My first Art Journal

The incredibly talented Liz Hicks launched a free year round class on making an art journal.  Not only is it immensely generous of her to share with us a year's worth of expertise, but I'm uber excited about seeing what she creates to motivate us.

I've never really been a free hand drawer.  It's not that I can't draw (I can a little)...I guess it's just a skill I never developed so I don't have the utmost confidence in devoting a whole project to illustration.  Well, this is the year where I challenge myself...so Liz's class was a great place to start.

So not only am I going to be forced to draw...I'm also going to be forced to JOURNAL (something else I don't do at all).

I started by buying a few supplies
1. A sketch journal
2. Pastels (something she recommended but wasn't needed)
3. Drawing pencils - apparently a charcoal and something else I don't know how to use (ha!)
4. A small artist's palette for acrylic paints

So I had some fun new supplies but now I was supposed to actually start my journal.  I completely FROZE!  Where was I supposed to start?!

I cheated....I did a little google searching...and found some great sources of inspiration. I saw examples of others' work and made note of the elements I liked.

And well, that's all I needed to get me going!  Can't wait to see where this goes...

I sketched with a pencil and then went over my drawing with a micron marker.  I fought the urge to trace exactly.

then I used the pastels - and used my fingers to blend (messy fun!)

not sure how to set the page so that the pastels don't come off, but I'm pretty happy with my first page