2023 X Art Journey

 2023 started off with art journalling and experimenting with the Himi jelly gouache paint which if you've not tried it is like a better version of acrylic paint that's also a watercolour depending on how much you dilute it. 

I created an art journal in a format like a funky diary; it had lots of song lyrics representing my thoughts and feelings and the images produced still in the cosmic theme but had the checkered pattern as i'd just learnt how to draw it. I wrote the words first then drew but near the end of the book I struggled to complete the drawings to go with the lyrics so I left the journal whilst I worked on different projects. By the time of coming back to finish the book I no longer resonated with most of it so I never finished it.

I continued making the old compositions brought to life on cardboard pieces that I started in 2022 and managed to complete them all in 2023,  SO I started drawing some new compositions same style on cardboard but some had the checkered pattern. My ideas quickly ran out and I stopped trying to produce new cardboard pieces.

I created a collab journal with the help of my friends, I taught them how to do the repeating pattern method (where you put paint on one side of the page close the book and then open it again revealing a repeating pattern) it's only a short book demonstrating what others could produce.  

I wasn't feeling very inspired so i'd made some more junk journals; Experimented with making them from a magazine using recycled materials on one and receipts on the other but was struggling to paint them so I left them for a while. I tried various ways to improve my inspiration from colouring in a colouring book, listening to new music and even reading a fiction book, but nothing seemed to work. I was in a serious art block slump. 

I had a sleepover with a friend and we did some art together, I taught them the repeating pattern method and things spiralled from there... it's always fun to see the different methods, techniques and styles people produce, everyone's different and we all have different preferences. In this art session they had the idea to make a butterfly from the repeating pattern once it had dried and to make more repeating pattern backgrounds and to cut things out, while they were drying I remembered I had some pre-painted background pieces and we decided to cut planets out of a few of them (we drew round a washi tape to create the small circle). Once we'd made the planets we made a cut out alien with wings stuck behind it. I also taught them how to create some quote pieces in my junk journal that I was struggling to complete and let them do a few pages before asking if they wanted to do a project together, the answer was yes. We decided we wanted to do a positivity journal and put everything we'd made together in a poly pocket to use in the journal. *We did make a journal together but didn't get that far before falling out over something completely unrelated and I started a positivity journal on my own in August*. We had a few other art sessions with another friend at the time who had completely different ways of working, they preferred to use to reference images and we had a drawing competition with felt-tips, gel pens and brush markers; I liked some of the drawings and wanted to use them but I disliked the white space around so decided to cut them out and this is how cut out ephemera was born. 

The fresh perspective on methods used gave me some inspiration. I decided to draw more singular things, colour them in and cut them out this is what I call cut out ephemera. I made aliens/creatures, animals, mushrooms, crystals etc. I tried creating an art journal where it started off a stick things in journal but became whatever mediums/methods I felt like; There was a lot less quotes/song lyrics than the diary type one because if i'm honest not sure where my heads been at for a lot of the year. However this cut out ephemera method was not for nothing, I discovered they looked pretty cool stuck in my junk journal as they can be really difficult to draw on sometimes. The cut out things developed into getting glitter glue/ glitter paint on top to give it a bit of razzle dazzle. I could draw the creatures/aliens really easily and continued this cut out ephemera method for a little while till I had a poly pocket FULL to use. I also used the doodle ephemera i'd previously made, in my junk journals on the pages I did manage to paint. 

At some point around this time period I discovered 'Shuffles' which is an app created by Pinterest to make digital art using stuff you've saved from Pinterest and collage-ing/animating on the shuffles app, which gets automatically posted to your Pinterest account. I got really excited about this concept and began making loads of them, slowly learning how to animate as I went along. 

I always have a few projects on the go and started creating final pieces on acrylic paper from art journal pieces I liked. So that's what I did for like the first half of 2023. Then I went shopping in B&M and saw a set of 3 different size canvases for £4.99 and i'd never tried canvases before so I was keen to buy them. I created a fairy piece titled 'Freedom' on the smallest from a page in a previous book I did last year. I created a sugar skull piece on the medium sized one inspired by the Halloween theme with a cosmic twist I produced in 2022 and on the biggest canvas another piece from my art journal, this one was called infinite realms of multiverses. Personally I think these 3 canvases are some of my best work I've ever produced. 

I then looked on amazon for sets of canvases and had the brainwave to turn the old composition cardboard pieces into final pieces on canvas. At first I experimented with felt-tips on canvas and it worked! I also tried jelly gouache and it worked so much better than the acrylic was... acrylic is still my go to medium but the jelly gouache looked more professional on canvas. I produced one canvas per day at first till i got the idea to update the compositions with the checkered pattern. I was then producing 2 at a time, one being the original composition and the other replacing the stairs for the checkered pattern. I began to pre-draw the canvases so I could mass produce like I did with the fairy collection I did in 2022. I completed all the  drawings and began to mass produce working on around 14 at time - originally I thought the project was gonna take around a year because there's like 200 canvases but I've completed the majority of them fairly quickly in around 5 months. In August I spray varnished around half of the ones i'd produced and started to upload some to Pinterest. I later got a name for all these canvases - The Evolution Project. The idea is that my work has evolved into being brought to life and the cardboard pieces are like the draft pieces and the canvases are the final thing, for now at my current ability and when I improve it's time to do them all over again. 

I took a break from the canvases by the end of September and I made some more junk journals as my recycled material collection built up pretty large...I needed to create some space. I also started to finish painting the junk journals i'd made at the beginning of the year. I added doodle ephemera and cut out ephemera to the junk journals. I also finished off the art journals I had in progress. 

I experimented with painted papers which you can do an automatic drawing exercise on called reverse painting, basically you outline the shapes you can see and turn it into something. Reverse art is a similar concept but you go one step further and paint around what you outlined leaving the funky filled shapes.  

I also did oil pastel resist technique with watercolours and use of stencils. I discovered how to make my own glitter paints by adding glitter to paints and even mixed brands together to create my own unique shades and combinations. 

I started a YouTube channel near the end of October which records my art journey, I did a Halloween with  a cosmic twist book for 2023 which was fun compared to doing it in my art journal like I did in 2022, however I ran out of time and rushed to complete the book (This year i'll be more prepared and start it earlier). I'd gotten some art supplies from SHEIN in November and was trying them out, things like different shaped hole punches and stamps/inks as well as working on creating the different ephemera types. I tried to work on any art journals I had in progress and even made some handmade junk journal type ones from a junk mail magazine and sketchbook paper stapled together. I also tried diamond painting for the first time as my sister got me one for my Birthday. 

November is a bit of a blur so fast forward to December and I came across 12 days of Crayola which was a festive colouring challenge for you guessed it 12 days... I took part and was the only person on YouTube to do so. This was the start of me doing a festive/winter journal which I didn't plan on doing and didn't manage to finish before the new year. I'd gotten some new hole punches from Amazon this time and used negatives of the hole punches to create ephemera;  I used the snowflake positive to create the cover of my festive/winter journal. 

I bought an insane amount of art products in 2023 as I thought it would help my creative block and tried a lot of them out but I didn't actually finish many projects i'd started throughout the year, my most successful one was the evolution project which has 4 canvases left to do before beginning the new compositions in the style of my old compositions (also done on cardboard at first as like draft pieces ready to be transformed into final pieces on canvas). 

2023's art journey was about preparing the foundations for 2024, it was frustrating to work so hard and not finish much but the stuff I was doing in hindsight paved the way for 2024's Journey, I just didn't know it at the time. If you'd like to be updated on my art journey more frequently please see my YouTube channel as I upload regularly. 

Till next time,

Stevie x