Art Journal Day 19 - Embellish

Misty challenged us to use fabric and embellishments for this journal entry. This has been the most challenging page for me so far this month. It could be because I was very tired. But I think it has more to do with the brain fog that comes over me when attempting to get very embellished. To help me get started, I flipped through a wallpaper sample book that I picked up for free at the local paint & decorating store. This book had swatches of coordinating fabric for some of the collections. I chose a fairly neutral paisley printed fabric and cut out a section of the coordinating wallpaper, too. I'm drawn to paisley designs and this gave me a theme for the spread. I altered the fabric with blue paint. I added walnut ink to both the wallpaper and the fabric. They were both glued into my journal that had been prepped with gesso. The wallpaper was a nuisance in that it resisted most things I tried on it. I finally got some chalk ink & Stazon ink stamped images to stay on it. I loosely traced some of the design lines on the fabric with a Pitt Pen. The 2nd page of the spread has layers of paint, gesso, walnut ink, and stamped images. I adhered a candy label, drew an eye and journaled my thoughts. Once everything was dry, I added glitter glue and a couple of sequin flowers.
I like the color scheme that I developed. I also like the depth of the background on the 2nd page of the spread. But I'm not impressed with the grunginess that I developed. To me, the glitter is really odd against that setting.

Art Journal Day 18 - Pink

I woke up with a lousy headache today and I was extra tired, so I stayed home from church. I ended up vegging in my nightgown & a robe much of the day. It just so happened to be my pink nightgown, so it became the focus for one page of my spread.
I kept this simple by prepping with gesso, sketching in graphite, and painting with acrylic.
I added the Pink Panther label to the second page of the spread. I'm a big fan of the animated character.

My boss takes the employees and spouses out for dinner each January. Last night we went to a Japanese steak house where you can see your food being cooked right in front of you. It was entertaining & the food wasn't bad. But my asthma kicked up while we were there and I wonder if today's headache was a result of being at the restaurant last night. This picture shows where the chef stacks raw onion rings, pours a couple liquids in it and lights it on fire. Imagine a flaming volcano. It's quite spectacular, but it sends out a lot of smoke once the flame is gone.

Art Journal Day 17 - Yellow

For today's entry, I prepped my pages with gesso and a couple thin layers of Golden Light Molding Paste. It was a better surface for taking watercolor than just gesso. I sketched out the sun & sunflowers with a Derwent chocolate drawing pencil. The painting was all done with Van Gogh watercolors. After it dried, I went back over some of the lines with a Pitt pen, which was also used for the journaling.
I never really considered using yellow in my art very much until after my Grandmother passed away a little over 4 years ago. Not long after her passing, I started working with acrylic more than watercolor because I wanted more texture and more intense colors. I noticed that I was using a lot of yellow. Then my Dad died and the bright colors continued, including yellow. I think it helps elevate my mood. Yesterday, we lost another beloved family member, my husband's aunt. Working on this spread helped me deal with the sadness.Some of you have asked how our winter is. I took this shot yesterday. Our mailbox is nearly buried in snow. The snow isn't that deep all over, but we tend to get the biggest drifts on our block, and hubby has been shoveling A LOT of snow. It's really been piling up.

Art Journal Day 16 - Red

Red is a strong, powerful color and I didn't think I could go with the wash of feature color on the background to start a page. As I was laying in the neutral background of gesso with some smears of brown Nupastel, I saw the uplifted face of a woman. I thought of a torch singer. So that's where this page started. I imagined a woman who is coming into her own and she is wearing red. She is strong and isn't going to hide in the shadows anymore. Hubby thought she looked athletic. I could imagine a diver who is preparing to take the dive of her life.
She is worked in Caran d'Ache NeoColor II - watersoluble crayons. They were a bit challenging on this surface, but I like the variety of ways to treat them. The background was colored on directly, then I burnished it with a fitch scrubber and finally a flat color shaper.

Art Journal Day 15 - White

My mixed media experience is limited, so I focused on trying different white pens, markers, pencils and pastels today. They were all applied to black cardstock. Then I tore or cut up the samples and glued them into my journal. The last step was to make notes using a black permanent marker.

I already had most of the media, but I picked up the Galaxy markers and the StazOn Ink pad at Hobby Lobby last night. I had hoped to get a Sharpie white marker that so many have raved about, but there were none in stock. I dug through my stash of gel pens and found a milky white pen that had dried up. As I worked, I got more ideas of things to try. But those trials will have to wait for another day.
I think my favorites that I used were the Derwent Chinese White pencil, the General Chalk Pastel Pencil, Jelly Roll Pen, Galaxy Broad Marker, Prismacolor pencil, Col-erase pencil, and NeoColor II.

I also bought the Galaxy medium nib, but it performed quite differently than the broad nib. The medium applied very translucently, almost transparently, and then the white started to appear almost like magic. Well, that made it harder to see what I was drawing. When dry, it was less opaque than the broad nib.Liquid correction fluid pens had a very opaque look once I got it flowing (after much shaking and dabbing on scratch paper.) It was annoying to apply because you have to keep pressure on the barrel while writing. The Pentel brand was the poorer option of the two I tried. It will be interesting to try these media on other surfaces. Do you have a favorite way to apply white to your journaling?

Art Journal Day 14 - Green

I like green. The trouble with green is that there are so many versions of green and today I didn't have the luxury of taking a lot of time deciding which way to go. So I just went with the first green I saw which was some watercolor paint on my table that I hadn't put away. I don't even remember why I had the palette out.
In the end, I'm very glad I chose this springtime yellow-green. Take my word for it, it really is spring green. But once again I'm posting at night when the lighting is not optimal. Even playing with the white balance & photo editing are not letting you see what I see. Where you see some glare on the dragon fly is a reflection off the glossy accent and glitter I added to some of their wing. I put the same glossy accent on the flower centers, but it doesn't really show up well on the photo.
I started by washing the page with watercolor paint. I added a few layers and blotted with wax paper. Next I stamped a large fern frond all over the pages for a subtle background. The dragonflies were stamped next.
It was time to go to the office and I started thinking about green thumbs. My sister has the greenest thumb I know. She shared divisions of so many beautiful perennials with me several years ago. They have multiplied and I've enlarged my garden, added new beds, shared divisions... you get the picture. My sister is a nurse and one of her patients dubbed her "Daisy". After work, I colored and stamped a sheet of green card stock to give some variations of green. Then I used daisy punches to make all the green flowers. There are three sizes and I stacked them or used them singly.
Today I used a Sharpie marker to do the journaling. I found out that my gel pens are very sensitive to moisture when I use them on this water colored surface.
I'm excited about what I'm learning on this journey. Today I was inspired to start another journal, but that is a subject for another post.
By the way, if you've wondered about the little clothes pins that are showing up on some of my journal page images, here's the scoop. The edges of some of the pages want to curl & I'm just using the clothes pins to keep the page flat for the photograph. Once I close the book and let it sit, the pages have been flattening out.
If you haven't been there yet, be sure to check out Misty's page. I'm so glad she put out this journaling challenge.

Art Journal Day 13 - Orange

My inspiration for Orange was "Wild Sweet Orange" Tazo Tea. The label inspired an ATC a few months ago. When Misty prompted us to journal with Orange today, I knew I'd be using the tea label again.

Today I mixed acrylic paint to get different shades of orange. I used Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Permanent Rose & Titanium White. Depending on the amount of white used, you can come up with a nice orange sherbert hue. I also added a bit of burnt umber for some of the darker shading. A sepia Pitt marker was used to outline the flower. I used a black gel pen for accents and journaling. There's also a bit of watercolor pencil accent work, too.

I also added a bit of stamping to add texture. A chalk ink pad works great for this.