I do lots of note taking, or what I call “journal dumping”. It is helpful for me to write at the time, but is not necessarily something I need to keep, or refer back to. Yet, there is something so appealing about a handwritten page that I always try to find ways to use them rather than trash them. Private musings can be cut up in tiny pieces and used in a collage. Harmless rambles can become a beautiful background. Best of all, pieces like this hold so much meaning. From pain to beauty, or from meaningless to meaningful. It is the redemption of our words through our art.
Today, I am sharing a very simple technique to alter a handwritten page with just a few very simple tools. For this page, I used a Strathmore gray toned 9 x 12 sketchbook, but any paper that can hold up to water would do. I wrote on it with a Varsity disposable fountain pen, one of my favorites for writing, and great for this technique because the ink really reacts with water well. A helpful habit to get into is to entirely fill your page with writing. Your page will be much more useful if you don’t leave margins, or white space where a new paragraph is started. I sometimes even add a squiggle to finish out a line when there is not enough space left for a word. I change topics, even days I am writing seamlessly so I end up with one beautiful block of writing.
Once your page is filled, you are ready for fun. I wrote in a 9 x 12 journal, so a full page size stencil worked perfectly! Choose a stencil without a super precise pattern, geometrics are not the best suited for this technique. Lay the stencil over the page, and use a wet paint brush through it. Be carefully to not be too soppy, a little of the watery ink running under the edge is okay, but you don’t want to much!
Carefully lift away the stencil, and you have a beautiful, wordy, watercolor!
Leave as is, or cut out the face to add to a different background! Didn’t turn out so good? No worries, just cut it up and use it as some delightful collage paper!
Kathy Hunter
What a great technique. You can’t be sleeping, because your brain has to be full of art projects that you can’t wait to tackle. So glad you are a sharer.