I Love Art Journaling.

 

 

 I did the background for this page a while ago but I didn't know what to put on it.  I was finally inspired after I played around with some vintage photos in my stash.  I also wanted to experiment with some new techniques.  Well, new to me that is.  Anyway, I attempted to use Mod Podge to lay the items on the page.  I watched several videos and it looked pretty simple.  What I didn't realize is that there are different types of Mod Podge and I have the one with a glossy finish to it.  This makes taking a photo very difficult due to light reflecting from the page no matter what you do.  I also tried using a stencil with acrylic paint.  Can you say disaster.  That would be the big blob of green paint in the mason jar.  Everything I read about art journaling says there aren't any mistakes.  So, listening to this advice, I stuck a butterfly over the blobbiest part and then added swirls with a pen.  I actually like it.  Turns out it was good advice.  I practiced a little stenciling and gave it another shot with the wording on the page.  I had much better results.  I went around each letter with a black pen to help them stand out a little better.

 I played with layers on this background and I love the way it turned out.  I started by covering the page with Gesso.  Then I sprayed it with water and dripped alcohol inks on the page.  I helped them "move" on the page with a mop brush.  Once it dried, I stamped the page with vintage writing in sepia and a crescent moon in black archival ink.  Then more experimenting with stencils.  I sprayed water through the stencil and dusted Perfect Pearls over it and "pounced" on this with my brush.  I don't know if the photo picked it up very well but I really liked the look of it.  I also sprayed some Walnut ink through a number stencil.  I had some lace and I glued this on. It is just to the right of the girls head.  You might be able to see it if you enlarge the photo.  I stamped the bottom of the page with a flowers and fern stamp and colored them in with markers.  Then I drew the girl on a separate piece of paper, colored her in using watercolor pencils, cut her out and glued her in place.  I had some bubble wrap, used for packing and I covered it with Gesso and pressed this on the page.  I traced around the moon with a white gel pen and the girl with a black pen to help them stand out a little bit.  Then I found the quote and thought that it fit how I was feeling and wrote it on a label that I had and presto, my page was done.

 Since I had such good results with the Gesso and alcohol inks, I wanted to try it again.  However, when I looked back at some of my art, I noticed that I really tend to use greens in my work...a LOT.  So I wanted to get as far away from green as possible and went with orange, butterscotch and watermelon.  WOW, very bright.  Then I tried some stenciling which did not work so I covered the whole page with a pealecent spray.  Now I had no idea what to do with the page.  I looked up at some of my supplies and saw the washi tape and used it to put a frame around the page.  Still no inspiration.  Then I doodled around the frame.  Still no idea what to do with this brightly colored page.  Then I took a break, got something to eat and did some browsing on Pinterest and found this page  http://www.bobandterristeffes.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

I printed out the picture of the bird from my files.  I cut it out and used it to draw the girl. I colored the girl with watercolor pencils, cut her out and glued her to the bird. ...Huh, I just can't get away from green.  I went through my stash of scrapbook embellishments and added them to the page.  While going through my scrap, I saw the quote and thought, "perfect".  I made a tag with the quote and used "Tea Dye" distress ink to age it a bit.  Wow, another page done.  This was so much fun and so relaxing.  What a great weekend this has been.