I have been participating in a weekly art journal workshop Journal 52 ( http://journal52.com/ ) since January. It provides prompts and motivation to keep creating week after week. I have not missed a week yet, even though I have not posted all of my attempts to my blog and sometimes I am ‘late’ in creating my art journal pages. But I’m doing it!
The prompt for last week was “Book Inspired”. Almost two years ago I wrote a novel (as part of National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo). It is mystery that takes place both in 1840’s Ohio and 21st Century Arizona. Part of the mystery is how two main characters in the book are connected across centuries. My book remains unfinished and unedited. There is still a lot of work to do before I can even think of trying to publish it. But it inspired me to complete this journal prompt. I tried to make this page look vintage, much like the 175 year old diary that is central to solving the mystery.
This is a mixed media collage. I started with a torn blank page from my Dylusions journal. I adhered torns bits from a printed page from my book to the journal page using Liquitex matte gel medium. Then I used a generic background stencil and acrylic paints in two colors to ‘antique’ the text. I collaged on two faces printed out from online images and smudged around them with raw sienna paint to make them blend better. Then I used a vintage border stamp and black archival ink across sections of the page and stenciled words across the page using a StencilGirl stencil by Seth Apter and acrylic paint. I used a fluer-de-lis stencil on the corners of the images to make them look like photographs from a family album. Finally, I scanned the page into iPhoto and used the ‘Antique’ and ‘Edge Blur’ effects to tone down the paint colors and make it look more vintage.
Ain't No Ninny 