Gelatos and Art Journaling

An art journal is a great way to play with different products and techniques. I had a Faber-Castell mini board journal I had won in their February "Take The Challenge With Mou" monthly challenge, so I decided to start an art journal for my gelatos.

Since Summer Sun and Sunny Flowers were the inspiration for my first pages of my art journal, I decided to enter my pages into The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge # 14 - Summer Days, which runs through July 31st.


Along with my gelatos, I used quite a few different techniques and products, almost all are part of the Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft line. I started by covering the entire surface of two of the art boards with gesso. Once it was dry I used a stencil from their 101 collection that had dots that went from small to a medium size and applied some gel medium with a spatula. The gel medium added texture and worked as a resist. Then I set my boards aside to let it dry.

A quick word about the Faber-Castell stencils. You can purchase sets of stencils or they may come in one of their kits. They are made of chipboard so do not hold up well if saturated with water but the gel medium and paste worked fine with them. I decided to use a spray sealer on my stencils and that seems to be working fine for me.

Applying the gesso to the boards allowed the gelatos to blend easily and be lightened or removed entirely with baby wipes. I picked some yellow, pink and orange gelatos and scribbled color on the boards and then blended with my fingers. You can also moisten your fingers with a little water to help blend the colors.

I used a small dot stencil from the Mixed Media With Gelatos kit and baby wipes to remove some color across the top of the right board and lower left corner of the left board. The other dots are from the gel resist. I used the flower stencil from the same kit still working with the yellows and oranges applied the gelatos with my finger tips to blend, then added some details with Stampers Big Brush Pens. I used a Faber-Castell papercrafters silver crayon to fill in circle in the center of the flower.

Once I had my flowers the colors I wanted I added some Glass Bead Glitter Gel through the stencil. I had to let it dry before adding it to the 3rd flower. In the picture you can see the gel is white and opaque when applied. It dries clear and glittery and very textured from the beads.

Glass Bead Glitter Gel dries clear.

Then I inked up a flourish stamp with Stampers Big Brush Pens and stamped to add some more texture to the page. I put my pages aside for a few days while I worked on some other projects. When I came back to my art journal I was having so much fun I forgot to take pictures but here is how I finished up.

First I decided my flowers needed stalks so I quickly drew them in with Light Green and Green Olive Stampers Big Brush Pens. Then I mixed some gelatos with whipped spackle and applied it to the left page with a spatula to add more texture and deeper colors.

Next I used my yellow gelatos on some Tim Holtz water color paper. I also used the dropper tool to add some drips of Metallic Melon Gelato mixed with water to the water color paper and across the tops the journal pages. I hand stamped my quote inking up my alphabet stamps with a black Stamper's Big Brush Pen. I tore the paper from around the quote and used a glue stick to glue it to the left page. The white edges looked a little too bright so I added some water to the yellow gelato on my kraft sheet and applied the watercolor to the torn areas with a brush. For the final touch I added some white gelatos to the flower petals inbetween the stenciling and then once dry applied the Yellow Stampers Big Brush Pen. This brighten the flowers up a little and mdke them a little sunnier.

For the month of June the folks over at Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft had a Art Journaling Month where they had 5 members of their design team post tutorials each week showing how they created their art journals. By the end of June I had seen quite a few fun ideas for using my Gelatos. If you are looking for ideas on how to use their products their blog a great place to start. You can see Mou Saha's completed journal on her blog here.