young (a.k.a. seena)

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How many times have you opened your art journal or sketchbook to ‘do some art’ and been frozen by the blank page? I know it happens to me. And more often than I care to admit. I’m usually afraid of making a mistake, marring the page or putting time into something that, in the end, I won’t like. I become a perfectionist. And it paralyzes me. If you identify with the creative process outlined below and get stuck by #5, you’re not alone.

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The wonderful Carolyn Dube has masterfully redefined “mistakes” as “OOPS” (Outstanding Opportunities Presenting Suddenly) and if you haven’t heard of this before, you really need to meet Carolyn. She was recently interviewed at Dirty Footprints Studio as a prelude to her participation in an online workshop, 21 SECRETS 2014. In the interview, Carolyn talks about how to face fear, how to get around it, how to work with it. There are so many juicy tidbits to take away!

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For example:

“I have tried everything in the aisles of Michael’s. I kept thinking it was the specific craft or art that I was doing that wasn’t right, but it was really the way I was treating myself.”

“Because I couldn’t be an expert right away, that inner critic just came ramping up… I spent 15-20 years in that battle with that inner critic.”

“I now realize that the things that I look at longingly are things that I want to do.”

Watch the free video interview here: Video Link. You’ll be inspired, learn how to begin to reframe your fear and best of all, be encouraged to create. What more can you ask for when staring at a blank page?

How to Build a Starter Set of Copic Markers in Your Art Supply Stash

| Christina Lorraine Young (a.k.a. seena)

Have you seen the price for a set of Copic markers? I’d already earmarked the Copic collection for my Christmas list thinking the set of 72 would be a splurge. I had no idea there were FIVE sets of 72! Thousands of dollars on markers is quite the investment and an unrealistic one for me. The alternative? Go for the long game. Buy singles. Slowly. Over time. Eventually build up your collection. But with so many choices, where do you start?

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If you are interested in portraits and faces, there is an excellent list of basic skin tones from artist Jane Davenport. I have been collecting these colours for a while now. Since I like a good discount I’ve been using coupons for added savings. It’s slower this way, but a good way to stretch your art supply budget. Here is Jane’s list:

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Fans of Copic know that aside from the amazing range of colours, it’s the blending of the colour ranges that make them so unique. Not to mention that colour preferences can be so individual depending on the artist. So how do we build a broader collection in a way to take advantage of these blending sets? I discovered a really helpful post by Michelle Houghton, an instructor for Copic America, with sensible recommendations on colours to building your Copic starter set. And here’s the best part: we can aim for as little as 36 colours to have some of the most common colours used in crafting and Copic tutorials! Here’s Michelle’s list:

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  • B00, B02, B04 (beautiful sky blues)
  • BG11, BG13, BG18 (mint greens) OR BG72, BG75, BG78 (sea greens)
  • BV00, BV02, BV04 OR BV11, BV13, BV17 (both fairly similar blue violet series)
  • V12, V15, V17 (pretty purples)
  • G21, G24, G28 (nice rich greens)
  • YG11, YG13, YG17 (grass greens)
  • Y11, Y15, Y19 (bright yellows)
  • YR04, YR07, YR09 (oranges)
  • R22, R24, R29 (the must have set of reds)
  • RV63, RV66, RV69 (raspberry pinks–this is a total preference ) OR RV21, RV23, RV25 (if your prefer bubble gum pinks)
  • E33, E35, E37 (this is a great starter set of Earth tones or browns)
  • E25, E27, E29, E00, E02 (the standard for skin tones–but there are TONS of options)

So there you have it. Concise recommendations for skin tones and basic color ranges. I am definitely using these as my shopping checklists. Check out Joann’s, Michaels, Dick Blick or Curry’s for a wide range of Copic selection, and for further savings see if they offer a coupon or loyalty card offer (Dick Blick) for a deeper discount! Happy copic-ing my friends!

Here is Michelle Houghton’s original post on building your copic set.

Click HERE for a list of the supplies I used.

xo, seena

Art Journal Page: The Thoughtful Mermaid

| Christina Lorraine Young (a.k.a. seena)

I’ve been lucky enough to participate in Jane Davenport’s and Teesha Moore‘s Mermaid Circus online workshop where we create, of course, mermaids! I want to share with you a couple of the many mermaids I’ve been working on. These pages aren’t quite finished as I find myself working on several pages at once, rather than completing a page before moving on to the next one.

While there’s a lot of mixed media in this class, these pages emphasize collage work. Let me tell you, I am LOVING collage! I have found the Tombow MONO Adhesive runner to be an invaluable tool. If you aren’t familiar with it yet, it’s basically double-sided tape on a runner. It’s quick and easy to use and allows you to avoid the bumps of glue from a stick and the drying time of a wet medium. Bonus: these are refillable, which cuts down on the replacement cost. I keep several refills around to keep the creative flow going!

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yellow and blue mermaid

frog and tent

I hope you get inspired to create your own collage. I’d love to see it. Leave me a comment and pic below!

Click HERE for a list of the supplies I used.

xo, seena