Art Journal Reveal - Grateful for Fall

And here it is - the reveal!!!  My friend Tracy and I had agreed to challenge each other to creating an art journal page, since we both wanted to try.  I had never done anything like this before, Tracy has but in a different sort of scrapbooking way.  So we had a month - and this is what I made:

This was a great challenge or journey I would call it - I learned a lot about the products I used, what I can and can't mix with them.  One lesson I learned is that you can not add a gel medium over top of the Dylusions Ink Spray.  Also, the Distress Ink takes a LONGGGG time to try over the Distress Paint.  When I purchased this journal, I also purchased another journal, but one with spiral ring.  I decided to use that one for my test pages.  Nothing was actually glued down, just layed out for a visual.  I tried different inks, pens, some scribbling.

When I created my test page, I used a wet baby wipe to tone down the paint while it was still wet.  I forgot to do that on my real pages until after the paint had dried so it had little effect.  That's why it is so much more vibrant.  The test page had a little more of the gesso texture show through after using the baby wipe as well.

One of the finishing touches I loved was outlining everything with the Distress Markers.  I had time to outline and blend with my finger so I didn't have harsh lines and I like how it added some depth and kind of grounded the images that were glued down.  I also enjoyed creating the leaves.  Once I was done inking, I dropped some water droplets on them to create water marks.

The last two finishing touches were to add Clear Rock Candy Stickles to the leaves and some Heidi Swapp Gold Lame Colour Shine.

The Simon Says Wednesday Challenge is Anything Goes and is highlighting Lawn Fawn, so since I used Lawn Fawn dies to create the leaves I'm going to enter :)

Please go over and see Tracy's take on the Grateful Challenge.  It's gorgeous and I can't wait for our next challenge!!

Supplies:

Ranger/Dylusions 5 x 8 Creative Journal;
Diana Wakley Media White Gesso;
Distress Paints - Mowed Lawn, Broken China, Rusty Hinge, Tarnished Brass;
Dylusions Lemon Zest Ink Spray;
Distress Markers - Mowed Lawn, Salty Ocean, Vintage Photo, Rusty Hinge;
Distress Inks - Forest Moss, Wold Honey, Spiced Marmelade, Fired Brick, Vintage Photo;
Brilliance Archival Ink Graphite Black;
Stampin Up Sanded background and Bo Bunny Distressed Textures stamps;
Liquitex Matte Medium, Lawn Fawn Leaves Die, Distress Crackle Paint - Clear Rock Candy Stickles, Maya Road Chipboard Letters, Ranger Manilla Tags, Basic Grey letter stickers, Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste, Rock Candy Stickles, Heidi Swapp Color Shine Gold Lame