I made a new art journal to paint portraits and use some of my new stamps in. It’s made from red rosin paper which I’ve used before here, here & here. It comes from the hardware store in a humongous 500ft roll for around $12. Mostly I use it to protect my table and floor when I’m being messy, but it’s even more fun to paint on and use it as canvas.
I cut eight big sheets of it, 18×10 inches, and folded them in half to make a booklet of 32 front and back pages. Each sheet was painted with a thin layer of gesso, with more colorful layers of acrylic paint added on top, for strength and durability. Then I used the Coptic stitch to bind all the pages together.
Now, I have loads of pages ready to go when I want to practice painting more faces and people. It’s much less pressure to practice in a journal, than on a fresh canvas or wood panel.
Books & Journals :: ECO Books :: re-bound
I also picked up some books at the library for more journal making inspiration. Fun, fun!
i love this!! i have never heard of that paper before. i want to do this too! thank you for sharing. carlanda
Love the pages, I have a roll of red rosin paper and I think I will prepare some pages for my bookbinding class at ArtFest. How have you been? Take care and be blessed.
Your papers all look so fantastic! Love all those gorgeous colors. I kept hearing about that red rosin paper; the other day I stopped in at Home Depot for something, and caught sight of big rolls of it at the end of one of the aisles. I didn’t buy any right then, but it’s in the back of my mind. Even to let my little girls make huge drawings–what a great deal it is!
This is a beautiful thing! But now I’ve got to go and find some of that paper! I made a similar book out of watercolor paper, but this red rosin paper sounds sturdier and more economical. Thanks for sharing.
Wow. I’m always at awe with the things you create. It seems so unfair that one person can have so much talent and creativity.
I’ve used rosin paper in a Lynn Perella workshop. We applied gesso, generously and then used bubblewrap and combs and stencils and more before the gesso dried. Once it was dry, we used Portfolio pastels and covered the entire sheet. Then lots of elbow grease to blend the pastels. The end result was seeing the texture we applied through the colors and the paper had a wonderful leather-like feel to it. It’s a great product!
I love this paper and what you made!! I have been looking everywhere for this paper…and nobody has heard of it. Any idea if there is a different name for red rosin paper??
I love these pages!! Is there any name other than red rosin paper for this paper?? I have been looking all day for it here in Victoria and I cannot find it anywhere and nobody has heard of it!
Love the idea of the rosin paper, can’t wait to try it!
Do you think using mod podge would be a bad idea instead of gesso?
I just found your blog thru pinterest. These pages are beautiful! Is this the brown roll of paper that kinda looks like parcel paper?
This week I’m going to make one of these journals for the Expressions class. I, too, have an enormous roll of red-rosin paper in my studio. I’ll post photos in the flickr group.
Thanks for the inspiration!