Do you ever sit down to work in your art journal and freeze? What should I make? What should I work on? What supplies should I use? Do you find yourself thinking about making art more than you do making art? I’m here to help. I’ll be creating a blog post series on various background ideas using one main supply. For today, that special supply is acrylic paint. My hope is that this post will give you some ideas to jump in and get started. If you’re up for the challenge, I encourage you to try each of these techniques and make a bunch of different art journal backgrounds with them. I’ve been doing the 100 Day Project and have been focusing on backgrounds (#100DaysofArtJournalBackgrounds), and it has been so liberating to focus ONLY on the background in the project. No pressure to “finish” a spread. No pressure to focus on something profound. Just simply showing up and throwing a little paint (or whatever I want) on the page. All right. Let’s move to the art, shall we? Here are 5 different art journal background ideas that you can create with acrylic paint! P.S. If you're brand new to art journaling, you might be interested in this. 5 Art Journal Backgrounds Using Acrylic Paint1. Dry brush (left side of the page) Put the water aside for this one, no need for that. Put a bit of paint on your palette. Take a firm, bristly paint brush and lightly dip it into the paint. Drag it back and forth on the page. Play around with the direction, the pressure, and the stroke. Let it get streaky and hollow. Keep adding a bit more paint until you’ve covered the page. Repeat with different colors. Layer on top. Let yourself experiment. 2. Ombre Grab two colors of paint - or a color and white. Put each of the colors on opposite directions on either side of the page. With your brush, start on one side and move the color back and forth along the page. Next, do the same to the contrasting color and have them meet in the middle to mix and overlap. Add a bit of water onto your brush to get a bit more fluidity and blend. Bonus: You can get an "ombre" look with brush marks, too! 3. Bold Shapes Choose some colors that you like. Next, take a paint brush and create some big, bold shapes with the various colors. Paint them in like a coloring book. 4. Smoosh Painting Pick out some colors and put some paint in the middle of the spread. Next, close the book and use your finger to move the color out from center. Open up the page and let it dry. 5. Blocked off Grab some low tack tape (washi tape works great) and block off some areas on your page. Next, paint in the areas with colors of your choice. You can remove the tape while it’s still wet or dry - your choice. Once you create your backgrounds using these various techniques, the choice is yours to add layers and build on them. Maybe you love what you create as it is, maybe you layer ontop, maybe you end up ripping out the page and using it as collage fodder. You have the freedom to do what feels best for you. Get your art on - art challenge ideas to encourage you to play in your art journal:
Inspire others and share what you create. Tag me on Instagram (@theLOVESUM) so I can send you some love! Want to take your art journaling to the next level? Join the waiting list for my next online course, 25+ Mix & Match Art Journal Layers.
Looking for additional guidance and support? I offer 1:1 coaching and art journaling sessions. I’d love to chat to see if we’d be a good fit to work together.
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