Bookpages & Blossoms

Greetings, artists!  Its a good day for art, isn't it?  I decided to encourage myself in my art journal.  Hope YOUR art journal is a place where you talk to yourself and give yourself the messages and reminders that you need.

Thanks SO much, Hels Sheridan, for this fabulous Creative Adventure.  It just resonates with me and I wanted to do a dozen projects.  Barely had time for one.  Ha!  But the others are bouncing around in my head.

Please be sure and see art from Candy Colwell and Annette Green if you haven't already.  Susan Mostek is up next July 15 with her always beautiful art.  

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As I said, I loved this challenge.  I worked out what I'd do on a tag first and then recreated in my art journal.  I think I'll repeat this again on the next page and make a few tweaks, but I was generally happy with this one.  I added a photo for each layer so you can see the transformation.  It always amazes me how much another addition of paint or ink can change the look and feel of an art journal page spread.

I began with a layer of gesso and embossing paste through a stencil.  Sorry I didn't capture that photo, but I'm sure you get the idea.  I used matte medium to layer a patchwork of pages from "The Pocket Book of Modern Verse".

Here I've blended Fossilized Amber Distress Ink all over both pages.  I applied some Distress Paint of the same color to random areas, especially where the pages didn't completely cover. 

Wet paint was dry brushed this over the pages in a crosshatch fashion.

I brushed over the pages with Titanium White DecoArt paint thinned down with a little water to subdue the text.  I love using this paint because of its matte finish.  The embossed areas begin to appear a bit more.  Then I spritzed some random areas with Picket Fence Distress Spray Stain.

After drying,  I inked the edges with Ground Espresso Distress Ink.

Using Distress Crayons in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, and Vintage Photo, I added some random color around the perimeter.  I pick up some Dina Wakley "Penny" paint with a foam blending tool and hit the high embossed areas and a few other random places.  This was a lot of fun because any place Distress Ink or Crayon was is sort of erased as you blend over the paint as it reacts with the moisture.  I hit some of those areas with a bit of black paint, and then another layer of Penny.

Tag words for emphasis.

Its fun to try to use text from book pages for subtle messaging.

A fallen bloom.

My ever present bird friend from B Line Designs.

Microbeads flower centers.

I am so abusing my art journal because I put too much dimensional stuff in it.  I can't help it!!  I keep taping it back together and promising to do better.   ;-)

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