Art Journal 101 - backgrounds

I have loved art journaling so much that I decided to make a mini blog series about it.

Today we are going to start with the basics, backgrounds.

I am going to show you examples of three of the backgrounds that I have currently in my art journal. Side note, these are just examples! Be creative with your backgrounds. This is supposed to be a fun activity, so don’t stress too much on perfection.

The first background I want to show you guys is made with gouache. If you haven’t used this medium yet I highly recommend it. You can add water to it to make it more like watercolor, or use as is to be more like an acrylic. It is very versatile and I think that is why I love it so much. Plus, the colors are so vibrant that it is perfect for backgrounds.

The second background I use is of course, watercolor. However, for this particular one I used Tombows instead of traditional watercolors. Get a regular old plastic baggy in your pantry, some Tombows and a water bottle. Use the Tombows to color on the plastic, in random patterns. Then spray the plastic with water, and place on your paper. Smudge it around a little bit and BOOM, art journal background! I use this technique a lot for backgrounds for lettering so it is a perfect technique to use for an art journal.

The last background I want to show you is more of a scrapbooking background but I love it just the same. I use ModPodge, old books and paper and for this particular one some dried flowers. ModPodge is great to use as glue, but can be used on top of paper to adhere objects such as the dried flowers. I use the matte option because I am not too fond of overly shiny, but you can use whatever you prefer. This background can almost be used as a page itself, but will work for a quote or another image.

Now that we have got some backgrounds we can use, stay tuned for my next blog post about what type of content to put on your pages. Also, keep an eye out on my Instagram to see what I am up to!