Hi everyone, today I’m on the Colourstock blog with this moody Halloween themed art journal page. I’m working in my Winsor & Newton Heavy Weight Wire-O Sketch Book.

Step 1:

I started my page by printing a fun Halloween image (digital stamp by Lili of the Valley called “Halloween“) onto Canson 1557 paper and then I coloured the image with only four colours! I used Derwent Inktense Pencils in the colours: Chinese Ink, Sepia Ink, Neutral Grey and Bark; in combination with a Pentel Aquabrush. Even when you only have four colours to colour in your image, by combining them you can create more then just these four! It was a fun challenge to create a balanced image in the end!

In the last phase I used a white Gelly Roll pen to ad back in some highlights.

When the colouring was done and dry I die cut a rectangle panel around the coloured image and then I also coloured the edges of the panel in the same way, using the Inktense pencils and the waterbrush.

These Inktense pencils are not aquarelle/watercolour pencils, they are water soluble ink, which means that when you wet the ink enough to activate it completely, once dry it’s permanent and won’t lift again when you wet it again!

Step 2:

Now I’m cutting two panels in the size 14,5 x 20,5 cm (for each panel) from some water colour card stock to create my background on. Then I applied some The Crafter’s Workshop “Black Modeling Paste“ over a The Crafter’s Workshop stencil called “Harvest Pumpkins “ (TCW819s) using a palette knife and set that aside to dry. The right hand page looks a little awkward because I repositioned the stencil to have some part of the stencil peak above the image that I will ad on this side of the page and some beneath it.

Step 3:

Then I painted my paper black using The Crafter’s Workshop “Black Gesso“ (of course you can use black paper and ad black modeling paste on top but I though then my pumpkins from the last step wouldn’t be visible for you to see well enough in the pictures).

When dry I pencilled in my title using a Derwent Drawing pencil in “Chinese White“ (which I could erase when necessary).

Step 4:

Now I’m going over the lines and fill them in with a Molotow Acrylic Paint Marker in “Signal White“, I used the 1,5 mm tip for this project, which is awesome to write with.

Step 5:

To colour the pumpkins I’m mixing some odourless mineral spirits with PanPastels in “Silver“ and “Copper“, which are both metallic colours, on a paint palette. I just scraped some of the PanPastel of the pan and mixed it with the mineral spirits in the well of the palette using a brush. Although these mineral spirals are odourless they are still not healthy so use them in a ventilated area!

Now I can paint the PanPastel mixtures on the pumpkins. Be careful because when the mineral spirits have evaporated the PanPastel will rub of as easily as they normally do.

Step 6:

When dry i used the same Molotow Acrylic Paint marker to create splatters on my project (pump the marker on a scrap piece of paper until the paint flows, then hit the marker several times with your scissors while holding it above your project).

After the splatters had dried I spray varnished both panels (Amsterdam Acrylic Varnish in “Satin“) to let the PanPastels adhere to my project permanently. Now they no longer rub off. The varnish will take some time to dry of course!

To finish my art journal page the only thing I have to do now is to adhere both panels to my art journal using The Crafter’s Workshop “Matte Gel Medium“ and then I adhered the Inktense coloured panel on top using one millimetre thick foam tape!

Some detail pictures:

And that’s it for today’s fun Halloween project! I wish you a creative day!

#LOTVHalloween #TCWBlackModelingPaste #TCWstencilHarvestPurmpkins #DerwentInktensepencil #TCWBlackGesso #DerwentDrawingChineseWhite #MolotowAcrylicPaintMarkerSignalWhite #PanPastel