More January Journaling and a WIP

I'll start with a couple close-ups of a WIP (work-in-progress) using acrylic paint and Liquitex fiber gel on illustration board.

I really like the way these close-ups look. But I'm not as excited about the entire piece. I have some ideas, but pondering... Continue to the bottom of this post to see the entire painting.

I've been playing with more paper tiles in my journal. These were punched from a matte stack that I bought on clearance. There are some papers that I really like, but many I don't care for at all. So I decided to try this project. By altering them and adding layers of ink, stamping and drawing, I like the way it pulls together.


I used Tim Holtz distress ink to prepare the pages of this watercolor journal. After building the background color, I stamped leaves on the page. Today I applied gesso with a tailor's wheel to make the dotted lines. I never did that before, but it works as long as the gesso is thick enough. I will be adding some journaling, but not sure what I have to say yet.

Thinking of adding some metallic copper to this. I actually like the photo better than the real life piece. It mellowed a bit in translation. Before my last painting session, the colors were more pastel and I was going to add a bit of orange for accent. But I moved away from that idea after I added so much texture and darker hues to the piece. I'll keep you posted.
And to those of you who have wondered how we are after all the ice last week... We are great. There are just a lot of twigs to pick up out of the yard. However, they are under a new blank of snow that assaulted us yesterday. No gently falling snow in that system. The finches were amazing to watch as they tried to eat from their thistle sock in the driving snow.
Thanks for all your concern!