Using watercolour in my Fauxbonichi

Last Tuesday I shared with you my new Fauxbonichi and I was met with some lovely lovely comments from you guys both here on the blog and also on YouTube not only welcoming me to the Hobonichi / Fauxbonichi community but also about my style of journalling in said book. I have joined the fauxbonichi group on Facebook (although I don't use facebook all that often) and have been looking on Pinterest and watching flips on YouTube. I am really loving how so many people are embracing this style of journalling far more than  people have with other journals and I hope everyone keeps it up as I love looking at what everyone is creating!

Some may argue that this style of journalling is not new and has been around for years which is true but I am all for anything that gets people to journal more and get creative so bring it on I say! I for one am thoroughly enjoying my journal time of an evening.

Some of the comments that I received were also about using watercolours in my fauxbonichi. To recap the book that I am using is the leather look grid notebook by Paperchase which I actually purchased on Amazon but I believe Barnes & Noble stock one that is very similar. Now I have been using watercolours for years and years, the ones I use are by Winsor & Newton. People were both concerned and interested about using watercolours in the journals on non watercolour paper. In my experience you can use watercolour on any paper. Any. The key thing is to practise, practise with your watercolurs, learn how they work and how much water you need to acivate them.

Unless you are doing lots of wet in wet techniques then you can use any paper. The key is to keep the paint / paper fairly dry. The only paper that I have had difficulty with (although not impossible) is cartridge paper as the fibres come apart a lot more easily. As long as you keep the paint and paper fairly dry you will be absolutely fine I can assure you and don't go agressively at it either.

The type of watercolours you use will also affect this but again it all comes down to practise and learning how your media works. Cheaper paints will typically need more water to activate them and will be less pigmented, this means that you will be applying lots of watery colour to your page to get the colour intensity you want. If you can stretch to a better quality set this would be best.

In the video I talk more about this and also show you how I have coloured my page in with watercolour and how it works...