Thursday, January 24, 2013

Art Journal page: Just Be You

I'm not sure I care for the size of my new art journal. It's 8 1/2 x 11. My last one was half that size and seemed less intimidating. It's also taking me a week to complete a page, but that probably has more to do with not being very inspired lately. I've also been spending a lot more time watching tutorial videos and looking at pictures of other people's work. I've been looking for inspiration, but mostly end up wishing I knew what I was doing.

Anyway, here's this weeks page! The writing says: By your own soul learn to live/ and if some thwart you take no heed/ if some hate you have no care/ sing your song/ dream your dream/ hope your hope/ and pray your prayer - Pakenham Beatty. I came across that poem? quote?- whatever it is, this week. I had already been thinking along the lines of "be yourself", so it really stuck with me, especially since it basically means "forget the haters; just do your own thing."


This is how it started. I had used the under-journaling technique I talked about here and this is how it came out.


I didn't like it, so I played around with it some more and finally decided just to cover it. I used a bunch of random scraps- the only thing they had in common was that they all had at least some blue.


I used a light coat of gesso over top, but wiped it off a bit in some places to let the paper show through.


Then I used a technique I saw on Pinterest. The original page is here. Basically, instead of using modeling paste through a stencil, you use a glue stick. My stencil, however had dried paint on it and the glue picked up the color, which is where the red came from. I also did it with a clean stencil, but it's not really visible in the photo. I was originally intending to stick to shades of blue, but I kind of like how the red looked and decided to go with it.


Next I used sequin waste/ punchinella with some acrylic paint. I also put a few drops of spray ink at the top of the page, spritzed it with water, and tilted the book up to make it run.


I don't have any more in progress pictures, even though I did a lot of little things here and there. I'll try to remember everything. With a very thin coat of gesso, I made a place for the poem I found and wrote that in. The Just Be You was done with a Sharpie and I traced just inside the letters with white gel pen. I added the girl- she's from a catalog- and traced around her with a white gel pen. She didn't stand out very well, so I gave her a shadow. I used a black Faber-Castell gelato. First time using it, so I had no clue what I was doing, but I just played around with it until I was happy with how it looked. I also used it around the poem and around the edge of the page to give it a more defined look.

Here's the finished piece again:


 I wasn't real sure about this page at first, but the more I look at it, the more I like it!

7 comments:

  1. I love what you have done on this page-lots of wonderful layers!! I used to work on small surfaces for many years.This is the first year I'm using the "big" book and love it! Thanks for sharing at AJED!

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  2. Hi, it's Sharmaine from Cocoa Daisy. I love what you created AND I love that the red came off your stencil!! I do that all the time and "just go with it" is definitely the best method ;)
    Thank you for stopping back by the Cocoa Daisy blog and letting us know you used the technique, because your page is super cool and inspiring :)

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  3. Great layering! I really love the color you added with the sequin waste!

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  4. What a great page you've created, I really like the shading you've added round the girl & the poem, it makes them float on the page & the layers seem more apparent. Glad you liked the page in the end, I think going through a 'not liking' stage is normal & if you just keep adding more layers more often than not you can pull it back together. :-)

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  5. Wonderful build up of layers- love the message!

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  6. It looks awesome!I know I'm a little late in telling you, but just found your Blog today on Pinterest and had to let you know your work is great!

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