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How Disco Helped Me Deal with an Ugly Art Journal Page

Playing in a cardboard art journal with color and pattern video tutorial by Carolyn Dube

What do I do with a hideous start to an art journal page? Call it an OOPS and add more layers!  An O.O.P.S. is an Outstanding Opportunity Presenting Suddenly and little did I know that the word discover would take me to the 70’s and disco.

Watch How I dealt with an ugly art journal page on YouTube.

How do I build the cardboard journals?  It’s all covered in the free workshop Permission to Play – join the fun and let yourself play.

The early layers on this page were hideously blah.  They just looked like a mess and not even in colors I like! Since this is mixed media, when a layer looks that way, it just means it is time for more layers.

Playing in a cardboard art journal with color and pattern video tutorial by Carolyn Dube

In the process of adding color that discover became disco.  And yes, I started hearing the Bee Gee’s and Donna Summer in my head.  Don’t worry, I didn’t sing on the video- autotune couldn’t help me hit a note.

Playing in a cardboard art journal with color and pattern video tutorial by Carolyn Dube

A bit of orange pattern was added by using 1 of the 4 patterns on my Rectangular Patterns for Play stencil from StencilGirl.  One of the many things I adore about stencils is that you can use just part of it to get different looks.  There is an irregularly shaped patch of the little squares in the center, then a line of them at the bottom, and just a few in the upper corner. All from just one of the patterns.

Playing in a cardboard art journal with color and pattern video tutorial by Carolyn Dube

Perhaps this is a bit of a controversial statement for all those kids of the 80’s who were raised that disco just wasn’t cool but…Disco should stand out, so I traced over the word with a black pen to make it pop a bit more.

Playing in a cardboard art journal with color and pattern video tutorial by Carolyn Dube

Then it was disco dot fever time as I added splots of acrylic ink on top of some of the squares.  The plan was to do just a few dots but it was too much fun, so I just kept on adding more and more.  And yes, Donna Summer was still playing in my head… New to fineliners? Here’s a video that explains them in detail.

Playing in a cardboard art journal with color and pattern video tutorial by Carolyn Dube

If you ever happen to have an ugly art journal page, try saying O.O.P.S. and adding more layers. That’s what I do!

If you’d like to see how to make a cardboard art journal as well as specific ways to let yourself play, check out my free workshop, Permission to Play.

Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and it helps keep the free tutorials coming!

Here’s a bit of what was (and still is) playing in my head thanks to that word discover becoming disco…

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  • Rosina Ervin ,

    Thank for all the great memories:)

  • Laura Gaudry ,

    So much fun!…Thank you ?