Mother Henna Video: heART Journal Part 2

In part 2, Kara L.C. Jones of Mother Henna demonstrates how to transform the journal with layers and colors. Allow your pages to go through "ugly" stages before the beautiful art journal emerges.

Materials

• plain old paper, wire-bound journal
• gesso
• soft-medium acrylic gel
• acrylic paints
• watercolor
• ephemera
• paint brush
• watercolor pencils

Additional Instructions

• Don't be afraid to use the Gesso to cover up areas, hide mistakes, or just add mystery.
• Play around with mixes of acrylic paints and watercolors.  You never know how they will work off each other.
• Mix up what you use for ephemera.  Old sheet music, handwritten notes, old tags, or even the left over stencils from previous items you've cut out.  A great layering piece happens when you use old dress patterns as a layer.  Their tissue paper quality masks things below it, but still is sort of peek-a-boo.  The text and lines on them can play off the page interestingly.  You just never know till you glue it on and mix it in with everything else.
• Don't be afraid to let it get ugly ugly ugly and then keep adding on top of it!  Eventually something that feels right will emerge.  But to avoid a totally muddy mess of colors, it is best to start with lightest colors first and build up to dark.  If you mess up, white Gesso can be a savior though! 
• Remember, this is all a playful experiment!  You don't have to know the "right" way -- just play!  Find YOUR way.