Journal Craft Inspirations

A great way to add colour to your pages is to use soft pastels. Because they are applied dry they don’t buckle the paper and you can easly write over the top.

Standard stick pastels can be used by directly applying to the page, or alternatively scrubbing the stick on a spare piece of paper to create pastel ‘dust’ and applying the colour with a cotton wool ball.
The new PanPastel that come in a plastic container are ideal, as they produce very little dust and give a smooth even coverage.

After you have applied the chalk, you need to rub the surface thoroughly with clean cotton wool or a tissue, to ensure that no residue rubs off onto the opposite page. Alternatively you can use a spray fixative.

Tip - when applying pastels it is a good idea to slip in a sheet of scrap paper below the page you are working on to prevent the dust from spreading to other pages in your journal.

This page is from the journal of Gill McCowen - Moleskine Sketchbook and Soft Pastels
(Click on the image to view original)