A Bee-You-Ti-Full Experiment

The Universe has been conspiring to make me experiment in my art journal.  Over the last several days, three art-related groups I participate in have had ‘experimentation’ as the goal.  Chelle Stein at journal52.com set this week’s prompt to “EXPERIMENT!” and told us to experiment with techniques or supplies we had not used before.  Tammy Garcia at daisyyellowart.com posted an Art Journal Tangent and Tactics video called “Paradise” with the instruction of using heavy body acrylics and a stencil and letting our art journal pages take us where they wanted to go, i.e. EXPERIMENT.  Connie Hozvicka at dirtyfootprints-studio.com posted an Art Journal Wisdom tutorial (Day 7) called…..you guessed it!…..EXPERIMENT.

Okay, so I experimented!  I started with a two-page spread in my 7×10 art journal on which I had wiped heavy black acrylic off my brush from another project.  I had also stamped an unmounted stamp that I had just received to see how it would look without mounting it on a block (not too good).

Step 1: Where I started

Next I used my favorite 9×12 ‘mod’ stencil from Joggles and Radiant Rain Shimmering Mists in hot pink and blue  that I received in a grab bag of art supplies and had never tried out.  The next two images show the effect of spraying the mists through the stencil onto the spread.  The closeup shows  the shimmer of the mists on  the black paint but overall the shimmer isn’t really noticeable.

Step 2:   Radiant Rain Shimmering Mists through Joggles Stencil

Next I decided to collage onto the pages. I went through the stash of small collage elements that I had sitting in a box on my desk.  I randomly chose a few and collaged them to the journal pages using gel medium.  I found out that the Radiant Rain shimmering mists are permanent and do NOT re-activate with moisture. That’s a good thing.

Step 3:  Adding collage elements

After completing the collage and letting the gel medium dry, I finished up the pages by outlining the collage elements with Crayola Portfolio Oil Pastels (which I had never tried before); doodling in various places with a white Signo Broad pen and/or a black Fude pen; hand-lettering ‘Bee-You-Ti-Full Experiment’ on the right page. The final pages can be seen below.

Step 4:  Doodle and journal to finish pages

I have to say, I had fun doing these pages!  I had no expectations and I really got into the flow of things.  Do I love the end product?  Not really.  I do love the grunge look that the black paint brought to the spread and I love individual pieces of the two pages but I think that overall the spread is too busy for my taste and is without any real discernable focal points.  I’m pretty sure I would have liked it better with just the black paint, shimmering mists, and some doodles (and maybe a tiny piece of collage on each page).

But I EXPERIMENTED!  That’s what is important.  I learned about products I hadn’t used before.  I learned what I like and don’t like.  I got out of my head and let the art take me to an unknown destination.  And I love that!  My journal pages may not be beautiful but they are BEE-YOU-ti-FULL!

I hope you do something creative also this beautiful Autumn Sunday!

 

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Namaste

I did not create any art this weekend.  It was a difficult weekend for a few different reasons and when my mind or activities are all over the map, I can’t seem to focus on anything else.  However, I was determined to follow through with Connie Hozvicka’s advice in her free 10-day Art Journal Wisdom workshop at dirtyfootprints-studio.com, which is to create art journal ‘morning pages’ — art every day.  Since it is Monday, it seemed a good idea to start the week off right by creating something that could be done within about 30 minutes.

I watched the #artjournalwisdom video for day 5 of the workshop.  It said to limit yourself to just a few elements in order to create quickly and simply.  The three elements that they recommended for the day were:  a) purple paint + some white paint for contrast; b) easy flowing breath (incorporate something that reminds you of that); and c) a little Mother Nature (in the form of something natural from outside).

I created a 2-page spread in a little over 30 minutes by using Connie’s suggested three elements plus a few other items.  I used cheap purple acrylic paint mixed with white gesso for the background.  At that point, thinking of ‘easy flowing breath’ reminded me of yoga so I chose two StencilGirl stencils to make the page come together quickly:  L233 “Namaste” by Jessica Sporn and an exclusive StencilClub stencil from October 2013 also by Jessica Sporn.  I also gathered five leaves from the rose bushes outside my studio/office window to use somewhere in the spread.

I sprayed Dylusions spray in Calypso through the mandala stencil on the right page, then pounced white acrylic paint through the same stencil once the Dylusions spray dried.  The Dylusions spray activated with the wet paint giving a ‘softer’ look to the design.  I sprayed the same Dylusions spray directly onto the background on the left page.  When it dried I pounced Dina Wakely paint in Night through the yogi stencil on the left page to create the sitting figure and through the hand figures on the right page .  I then outlined the dark figure and the hands with white acrylic to stand out against the background.  Next I stenciled the words on the Namaste stencil on the left page with white acrylic paint and did the same with the word “Namaste” on the right page with the dark paint.  I then adhered the rose leaves in a lotus pattern under the sitting figure on the left.  Finally, I outlined everything with either a black Fude pen or white Uni-broad pen, including hand-lettering the word “Breathe” on the top of the right page, and doodled around the border of the left page.

The step that took the longest was outlining everything so that there was enough contrast in the elements on the pages.  Everything else was completed in about 20 minutes.  Since I didn’t get started on the page until right before noon, my ‘morning pages’ spilled into the afternoon…but I’m okay with that.

What creative thing have you done today?

Painting Quirky Faces

You all know by now how I feel about faces in my art.  I need to practice, practice, practice them.  Today I painted two faces without penciling them in first.  I just slapped that acrylic paint on the page, creating the face and the features as I worked.  I had no preconceived notion how they were supposed to look.

The first one was for an Art Journal Tangents and Tactics workshop on daisyyellow.com.  The whole purpose of this exercise was to make a quirky girl, to do it loosely and quickly, and then to spray the painted face with water to make it collapse into something abstract.  Okay!

Daisy Yellow Art, Art Journal Tangents and Tactics No. 6: Quirky Girls.

This next painted face was done to a prompt on journal52.com : Rhyme Time.  I decided to use a technique that was being taught in a free Art Journal Wisdom workshop by Dirty Footprints Studio, the objective of which is (again) to get paint on the page quickly and then to use paper from your diary/journal for texture, and add a face quickly without forethought.  That scared me a little but I did it.

Journal52, Wk 38: Rhyme Time.  Double page spread in my 7×10 art journal.

The poem, “Underface“, is by Shel Silverstein, and the words are:

Underneath my outside face
There’s a face that none can see.
A little less smiley,
A little less sure,
But a whole lot more like me

I am not unhappy with the way the faces turned out since they were supposed to be loose and quirky and whimsical.  I think I accomplished that.

I hope you created something today too!