Relaxing Art with Stencils & Collage

Hi everyone,

I'm back with another mixed media art tutorial. My tutorials are oriented towards those who are just starting to explore the world of mixed media and are curious about all the different techniques. Of course, seasoned artists are welcome too! What I love about mixed media is you don't actually need a lot of stuff to get going. A good quality art journal or pad, your favorite paint colors, some brushes, your favorite stencil and stamp, and a couple of pens/pencils. All of these can be student grade except the surface. It's the same principle as in sewing. The fabric might be a bargain, but the thread must always be high-quality. So, be it a journal or paper pad - make sure you buy heavyweight paper atleast 200 gsm. Because if the paper is cheap, your work will look "off" and you'll be very disappointed at the result. That said, let's get to it:

For this tutorial I grabbed my square journal and taped off the edges, which you can skip. I just like the clean finish when the tape is removed. To ged rid off the blank page I stamped my postcard stamp in two areas. Then wet the page and dropped in some Sky Blue acrylic ink. Using the mop brush I spread the paint until it resembled a cloud like finish.

I layered a stencil on top using three acrylic paint colors. Remember that each layer needs to dry before adding the next layer. You can use a heat tool to speed up the process.

For the top layer I glued down bits of collage paper - tissue paper, vintage-style paper and gelliprints - from my stash. I usually rip the pieces by hand to make them blend into the page better. I then added my focal image and the title for this page. Would you like to see the whole process from start to finish? Watch it here:

If you have any questions please leave them in the comments below or on my channel. If you liked this short video tutorial please give me a thumbs up. Thank you and have a beautiful day ~

Mixed Media - create a "messy" page | Art Journaling

Hi everyone 🌷 I hope you are all doing well.

This is my first post of 2025 and one of my goals this year is to boost my blog! I know blogging seemed to be on the downward trend a few years ago, but personally, it had always been my favorite form of communicating. So, trendy or not, I will endeavour to increase my posts this year.

We've been having exceptionally cold weather and even a light dusting of snow. I have been in my studio working on a series of small paintings on wood panel. Like with my other crafts, I enjoy mixing things up and in between paintings I have done some art journaling and created a few mixed media pages. Some of these I share the process on my YouTube channel. Here is one of them. Since I'm working in my A6 journal the page is easily done and includes fun tools and plenty of layers with an assortment of stamps and stencils.

I'm mainly working with acrylic inks in this tutorial. I find I like the ones from Liquitex, as they are highly pigmented and come in a large color range, including neons and metallics. Using an old, small plastic bag I spread the inks randomly on the surface. 

Applying scraps of collage, grungy stamps and fun stencils. All supplies are listed in the video description. You can watch the entire process from start to finish here:

Creating this art journal spread with its many layers and textures was enormously satisfying. Are you a fan of "messy art"? Let me know in the comments.

Have a great week -