Journey Art Supplies Blog
Tips, Tricks, Thoughts, and inspiration from across the art spectrum.
Spring Art Swap!
Hi, everyone! It was a great week over here at Cheap Joe's headquarters! For a little over a month now, our employees have been working diligently to create a one-of-a-kind work of art to be swapped for another unique piece made by a fellow employee! Well, today was the day of the swap, and I am extremely excited to show you the products of some of the amazing artists we have here! The theme, of course, was "spring"--but we encouraged the participants to interpret that however they pleased OR go in a different direction entirely. After all, art knows no bounds! In alphabetical order: Artwork by Alex Skala, retail associate at our Charlotte location. Artwork by Alicia Orlando, a member of our Distribution Center team. Artwork by Aly Perez, manager of our Asheville Retail Store. Artwork by Amanda Chapman, manager of our Boone Outlet Store. Artwork by Annabelle Prince, manager of our Charlotte Retail Store. Artwork by Becky Stines, part of our receiving gang. (This is the panel I got!) Artwork by Bri Stoehr, one of the retail associates in our Asheville location. Artwork by Brian Dubberly, our Marketing Manager. Alicia Orlando also created this piece, on behalf of a new employee in the Distribution Center named Bryan Elrod. Artwork by Byron Cook, our Web Developer is in charge of the entire Cheap Joe's website! Artwork by Carlee Hudson (that's me!), marketing assistant/copywriter/blogger extraordinaire. Artwork by Christy Firk, one of the retail associates in our Asheville location. Artwork by Danie Firth, one of the retail associates at our Charlotte location. Artwork by Dawn Hill, roommate to one of our Call Center gurus, Tammy Guilford. Artwork by Derrick Fowler, one of our Call Center gurus. Artwork by Edwina May, our Workshop Coordinator. Artwork by Erin Guffey, one of our graphic designers, who works on our seasonal sale flyers and orchestrates these art swaps! Artwork by Jacob Woehler, one of the retail associates at our Asheville Location. And here's the back of Jacob's--we're a silly bunch :) Artwork by Jana Smith, another member of our receiving gang. Artwork by Janalee Burke, part of our Distribution Center team. Artwork by Jane Laferla, one of the retail associates at our Asheville location. Artwork by Kevin Brown, one of the retail associates at our Charlotte Location. Artwork by Kevin Bryan, part of our Distribution Center team. Artwork by Lauren Murrell, another retail associate at our Charlotte location. Artwork by Linda Greenup, a retail associate at our Asheville location. Artwork by Lori Inman, the other marketing assistant, in charge of finding awesome new products. Artwork by Luke Russell, one of the retail associates at our Charlotte location. Artwork by Megan Hart, Content/SEO Management Artwork by Meghann Miller Williams, in charge of promotional donations. Artwork by Michael White, part of the Distribution Center team. Artwork by Michelle Dineen, one of our Call Center gurus. Artwork by Phillip Church, part of our Distribution Center team. Artwork by Sally Garner, one of the retail associates in our Asheville location. Artwork by Tammy Guilford, one of our Call Center gurus. Artwork by Taylor Bowers, marketing. Artwork by Terry Henry, part of the graphics team. Artwork by Tippy Kleinman, one of the retail associates in our Boone Outlet Store. And last but certainly not least, Web Alexander, manager/guru supreme of the Call Center.
Spring Art Swap!
Hi, everyone! It was a great week over here at Cheap Joe's headquarters! For a little over a month now, our employees have been working diligently to create a one-of-a-kind...
Spring Succulent Sanctuary!
Hello, everyone! Who's ready for spring? I know I am. The weather has been gorgeous this week--but they say we're supposed to get snow on Sunday! In an effort to fight this Indian Winter, I bought myself a little jade plant to keep in the window by my desk. (Not a photo of mine, but this is a jade plant.) I've used some pretty creative things as planters over the years: Like these dinosaur toys that I gutted and painted! Can you tell I like succulents? So I knew I needed to give this new baby a nice home. I have this terracotta pot (that I believe I stole from my mom a few years ago), but I'm not a huge fan of the pattern on the middle of it. Since I knew anything I painted onto the pot would still show this pattern, I decided to cover it with paper instead! If you've read some of my other posts, you know that covering ugly stuff with gorgeous handmade paper is one of my favorite techniques; it's quick, usually inexpensive, and--most importantly--easy! I went next door and grabbed this pack of stunning monochromatic paper by Shizen. And the process was simple enough: I began by priming the whole pot (two layers on the rim and saucer) with Joe's Prime Really Good Gesso. When that dried insanely quickly, I could put down my paint layer. I painted the rim and saucer with my absolute favorite accent color, Golden's Iridescent Gold Deep (Fine). These are the parts I wasn't going to cover with paper. When that was good and dry, I used Golden Soft Gel Medium (Gloss) to adhere the paper to the pot. One sheet didn't quite wrap around it entirely, but because of how busy the pattern is, you'd hardly be able to tell I had to do any overlapping. When the paper-covered everything, I trimmed it down to the bottom of the pot with an X-Acto Knife and glued the edges down with more gel medium. With another coat of gel medium to seal the paper and paint, I was finished! What a happy little jade! And now it lives in the window, hopefully beckoning springtime and rebuking the snow! There is soo much you can do to create one-of-a-kind planters, especially on these cheap little terracotta pots.
Spring Succulent Sanctuary!
Hello, everyone! Who's ready for spring? I know I am. The weather has been gorgeous this week--but they say we're supposed to get snow on Sunday! In an effort to...
Citra Solv Collage Paper!
Hi, everyone! Do you guys know about Citra Solv? Yep, the natural cleaner, degreaser, and solvent! But I'm wondering if you've heard about using it as an art medium. This week, I want to show you how to create some one-of-a-kind paper designs just using Citra Solv! I'm using National Geographics because the paper is clay-coated, which lets the ink on the pages dissolve almost entirely. I've tried using this technique with other magazines, but to no avail... Thankfully, it seems like everyone has stacks upon stacks of old Nat Geos hanging around. To start, you'll need to rip out the covers and ads on the front and the back. These pages aren't clay-coated and the ink doesn't dissolve at all, so don't waste your time or medium. You should also flip through to remove any other ads that are hiding in between the pages and you can also unfold these big sheets so that you'll be able to apply the Citra Solv to the entire page. I started by spritzing each of the pages with a small spray bottle, to really coat the magazine with Citra Solv. But that didn't end up giving me the result I wanted... So I went back through and used one of these Jacquard Plastic Droppers to give higher concentrated droplets in a more random pattern. Once I got all the way through, I closed it up and let it sit for about 10 minutes. When I opened it back up, there were still a few pages that weren't dissolved as much as I wanted them to be... So I just smudged the images with my finger and then closed the magazine back up to give me a new design! When I opened it back up, I had a TON of gorgeous pages! Just look at these beauts! I let them dry a little while longer (about 20 minutes or so in front of my space heater) and then I was ready to use them! Since I had a lot of browns and darker-colored papers, I decided to collage a nice Barred Owl. First I cut out a branch shape from a page that had some really cool bark-ish texture on it. Next, I used a darker sheet to give me the tail and part of the body of my owl. I used another sheet of a similar tone to make the rest of the body and the little footsies. With a few more shapes cut out from different pages, I had my owl! I wasn't happy with the branch going off the page or with how dark the feet were, so I trimmed and snipped a few more shapes... And then I was done! I used the same sheet for the talons that I used as part of the face, to keep the colors consistent and balanced. I also added some scraps around his neck to give him a little more dimension. I left the background blank because I didn't want anything to take away from the gorgeous textures I got in my papers! I still have stacks and stacks of unused pages that I can't wait to use in more projects. widget type="Magento\CatalogWidget\Block\Product\ProductsList" template="Magento_CatalogWidget::product/widget/content/grid.phtml" anchor_text="" id_path="" show_pager="0" products_count="1" condition_option="sku" condition_option_value="mgps-6nm" type_name="Catalog Products List" conditions_encoded="^[`1`:^[`aggregator`:`all`,`new_child`:``,`type`:`Magento||CatalogWidget||Model||Rule||Condition||Combine`,`value`:`1`^],`1--1`:^[`operator`:`()`,`type`:`Magento||CatalogWidget||Model||Rule||Condition||Product`,`attribute`:`sku`,`value`:`mgps-6nm`^]^]" sort_order="position_by_sku"
Citra Solv Collage Paper!
Hi, everyone! Do you guys know about Citra Solv? Yep, the natural cleaner, degreaser, and solvent! But I'm wondering if you've heard about using it as an art medium. This...
6 Ways to Use Your Old Brushes!
Hello, everyone! And welcome to the new year! I hope you all had fabulous holidays full of brand new art supplies! If you got some new brushes for Christmas this year, you're probably considering tossing out your old ones. But don't! Old brushes may seem obsolete once you've replaced them, but you can always find a use! Here are some ways you can still get some mileage out of them: If your rounds/detail brushes have lost their point, give them a new job! Your round can now be used to make more bold, expressive strokes and continuous fat lines and that detail brush would be perfect for applying masking fluid! But maybe you've got a brush whose bristles are really spread out: Don't toss it! Brushes with crazy bristles can give you organic textures and help you create patterns you otherwise couldn't. Plus, when you stop caring about the quality of your brush, you can just throw caution to the wind and go nuts with it. Brushes that have been left sitting on their tips almost always come out looking something like this: There goes a perfectly good Flat... OR there goes a brand new Deerfoot Stippler! Experiment with the new shapes you can make with your new-shaped brush! If you've committed the cardinal sin of acrylic painting and accidentally let your paint dry onto your brush, it's not a lost cause! You can use your seemingly-hopeless brush to create interesting patterns and designs within the paint, just like you would with a color shaper! And when that fails, you can still use...the handle! Some brushes have this cool tapered tip to them, which can double as a color shaper, Paint Pusher, or palette knife! Since these handles are made to be used with art supplies, they can withstand the torment of mixing paint or varnish--and you don't have to ruin a perfectly good butter knife! If you have a brush with bristles that are just too far gone, consider just cutting it all the way down. The short hairs all packed together tightly will act similarly to a scrubber brush, and you can use it to pick up color you've already laid down! Of course, you can only do so much with some brushes, and then it's just time to let them go. The best way to keep your brushes from aging too quickly is to clean and condition them with a product I personally adore, The Masters Brush Cleaner and Preserver.
6 Ways to Use Your Old Brushes!
Hello, everyone! And welcome to the new year! I hope you all had fabulous holidays full of brand new art supplies! If you got some new brushes for Christmas this...
A New Jewel in the Cheap Joe's Crown!
Hey, everybody! Crazy things have been happening in the Cheap Joe's world: namely, we opened a brand new store in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina I was part of the team who worked diligently to get everything up and running ASAP for the townsfolk, who have badly wanted an art supplies store--so much so that they even started a Bring Cheap Joe's Art Stuff to Asheville page on Facebook! Well, we heard those pleas and made it happen! And I wanted to share some photos of the journey with you guys: Very early stages, just getting basic fixtures put in. And there's Aly and David, the managers of the Boone Outlet and the Asheville stores! Reduce, reuse, recycle: these planks of wood are actually pieces of pallets that we receive deliveries on, but we knew we could use them for something creative, like an accent wall! Soon, these will be covered in stacks of canvas and watercolor paper! Here's Brian, our Marketing Manager, building a big front desk for our new employees! Then he added a big, sturdy, concrete top and continued the pallets motif! Finally! We can start loading in merchandise! The very first product placed! Bunches and bunches of sketchbooks! Sorting and finding a place for everything! (Natasha, who works in inventory, doesn't like having her picture taken...) Look at all those easels! And the finished pallet wall! So...much...canvas! Coming along nicely! Our brush section! A few finishing touches...and we were ready to open! Come down and visit us! The address is: 829 Riverside Dr Ste 120 Asheville, NC 28804 And the local number is 828-232-8391 We can't wait to see you!
A New Jewel in the Cheap Joe's Crown!
Hey, everybody! Crazy things have been happening in the Cheap Joe's world: namely, we opened a brand new store in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina I was part of the team...
Tissue Paper Mâché!
Hello, everyone! This week, I wanted to put a new spin on everybody's favorite childhood craft: paper mâché! The differences here being that I'm using tissue paper instead of newspaper and Golden Soft Gel Medium instead of that gross glue/flour-water paste. This Spectra Deluxe Art Tissue is great for these kinds of projects because the colors bleed when wet and give an excellent sense of unity in your work. (For my bowl, I used the bottom 5 colors.) I started the way you would any other paper mâché project: by ripping up tons of little pieces of paper. I made the tears mostly pretty big because tissue paper is thinner than newspaper, so any overlapping and bubbling would be less noticeable. I also wanted the pieces to be organic shapes, not just rectangular strips because they would be contributing to the pattern as well as creating the bowl itself. So I made piles of each of my colors and blew up a balloon to a pretty small size because I just wanted a little catch-all bowl--if you have water balloons leftover from summer, those would work even better! First I put down a coat of my Golden Soft Gel Medium (Matte)... Then I placed pieces of my tissue paper all over to cover the wet spots and painted another coat of gel medium on top of that. Tip: Use matte finish for projects like this, because it will still give a little bit of sheen to your work, but it'll also reflect less light and make it easier to see and appreciate your beautiful paper! And I just kept adding layers like that! I found the most efficient way was to go layer by layer, rather than individual piece of tissue paper by individual piece of tissue paper. This was about as deep as I wanted my bowl to go, but I added a few layers that went further down my balloon because I'd need them later to make the base. Once I felt like I had enough layers (about 10-12), I flipped it upside down and let it dry in my handy little Halloween cat mug, which usually holds my turpentine--you're definitely not going to want to use a cup you still drink out of. I let that dry overnight and then came the scary part... It doesn't matter how old you get or how prepared for it you think you are, popping a balloon is STILL a pretty jarring experience. But, hey! The shape held! As you can see, the balloon came out cleanly and in one piece. Next, I made a line around the outside of my mold to mark off how deep I wanted my bowl to be, and then I cut the excess using a regular old pair of scissors. After sitting overnight, the mold was mostly dry, but still slightly flexible, which made it very easy to cut. As it sits, though, it will become dryer and more sturdy. With my excess, I trimmed it to clean up the edges and measured how much I would need to make the base of my bowl. Then I cut it and sort of bandaged the two ends together with some gel medium and a piece of tissue paper. I slathered on a generous helping of gel medium, applied some pressure, and let it adhere to the bottom of my bowl. When that had dried a bit, I started sticking more pieces of tissue paper around the seam to help fuse the two pieces together. After 5 or 6 layers on the inside seam, I put about 3 or 4 on the outside as well. Then I camouflaged the "bandages" with colors that corresponded with the pattern, to give it a more consistent look. With a final coat of gel medium on the inside and outside, my bowl was complete! I could have put more tissue paper on the inside of the bowl, but I really liked the way the colors bled together to make a less-intense version of the outside.
Tissue Paper Mâché!
Hello, everyone! This week, I wanted to put a new spin on everybody's favorite childhood craft: paper mâché! The differences here being that I'm using tissue paper instead of newspaper...
Trash to Treasure!
Hey, everyone! This week's blog post goes out to those who want to decorative-paint the mundane things in their life, but have trouble making it happen. Whether it's your skill level, lack of time to dedicate to a big project, or you just don't know how you want to paint something, there is an alternative: paper! The Cheap Joe's Outlet Store has a fantastic selection of handmade paper, and some of it is for sale on our website! Check out these that are made from bark or these packs that have their own color schemes (I used one pack in this post!) You can also get crazy with layering tissue paper--hmm...that might be a future blog post! This used to be a plain black bookshelf. But thanks to a few sheets of this gorgeous handmade paper I found in the Outlet Store, it's now a stunning work of art! I also used an assortment of papers to give a collage effect to this smaller shelf. The decorative paper method is one that I love and have had great success with--the best part? It's so easy! For my example this time, I used this totally bare trash can cover/holder that my dad (Hi, dad!) made me hide this ugly old bin--and also keep my cat from knocking it over again... I started by planning it out, of course, in my handy dandy Hand•Book Journal. I knew that I wanted to incorporate a solid accent color with the decorative paper I chose (an all-over pattern would take away from the print and make it harder to distinguish its shapeless is more sometimes!), but there were so many design possibilities! Once I figured out which look I wanted to go with (top middle), it was time to make it happen! The first step was priming all over. After two coats of Joe's Prime Really Good Gesso, I dragged this bad boy out into the yard for some spray painting! I used Montana Gold Professional Acrylic Spray Paint in Shock Red for the sides and back of my holder. I went with Montana Gold for a few reasons: the red matched my paper perfectly and the drying time and coverage for spray paint are insanely better than fluid or heavy-body acrylics. You're also much more likely to get an even coating--no brush strokes! Once the outsides dried, I painted the inside of the lid and a few inches down into the holder, that way you wouldn't just see bare wood when you opened it up. When those parts dried as well, I brought it back inside to apply my paper to the top and front with Golden Soft Gel Medium. I cut the sheets a little bit larger than what I needed, just to make sure I could cover everything completely, but then I only adhered to the parts that I wanted to cover. With everything good and stuck on, I used an X-Acto Knife to cut away the excess and glued any loose edges back down with my Gel Medium. To protect the outside and also give it a nice finish, I covered everything that was painted red with Golden Soft Gel Medium (Gloss)--in case you can't tell, I love using this stuff. It's so versatile! The final touch was to reattach my handle... And I was done! What a happy little trash can holder :) It is much better looking than a black piece of junk, and it only took part of my afternoon!
Trash to Treasure!
Hey, everyone! This week's blog post goes out to those who want to decorative-paint the mundane things in their life, but have trouble making it happen. Whether it's your skill...
