Keep On Keepin' On

A few weeks ago, I challenged myself to art journal every day for a week for 10 minutes. I didn't have to finish a page a day but there could be no skipping, no cheating, no catching up just doing.

Of all the work I did that week, this is my favorite piece.

I made it over a couple of days. It started with a page I tore out of my Dylusions journal and sprayed with various stencils (Prima, Donna Downey) and Prima Color Bloom Sprays.

I sprayed through the stencils and pressed all the excess ink randomly onto the page. You can see below in the letter stencil shape.

Then I sketched this tree/flowery shape with a pencil and then added a quick coat of clear gesson. I wanted to keep the colors of my sprays for mixing with the layers I knew I wanted to add. Then I traced the penciled in shape with Liquitex Acrylic ink.

Then I added some Art Basics by Finnabair Heavy Gesso and spread it around with my fingers. FYI: finger painting is fun even when you're a grown-up. Spreading the gesso around muted the busy background. It also blurred the background in places where I didn't put any of the clear gesso.

I liked how that look because it made my tree/flowery shape really stand out.

I didn't wait for the Liquitex ink to dry all the way before adding the gesso and it smudged into the white. I like how that looks - the imperfection.

Then I traced the whole shape with a charcoal pencil, added some scribbly words and some dots.

At first, I wasn't sure if I liked this page but the more I look at it the more I like it.  This is something that I've Dina Wakley and Donna Downey do many times in online videos and I had to try it out. It's also something Julie does in her art with many of the faces she creates. It is definitely something that I will try again. I feel like there is a lot of fun to be had with this technique. Stay tuned for more...

Thanks for stopping by!

Cathie