 Ευχαριστούμε και πάμε στον άλλο Mixed Media Tuesday. Σήμερα είμαι σημαίνει ένα νέο νέο αρχιότητα και θα σας δείξω how you can easily find inspiration when you don't know what to create. My number one tip is to go through a paper path that you have at home and find a big focal point. You can do that with a magazine if you like. I have here the Vagabond in Japan, which is a new collection by Stamperia and Antonis Giannitakis. It's a lovely collection, perfect to find focal points like this big guy here and I decided to go with this big boat as my focal point. Now you can find the boat in different sizes depending on what you want to create or where you want to create. If you look through the patent paper you will find the same designs in different sizes like here for example. You can find the same boat in a smaller size and depending on which path you have either the 12x12, the 8x8 or even the 6x6 you can get a smaller and bigger sizes of the same focal point. So based on the size of your focal point you can choose on what size of an archernal you want to work with. For today I'm going with the 8x8 paper path and that's the boat that I'm going to cut out. Archernaling doesn't have to be complicated. I'm going to show you just a few simple steps on how you can end up with a page without overthinking about it. So just pick a focal point and I'll show you how you can put things together. If you are a beginner in archernaling I think that this is going to be very helpful for you since I'm going to use just basic, fun mixed media techniques that are guaranteed to give you great results. I'm going to take my time and fuzzy cut around this boat. You don't have to cut out every little detail, nobody knows how that image was in the beginning. Then I'm going to work on a loose paper, this is thick watercolor paper. If you are a beginner it is a great start. You don't have to go and buy a book, I will show you how I like to put those loose pages together. Now I'm going to grab a stencil. It is from the same collection and I did use that before in a previous page. If you haven't seen that video I'm going to link it at the end of this one. So anyway, just grab a stencil and for today I'm going to do heat embossing. So I'm going to place my stencil on top of my page and I will use a little ink pad. This is a VersaMark ink, you can use any embossing ink that you have. And I will go over the design. I'm not going to completely cover up the page, I'm mainly staying on the top corner. And then I'm going to add some stenciling on the other side of the page. And I will apply on top white embossing powder. It's really difficult to see what I'm doing at the moment since I'm working with transparent ink on white page. But you will see everything coming together once I apply the color. The embossing powder is going to resist the color that I'm going to apply later on. So the design is going to stay nice and bright. Now I'm moving over to the right side of the page and I'm going to apply even more of that design with my VersaMark ink. So what I'm doing is creating two areas of interest which are one at the top corner and the other one on the right side of the page. After applying my white embossing powder I'm using my heat gun to make sure that everything is melted. And finally it's time to apply some color. For today I'm going to use my sprays just because they are super easy and they guarantee perfect results. I am going with muted colors with oxide sprays, however you can use any sprays that you have at home. And don't pick colors that are on your focal point so you can help it pop against the background later on. Just make sure that you use two colors that they are very close in color to each other. They are going to give you some variation on the background. It's not going to look too flat and at the same time they are going to match together nicely. Think of the color wheel and pick two colors that they are next to each other. You can see here how the embossed areas resist the paint and how lovely they appear on the background. I'm lifting the paper so that the colors can bleed on one another to create even more variation. And I'm using my heat gun to make sure that this is completely dry. Now some of the ink may stay on top of the embossing which does resist the paint. That's why I'm just cleaning them up with my paper towel there. One of my favorite things to do on the background to make them look more interesting to give some visual texture is to add some splashes. I'm using the same two colors that I used in the beginning for the background. So I'm not using any new color, this is going to give something interesting at the background but at the same time it's going to stay subtle. By the way the two distaste oxide sprays that I used are old paper and speckle tag. Another go-to technique for my backgrounds is to do some stamping. For today I'm working with a stamp from the same collection and I'm going to pick the one with the writing that matches the stencil that I already have on my background. And just because I want to have some extra interest on the background I'm going to go with black archival ink. I'm not going to stamp just anywhere in the background. I'm going to stay on the areas that I already created interest. So exactly where those white embossed areas are. This is really important for the layout that I'm going for so that everything is going to end up pleasing to the eye. And of course since I added black stamping I'm going to add some black splashes because I can never stay away from them. Now I'm happy with the background and I'm going to show you how we can easily put together a layout just by choosing a focal point. Now I'm going to place the focal point on the right side of the page where I already created that interest with the stamping and the embossing. I need to create a cluster so I'm just going to pick up a few more elements from the paper pad. Just call as elements that you can put together one on top of the other. What you need is to create layers. I'm going to go with that earth because I have something with globes or maps and probably if you follow my original layout you have seen me using such elements many many times. And I'm going to go through the paper pad to find other elements that I can cut out like some borders for example. I'm going to cut out some things that look like a finger. You can use book pages. You can use volume to layer things. You can use tags. All things would work for creating clusters. I'm going to use some black ink and I will go around the edges of my page just to frame the layout somehow. I would like to have a darker border on my layouts. And I want to get rid of the white edge on the cutout elements. So again I'm going to use my blending tool on the edges and you can see that detail helps the elements stand out against the background. I'm using my blending tool on all the cutouts. Or you can run your marker which is what I'm going to do with the board which is more intricate design and it's difficult to do with the blending tool. And now it's just a matter of sticking everything down. All you need to do is to stick one on top of the other to create a cluster. A cluster of interest on one side of the page. For today I'm sticking everything down with matte medium just because I'm planning to do a fun technique that I used to do a lot back in the day. And I'm going to cover up the cutouts with matte medium as well. Being very very careful not to touch with matte medium the background. The distress oxide spray that I have in the background isn't permanent and it is going to react with matte medium if you are not being careful and you are quite messy. So I'm being very neat with my matte medium here. But you don't have to do that. You can just use your liquid glue and stick one layer on top of the other and even lift the corner somehow to give some dimension. And now it's time to stick the board down making sure that it doesn't exceed the page. It has to be inside the page so when I cut out the excess paper it's not going to chop off the head. I'm also covering up everything with my matte medium again because I need to do a technique later on. And then finally I'm going to grab my big scissors and I'm going to cut off the excess paper so everything ends up nice and neat. Then with the rest of the cutouts that I have I did create a tiny little area of interest up at the top. And in terms of composition we do have a big area of interest on one side and on the other side a tiny smaller one. It is always pleasing to the eye. Now for my quotes I'm going to go with two stickers. The first one reads never lose your sense of wonder and the second one says the journey is the destination. So I feel like the destination is represented in this page by the globe and the journey but the boat. And I usually like to add a dot of glue at the back of the sticker quotes just to make sure that they are not going to fall apart. Now you can definitely call the page done. I'm going to take it a step further and I will show you how I used to love adding shadows on a page like this. I like to use the big brush markers. These ones have a big nib at the top. I have them for years and they never dried on me just because I use so little on every page. Just a few brush strokes and then smudge them with my fingers. I'm able to do that because at the background I have a non porous surface. So before the ink dries I'm able to smudge it a little bit. This creates shadows in a very easy way. The fun part about this marker is that it dries permanent plus it tastes transparent so it doesn't cover up the design at the background. It just adds some shadow. I find that when you use those markers on your cutouts you really bring them to life. You can easily separate one piece from another on your collage Here I just used a gray one to add shadows. I'm going to grab a brown one to add some shadows on the sails and then I'm going to show you that they are not only for adding shadows. You can even use them to spice up the colors and make the cutouts brighter. Back in the day that was my go-to technique when I was creating a layout but lately I stopped using my big brush markers because I got so many comments that people cannot find them easily in the market. These are the big brush markers by Faber-Castell and if you cannot find them there is another product by Faber-Castell which is exactly the same. It comes in a smaller barrel with a smaller nib but they do the same job. Sometimes it's even easier if you have that with a smaller nib since it is easier to go in the nooks and crannies of your designs. The ones that I'm talking about are marketed as calligraphy pens or as pit artist pens by Faber-Castell. There is a variety of colors. You can get them separately or in sets and I will provide some links down below so you can shop around. So here instead of adding shadows I'm using a bright red marker to add some color on the sails which is going to help that focal point, the boat to pop against the whole composition. And now for my final step I'm going to grab my white gel pen and I'm going to add some highlights in different parts of the cutouts just because I love the look. All those shadows and the highlights really bring all those cutouts into life. And again remember in art journaling there is no right or wrong. I always have to say that. I'm just showing you my way of creating my layout and maybe that can inspire you to create something too. Now since I'm working on an area that has matte medium underneath and it is non porous, I'm able to complete the arrays that gel pen if I don't like it. And the truth is that I am known to adding too many highlights that at the end I regret about it since I don't know when to stop with my white gel pen. So here I'm just going to outline the quotes and I'm going to call this layout done. You can frame it if you like since it is a loose page or if you want you can stick it inside a book. I do use this 8x8 one so the page that I worked with today was slightly smaller than the 8x8 page. I'm going to stick it down and maybe this is easier for a beginner since you don't have to work and commit on pages inside a binded book. You can work on a loose paper and just throw it away if you don't like it. So that was the layout for today. I hope that you had fun and that you got inspired. Down below in the description area just like all those you will find the full list of all the supplies that I used. Don't forget to like the video and leave me a comment. Thank you so much for joining me and I hope you will have a lovely day.