Observations From the Road Art Journal Project by Guest Artist Lindsay Ostrom

Please join us in welcoming guest artist Lindsay Ostrom to Somerset Place! Today, she’s sharing a peek inside her artistic journaling process to spark some new inspiration, including a quick video to give you a closer look!

 

About two years ago, my parents moved from southern California to northern California where I live. In doing so, I helped to clean out a bunch of my parents things. My dad is a photographer and has tons of magazines and books on photography — most sadly had to go. Although, I did keep a few for myself and my art group to use for our projects; this book came from a collection of those photos that looked like an artsy road trip.

I am a creative letterer by trade as well as a lettering instructor. However, I decided that my usual cute lettering didn’t really fit this purpose so I chose a scribbled handwriting instead. I also wanted to keep the supplies to a minimum for this project … so here’s what I used.

 

Materials:

• Acrylic paint: white, black
• Binding rings: (2)
• Colored pencils: brown, black, red
• Chipboard Cover: 5.5″ x 8.5″ (2)
• Gel pen: white
• Glue stick
• Hole punch
• Paper: white, gray, black, 5″ x 8″
• Pens: black; gray
• Sewing machine

Process:

Some pages were just drawn and painted on; while others had a photo I had taken or a magazine photo sewed on.

 

 

I knew that I wanted each page to be written on both sides so the stitching had to be done in either a box or another nice shape.

 

 

Although some of the writing was done very quickly I wanted the words to be legible and possess an artistic flair.

 

In contrast, some of the writing was also done quickly but with the words bunched together and written over each other so that the only part of the story that is left is the memory and the photos themselves.

 

 

I love doing my journaling in this way because I feel that journaling is completely personal sometimes and shouldn’t be read. The idea of just getting it out of your head and onto the paper is the best therapy there is. Try it—just scribble your thoughts onto paper. It’s an amazing feeling to know your thoughts are on paper, but no one can read them.

I hope that you try this fun exercise even if you don’t complete an entire book. Try it inside a journal that’s in progress, or experiment on just a piece of cardstock. Add a magazine photo, a little paint, some pencil doodles, and then do the lettering. Push it all together and overlap it so that it becomes a design element to the page. Have fun and don’t worry about the outcome. You can always cover it up and add more layers. Enjoy!

Get a closer look inside Lindsay’s journal with this quick video:

Click here or on the screen below to watch.

 

[evp_embed_video url=”https://stampington.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Lindsay-Ostrom-Art-Journaling-Video.mov” autoplay=”true”]

 

Lindsay resides in northern California near her family. She is an online instructor for the series, “Lettering With Lindsay” and a constant contributor to Somerset Studio, Art Journaling, Sew Somerset, as well as several other Stampington & Company publications. You can follow Lindsay’s lettering and mixed-media escapades on Instagram (@lindsayannostrom) and her online series can be found in her etsy shop at  etsy.com/shop/thepaperrabbit. 

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Art Journaling Magazine

In every 144-page issue of Art Journaling, artists open their journals and share creative techniques for capturing their emotions. From stamping and collage art to painting and sketching, each journal is filled with innovative techniques that you’ll want to try in your own art journal. Detailed photos and commentary will help you discover your journaling style, with hints and tricks for creating a stand-out page.

Look inside previous issues.