Art Journal Strip Ease

I love painting decorative papers. I use them in my art journal and collage work, and today I’m going to show you one way that you can use painted papers in a fun way.

Doing the crusade Strip Ease using strips of painted papers (Copyright Hanna Andersson)

For the July crusade I took a pile of papers out and tore some strips of paper. I followed exactly what the prompt said, tore papers into strips and glued them randomly into my Art Journal.

Strip Ease: glue time Gluing down strips of paper for  the crusade Strip Ease (Copyright Hanna Andersson)
Strip Ease: glue time.

The result is a more wild looking pattern than what I got when I created Sewn Stripe Paper, but I love the look of both. I wanted a focal image and browsed through almost all of my clip archive without finding a suitable image… Probably because I’m going toward doing more personal stuff these days, trying to find favorite images to alter and not use as much magazine photos as I used to.

Strip Ease: cut out a doodled figure made by iHanna for the crusade Strip Ease (Copyright Hanna Andersson)

On my desk I found a photo copy of one of my drawings of two girls standing next to each other. I cut out the girls and moved them around to different places on the spread until I found the right spot.

Strip Ease cut out a doodled and colored figure made by iHanna for the crusade Strip Ease (Copyright Hanna Andersson)

I colored them with colored pencils, glued them down and made little speech bubbles so that they could have a conversation.

Strip Ease: doodle and speech bubble by iHanna (Copyright Hanna Andersson)

The first one is saying: I think I am going to fill this Art Journal with personal imagery and experiment with colors and happiness! This is the first spread I’m creating in this altered book. It’s a vintage children’s fact book about biology and nature, with extremely cute illustrations. I tore out two pages for every signature to make room for collage as I always do.

This is how the finished spread looks:

Strip Ease finished Art Journal Spread by iHanna (Copyright Hanna Andersson)

Through the strips of torn papers you can catch a glimpse of two of the crusaders, the crab and the shrimp, and listen in on their conversation;

Strip Ease altered book illustrations figures talking it out for the crusade Strip Ease (Copyright Hanna Andersson)
“It really is fun to create these art journal pages, huh?” Yup, it’s great!

I hope you join crusade number 42 called Strip Ease too. It was extremely fun using all of these favorite papers on one page like this! Please don’t be as boring as this one not so smooth crusin’ fella;

Strip Ease altered book illustrations figures talking it out for the crusade Strip Ease (Copyright Hanna Andersson)

By the way, I promise no pun intended when I made “strip ease” into a “comic strip”, but hey, I love to play with words! Since I think this was fun, it’s now “comic strip ease” (already a word play by Michelle of course; on “strip tease”).

* Also check out all the painted papers I used in this journal spread.


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43 Responses

  1. Yay, so glad you like it! Thanks. Making my own speech bubbles seams to be a theme in my life lately. Everyone has something great to tell me these days…

  2. Such glorious color! Love the wild and random strips – fun to see your process photos. Love that you made a *comic* of your strips. Clever girl. Thanks so much for sharing this brilliant work with the team – sure to inspire your readers and the crusaders!!

  3. love the colors and patterns on your torn paper. a great idea. so many things that could be done with the strips.

  4. Hi Hanna!

    You have just inspired me to use up my paints and glitter before they expire and harden to paint printer paper like these, cut them up in triangles and turn them into paper beads :)

  5. Oh I do like the colours – and that bug paper is too cute! Cool idea using the fact book as the base. I’ve been eyeing off my husbands old text books from when he did his panel beating apprenticeship.

  6. oh how beautiful! I love the little conversations throughout. You did the Crusade so quick!! Love it :)

  7. So bright and witty – I love it. Seeing all those wild colours together made me feel happy :-)

  8. I was fortunate enough to find your blog on a random search on the web.
    I think your work in general is very inspiring and these pages were wonderful!

  9. i love these! i love how you recycle the old books into your art journals. i’d like to try that. thanks for the inspiration!

  10. What a fun page. I’m with you on using more personal images instead of magazine photos. Your girls are cute.
    Sophie

  11. I like your new header! This spread turned out so pretty- I’ll have to try this technique out!

  12. Hanna, you’re awesome! I was ripping strips while laying around recovering from surgery. Your comic strip turned out fab!! I love your girls… happy creations, tj

  13. I love this!!! It reminds me so much of Violette’s colourful and whimsical style! The idea of using your own art to make more art is wonderful and the speech bubbles are perfect! I actually found some post-it notes in this shape! I will have to put some in the zine you inspired me to make!

    I wrote a bit about Metta Zine and will be writing more as this is Zine Month on Craft Dinner!!! Your zine oozes charm and I delight in it! Thanks a million!

  14. I absolutely LOVE your cartoon-y, colorful interpretation of Michelle’s challenge! So cool!!

  15. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous ! I love your strips backgrounds and your little chickies and their blurbs are so cute !
    Beautiful work, Mistress Crusader !

  16. love the colours and the energy in the pages! also the girls having a conversation…cut out – what a fab idea!!

  17. Fabulous pages, I can see why you are loving it. I love the vibrancy that the strips give to your pages and the great journalling on top to bring it all together.

  18. Hello Hanna,

    what a nice handmade papers you used to rip in strips !
    I love the colors and designs on them : they remind me of the Dutch clothes factory ” Oilily” !
    I also like that you used your own drawings to make your page in a comic page ! :)

    greetings from Belgium
    Inge

  19. Beautiful spreads! Love the colours!Congrats to your drawings – it’s great that you can do so many things and use it all!

  20. I love the vibrancy of these pages – there is such life in them. Thanks for all you share.

  21. Hanna, your work is always such a delight, and this is no exception! I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to catch up with the team, but I’m glad, because somehow I missed this post among your others. LOOK at those colors! I love it that you’re using some of your own images and working them up. This is a really appealing comic for kids. (I always wanted to draw comics as a youngster and now you’ve planted the seed in my mind again)
    xo