Monday, July 24, 2017

Arizona Plant - My Art Journal Inspiration

My latest Art Journal Page...


There are several different medias and techniques on this page, let me share some of them with you.

First of all I'm using a Canson Mixed Media ring-bound notebook. I love this because you can use almost any media on it, pencil, pen, markers, acrylic paints, watercolor, ink sprays, glues, almost anything!


My inspiration was the plant in my front yard that I call the Arizona Plant. I've blogged about it before and you can find that post here. But here's the picture I had in front of me while I create the page. I would love to say that I'm a great photographer but it's the flower itself that makes the picture.


I was also inspired by a YouTube video by Nina Ribena where she uses a Salad Spinner to create art! Yep, you heard it here...a salad spinner, one of these! In fact this is the exact one I have that I bought several years ago and use all the time.


Here's the video in case you want to see how it's done. I wish I had thought to take pictures of the samples that I made, but I can at least show you what I made out of them and how.


So I made two discs like the ones above, one using the colors of orange, red, yellow, white and clear glitter acrylic paint and the other with orange, red, brown, yellow and gold glitter acrylic paint. I also made another one using green, blue, yellow and white acrylic paints. 

I then used water colors to paint a blueish-purplish sky and a green bottom for the grass. While that was drying I cut out the petals of the flowers from the discs made with the salad spinner. I know the way I put the flowers together is not exactly the way the real flowers are, but it's just representational. 

I glued the flowers, trying to choose the prettiest petals for the top. I also used the disc with the blue, yellow, green colors for leaves.

I just adore the way the red flower petals came out with the streaks of white! And the different shades of green and yellow in the leaves is lovely as well. The Salad Spinner technique made it so easy. I never could have individually painted them like that, and you can see the glitter in the orange flowers. In real life they are even more amazing!


Once I had the flowers down I painted the stems, first using water color but they weren't noticeable so used a brown marker and then glued down the leaves. 

Then it was time to work on the title of the page which I titled Summer Fun. I used some cute little rubber stamps that my mom bought me for my birthday and an ink stamp with white ink. It was still hard to read so I used a white marker to fill in the letters. 

It was really hard to get the letters all in a row, so go with the flow right? I made them whimsical and not straight at all and then cut out the strip. These were stamped on another piece of the salad spinner paper that was mostly all orange, which is why I didn't use it on the petals.



I felt something was missing on the bottom right so I went through my stash of embellishments and found some hummingbird stickers and loved them because this plant does draw hummingbirds, probably because of the red in the plant. 



I used markers to make the dots in red, yellow and orange and then made a little border around the whole thing in blue and red. I just love putting a border on my pages because it makes it look so finished.

Slowly I am building up my "stash" of things to use in building these journal pages, and I'm finding such peace in doing them, it's so relaxing!

I made a few more discs of salad spinning art that I am saving to use for future projects, so you will probably see a lot more of this type of art...stay tuned!




21 comments:

  1. I read the article and saw the video. It's a cool post.

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    1. Thank you! I had bought my little niece a nice gift for her birthday a few months ago that was basically the same concept as the salad spinner except hers had batteries. Her's cost me $25, the salad spinner was $8! Wish I had known then. I can't wait for her to come over and play with me and we can do salad spinner art!

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  2. My neighbor has one of those Arizona plants. I love your salad spinner flowers, so creative!

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    1. Thank you Diane! It was fun doing them. I bet it would be really fun with kids. And just wipe the paint out and wash the spinner and you can still use it for salads!

      So many beautiful flowers in Arizona! I just bought a book that has gorgeous photos. Not as gorgeous and yours but still pretty.

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  3. I love this! It is a wonderful representation of the Arizona plant. You are so talented. Knowing you as I do... I love the thinking outside the box learning you are doing. Most Excellent.

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    1. Thank you my sister. Yeah, I can't even eat my taco if it's on the wrong side of the plate...LOL! So you know how un-outside of the box I am :)

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  4. No offence but I wouldn't fancy eating out of the salad spinner after using 🎨 paint in it. Are they very expensive things to buy?

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    1. No, they aren't too expensive. I bought this one at IKEA several years ago and it was about $12, but I wiped out all the paint, because it is acrylic and acrylic will clog your sinks. Then I washed it thoroughly with warm soapy water and I always add Clorox to my dish water. If you used a dishwasher then I would assume it would even cleaner.

      I have faith in my dish washing skills, I haven't killed anyone yet :)

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  5. There's always a 1st time for everything. : )

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  6. Salad spinner art - the more we live, the more we learn. Your Arizona plant painting is gorgeous, both with and without the birds stickers! The colors are so vivid!

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    1. Thank you DUTA! I'm really having a great time doing these. It's so freeing, you just do what you feel and you don't really have to have a purpose or an ending in mind. I do love the colors as well.

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  7. Beautiful! You have an amazing gift. Have a lovely week!

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    1. Thank you! I appreciate the comment. Hope your week is lovely also :)

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  8. What a fantastic colour the Arizona plant is. Love your flowers.

    All the best Jan

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    1. Thank you Jan! It's a beautiful plant, low maintenance, drought resistant and super eye-catching!

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  9. How cool is that??? I love your journal pages and the flowers turned out gorgeous! Maybe I should try journal pages as I am not such a great artist in drawing. What type of paper do you use for the disks that you put in the salad spinner? I also pinned it to a board I have for my daughter as she is an elementary art teacher. I was thinking her clases would love that and it's not a pricey project. You go girl!

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    1. You should try them, they're very freeing! I started out with sketching and I fell in love with Art, so then I tried Acrylic painting and I did several paintings and in face have an unfinished Baby Groot I am painting for my son, but then I found art journaling and using mixed media and now I'm hooked. I'm not very good at thinking outside the box and using my own creativity, this is really helping me so I do intend to keep painting using acrylics but art journaling will always be a part of my art journey.

      I highly suggest you try it, it's so much fun, especially using mixed medias, different paints and sprays and inks and stamps and stencils and stickers...and, and, and...I could go on for days...LOL

      I thought that the Salad Spinner painting would be great for kids and shared the video with all my friends that have small children. I use Canson Mixed Media paper, you can pick it up at Walmart. I cut a circle that fit the bottom of the spinner and then just plain craft paint that you can buy at Walmart from 59 cents a bottle and on up! The kids would really love it, especially the spinning part!

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Please leave a comment.I would love to know your thoughts!