Elizabeth Gyles Johnson is a pencil artist who focuses her art on the delights of life. Elizabeth teaches the intricacies of drawing at all skill levels to a collection of students worldwide through online workshops and classes at CreativePencils.ning.com Read more about Elizabeth in our featured Artist Spotlight post, then watch here as she creates an art journal page using SoHo colored pencils.

Art Journaling with Colored Pencils

Featuring SoHo Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencils

by Elizabeth Gyles Johnson, artist and instructor, CreativePencils.ning.com

An art journal can be an artistʼs best friend. It can tag along wherever the artist goes and can be a place to explore new techniques, new ideas and new supplies. Artist pencils are the perfect tool for an art journal because they are so portable.

A new pencil Iʼve been using lately is the SoHo Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencils. I have the set of 72 colors. And oh what lovely colors they are. There is a rich variety of colors in this set. I have found the SoHo colored pencils a joy to use. They are creamy and lay the color down smoothly. After creating a quick background with a blue watercolor, I was able to get right into the joy of coloring with the SoHo colors.

Colored pencil art is all about the layering of color to achieve depth and the desired shade. I was very pleased with how the SoHo Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencils blended. As the colors built up, they blended and created new colors altogether.

And yet, even after several layers of color, I was still able to get some defining lines with a sharpened point on the SoHo Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencil. The color stands out well even on top of several layers of color.

The SoHo Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencils sharpen well to a nice point and they do not wear down quickly. I found the SoHo Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencils to be a great choice for art journal colored pencils. The budget-wise price allows the freedom to color and create with abandon in my art journal. I will be using them a lot in my art journaling adventures.

Supplies Used:

• Art Journal
• Soho Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencils:
  • Permanent White
  • Cadmium Yellow Medium
  • Cadmium Yellow Deep
  • Indian Yellow Light
  • Hooker's Green
  • Turquoise
  • Sap Green
  • Yellowish Green
  • Light Turquoise Blue
  • Sepia
  • Burnt Umber
  • Raw Sienna
• Caran d'Ache Full Blender
• Blue watercolor.

Watch as Elizabeth uses layer after layer of color to create depth in the journal page:

Elizabeth Gyles Johnson purchases all of her artist pencils from Jerryʼs Artarama because of their customer service and great packing of delicate artist pencils for shipping. Here are some other drawings Elizabeth has done with pencils purchased from Jerryʼs Artarama.

Have you used SoHo Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencils? Tell us about it in the comments below!

This is brought to you by the Jerry's Artarama Online Art Team - Promoting Art and Artists in our communities - For possible inclusion or to learn more about this program, please email us at webmarketing@jerrysartarama.com

Capturing Your Dreams One Drawing at a Time

Elizabeth Gyles Johnson has been exploring the world through an artist’s pencil for over 25 years. During those years, she has experienced and even taught many avenues of art, but pencils remain her first love and continue to be her favorite way to express creativity. Elizabeth’s art has sold and is enjoyed internationally.

As the artist behind Wind and Honey Creations, Elizabeth uses her passion for creativity to remind us of delightful moments, often focusing on the wonders of the relationship we have with animals. She chooses to highlight the joyful and magical moments of life and especially childhood. Elizabeth is particularly sensitive to the uniquely nuanced personalities in the eyes and presence of animals. It is her desire, through paint and pencil, to capture the soul and particular personality of an animal and portray it in such a way that others see and feel it also. Through various types of pencils Elizabeth finds the freedom to allow her imagination to run. She pulls together bits and pieces of real and imaginary moments to create an artistic pastiche of intriguing beauty while retaining the joyful and magical moments of childhood. She also enjoys incorporating her drawings as the finishing touch to a collage.

Elizabeth has been teaching drawing to local students for 13 years and is now sharing her very successful teaching methods online through a video class format. She has recently created her own teaching site, CreativePencils.ning.com, where students of any level may begin classes and move at their own pace. Elizabeth’s upbeat and affirming attitude is contagious among her students. There is no pressure, only positive, affirming encouragement toward growing the student’s skill and ability to "see". "Seeing is the first step toward successful drawing," says Elizabeth. Through the Creative Pencils site, students are able to interact with Elizabeth freely, asking questions and receiving detailed critiques of their work. In addition, Creative Pencils has studio groups where members share their adventures in art journaling, Artist Trading Cards, and various other subjects that might be fun to explore together.

Creative Pencils begins with Pencils 101, which is the foundational class upon which all other lessons are built. Once a student has completed Pencils 101, they can begin the monthly lessons and workshops growing wider and deeper in their ability to create with an artist pencil. Elizabeth begins every student with graphite pencil drawing so as to establish a solid grounding in line drawing and shading. Additionally, this fall Elizabeth will be offering classes in her animal portrait techniques through the site. Creative Pencils will offer classes in other artist pencils as well, including colored pencils, water based pencils, charcoal, pastels, and oil pencils.

Elizabeth uses a right-brained approach to teaching drawing. She has found this to be very effective as she has taught hundreds of students to draw using a wide variety of pencil types. More importantly, Elizabeth is particularly sensitive to the questions and needs of the students. Her lessons are thorough, clear, and easy to understand. Rather than insisting that students mimic her drawings and subjects of choice, Elizabeth encourages each student to find their own sense of creativity and style. Her students have the freedom to choose the subject they desire to draw. Many choose flowers, architecture, or landscapes rather than Elizabeth’s choice of animals. Her teaching methods are just as effective for these students.

This June, July, and August Elizabeth is participating in the online art retreat Artful Gathering 2012. Elizabeth will be teaching a beginner to intermediate level workshop in soft pastels in the first session. The subject is a black rabbit. In the second session Elizabeth will be teaching an owl portrait created in graphite pencil and Derwent Graphitint pencils. This workshop is for intermediate to advanced students.

To learn more about Elizabeth Gyles Johnson, her art and the classes she teaches, please visit CreativePencils.ning.com.

This is brought to you by the Jerry's Artarama Online Art Team - Promoting Art and Artists in our communities - For possible inclusion or to learn more about this program, please email us at webmarketing@jerrysartarama.com

1. For your chance to win, you must collect all the secret code words and submit them upon the final destination blog in May. A random drawing will be conducted from those contestants who have submitted the complete collection of secret words!
2. Three winners will be randomly drawn. One for the $200.00 e-card to Jerry's, and two runner's up for the 25.00 e-card to Jerrys.
   
   

Cristina Zinnia Galliher is a mixed media artist living life with a passion for art! Known to her art friends as Zinnia, she teaches others how to create variations of mixed media art for all levels through her online workshops and classes at RosesOnMyTable.com. Learn more about Zinnia and her work in our featured Artist Spotlight post, then read and follow along here as she outlines her method for creating beautiful mixed media art journal pages from start to finish!

Mixed Media Discoveries in Journal Exploration

by Cristina Zinnia Galliher, artist and instructor, RosesOnMyTable.com

By nature, mixed media art involves an enormous amount of experimentation, and in my search for quality art supplies that are sensibly priced and which also perform well, I find myself testing new products all the time. My art journal serves as my canvas for exploration, and for this page spread I have incorporated Turner Acryl Gouache paints, stencils, collage paper, and my graphite drawing.

1. Since I am not working on canvas, I need to prepare my book pages. This is a great opportunity to recycle old book pages, newspaper clippings, tissue paper, and scrapbook paper. Starting with an ordinary thin-paged journal, traditionally used for recording written thoughts, I began by bulking up the pages using regular gel medium, gesso, and paper.

2. The papers used to create this foundation consist of various textures, thicknesses, and color. Interesting patterns are formed using dress pattern tissue, old ephemera, book pages, and an antique newspaper clipping.

3. Whenever I paint layers of color on to my journal pages, I like to create noticeable contrast while balancing the interplay of the paper underneath the paint. I began my experimentation using Turner Acryl Gouache in Pearl Lilac over a glaze of other paints that I normally use. It was delightful to find that the Pearl Lilac (above) intensified the other paints when I used it as an overlay. In other areas where I applied it lightly (below), it was very lustrous and translucent.

4. Turquoise and Light Blue were used to highlight the corners and borders of the pages. The intensity of the paint is noticeable, and it "grabbed" the paper beautifully without bleeding or fading.

5. Stencil work was then applied over the dry paint layers. I used molding paste for this process. Once the paste dried, I reapplied the Turquoise paint color which also re-intensified the color under the stencil work, and around the edges of the stencil pattern.

6. To bring the peaks in the paper and the stencil work forward (above), I've applied Turner Acry Gouache in Pastel Sand and then Deep Gold colors.

The body of Turner Acryl Gouache paint is fantastic for picking up the peaks and the highlights of the textures, and because the paint is so versatile and adaptable to the techniques I use, I also used Pastel Sand to highlight the face and the hair strands.

Testing, exploring, and creating are the reasons why I am committed to keeping my art journal. Each discovery leads to a new one. The quality, versatility and adaptability of Turner Acryl Gouache paints is outstanding, and I look forward to future explorations in my work using other Turner paint color palettes.

Materials Used:

• Art Journal
• Turner Acryl Gouache: Pastel Sand, Turquoise Blue, Light Blue, Pearl Lilac, and Deep Gold
• Stencils by Artist Cellar
• Gel Mediums
• Molding Paste
• Gesso
• Flat Paint Brush, ½”
• Round Brush
• Rubber Stamps
• Versafine Black Ink
• Assorted Scrap Paper

Watch Zinnia's process for creating mixed media journal pages in the video below:

What are your experiences in mixed media? Let us know about your own artistic experiments in the comments below!

This is brought to you by the Jerry's Artarama Online Art Team - Promoting Art and Artists in our communities - For possible inclusion or to learn more about this program, please email us at webmarketing@jerrysartarama.com