31 Days of Scripture Art Journaling:: Day 18: Using Photos in your Art Journal

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Day 18: Using Photos in Your Art Journal

I love to use photos in my journals.
These are real, old fashioned photos that I ordered from shutterfly.
You'll need real photos for this scratchy technique today,
but tomorrow we'll use color photocopies,
which are really cool to paint over.

Encouraged in heart and united in love 
Colossians 2:2

1. Start with photos.
Go out into your world and take photos of everything.
these are the ranuncula flower fields in Carlsbad this spring.
So beautiful!

I enlarged these flowers and posterized them in PicMonkey
to make them look more impressionistic.

As you can see...
I have a bunch of photos.
I'm constantly taking photos, finding inspiration everywhere.

2. I started this page without gesso, only paint, because I thought the map of Rome was really cool.
I squirted a couple colors right on the paper and smeared them around with a paper towel.

3. Then I added paper scraps.

And more paper...

4. And some paint.

5. I tore some of the photos and glued them down with gel medium, but I was careful 

to only get it on the back because it messes up the photo if you paint over it.

Then I painted some details with different colors.

6. Then I scratched some of the emulsion off to add a little more texture.

I got the part I wanted to scratch wet with a q-tip.

Then I gently scratched off the emulsion with a paper clip.

7. Finally, I added details with white paint on top of the photo
and added more detail with a Sharpie on top of that.

8. I added details with letter stamps and a an extra fine point Sharpie
to finish this one off.

Here's the finished page...

And here are some details...

Okay, have fun with your photo and share them with me.
Either on Facebook or in the comments.
I'd love to see how you use photos in your journal.

See Day 19: Altering Photos

See all 31 Days