The Trees Show Us by Carisa Zglobicki

Hi everyone! Carisa here with you today and I’m so excited to be back on the Ranger blog sharing a mixed media page in the Dina Wakley Media Journal. I saw a question asked in the Dina Wakley Media Tribe Facebook group about the canvas pages in the journal and thought I would work on that substrate for you today! My biggest advice that I’ve mentioned before for all of the pages in the DWM journal is to treat them like any other journal page. Just because it might be a different surface than we’re used to, keep playing and experimenting on it because that’s the way you’ll find out exactly what works and what doesn’t. Our art journals are for fun to explore all our favorite products so throw caution to the wind!

Instructions

Step 1: I prefer to work on the canvas pages after I gesso them. Sometimes I use white, but this time I wanted to play with the cream color so I used Clear. One thing to keep in mind with the canvas pages is that they will shrink once you prime them with gesso. It’s not a big deal, but you can see that it shows the page behind it just a bit. Because of this, I use a piece of deli paper in between to protect it since I already created on that page and didn’t want to ruin it. Once that was dry, I created a watercolor background with Scribble Sticks picking the colors I thought would create an Autumn feeling (Ruby, Tangerine, Lemon and Lime with a bit of Night.) The colors were still super muted once dry so I added some heavy body acrylic paint on top using Fuchsia, Cheddar and a bit of Rosy. I watered them down quite a bit so they would move better across the page.

Step 2: While that was drying (well, who am I kidding, you all know I hit that with my heat tool to speed it along) I stamped the face from Splatter Girl on watercolor paper from the journal that I had torn out. I used Archival Ink and added a bit of color with the Scribble Sticks.

Step 3: I love quotes on my journal pages and one of my favorites for fall is the one I used today. I wrote it with the Fude Ball pen on deli paper so I could add it to my page. Fall is my favorite season and this quote is pretty powerful. I think we all have a few things need to let go and can learn from this beautiful season that is bursting with beauty while it lets go of things that are no longer worth holding onto.

Step 4: All that was left was to adhere my watercolor paper with the stamped image. Originally, I just wanted to use the tiny attacher but it would only reach the bottom so I added a bit of Matte Multi Medium to the back to adhere the top down. I love how it sits on the page but isn’t pushed into the page with a gel medium. I love the texture and dimension it adds.

Here are some close ups of my completed art journal page. I really love how this turned out. There were some moments when I thought it was a hot mess, but that is the beauty of art journals. We can push past the ugly and really beautiful things can come of it…or at least a learning experience!

Thank you Ranger again for inviting me to share my art with your readers using my favorite Dina Wakley Media products. They truly are some of my favorite mediums I turn to again and again as I continue my journey as a mixed media artist. My hope for this post is that if you’ve been intimidated or intrigued by the canvas papers in the Dina Wakley Media journal, that you are encouraged to give them a try and not let anything hold you back from exploring the possibilities!

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