Art Journal Reveal - Make the Time to Listen to Your Heartsong.....

Well it's time for another Art Journal Reveal - put on your sunglasses, it's a bright one!!!  I can't believe this is my fifth entry in my Art Journal already.  If you want to see the others you can click on the label Art Journaling Journey at the bottom of my post and it will bring you to all my Art Journal pages.  Tracy and I decided on a Dylusions Background Theme this round.  You can see Tracy's Journal page here.  There were several techniques we could try but I was really looking forward to this one.  This was the perfect opportunity to use this Donna Downey/Unity stamp set - love these sweet flowers especially since I'm seeing May flowers pop up everywhere now :)

Applying this colour was so much fun!!  I generously spritzed the right page with a water mister, applied really good sprays of colour randomly and then spritzed with more water.  I tipped the book to set the colours blend and then closed the left side page over and pressed until the colour was seeping out at the edges.  Oila!!  I was SO impressed :)

** Sidenote - this was my second attempt in my good art journal page.  Yes - I didn't like the first one.  I kinda screwed it up and then I was feeling like I liked my test page better, so I made another one.  This one I was happy with, though I still think I like my test page background the best lol.  I've been thinking I may go back and use my first attempt anyway.  If you saw my test page here you'll see the super cute bird from Tim Holtz's Bird Crazy stamp set.  I really like him and I may go ahead and use him there.  

Next I did some ghosting (misting water through a stencil and lifting out the colour) and then adding some more colour through the stencils.

I was torn between a black border and the gold border.  The black really popped (I tried a bit on my test page using the stencil and a sponge dauber with the black archival ink) but I was so drawn to the gold and I love the texture.  My daughter loved the gold too.  I think because of the yellows and oranges in the background.  And then the stamping........

I'm entering this in the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #12 - May Flowers.

I'd also like to share this at Unity's Friends With Flair this week.  

Stamps:  Donna Downey & Unity's Be Still Watercolor Kit
Ink:  Dylusions Ink Sprays - Squeezed Orange, Lemon Zest & Bubblegum Pink; Ranger Archival Ink; Big Brush Pitt pens, White Gelly Roll pen
Accessories:  Faber Castell Gold Texture Luxe, Dylusions 5 x 8 stencils Diamond Border and Number Jumble

Art Journal Reveal - Hope Wish Love

It is time to reveal our 2nd Art Journal pages.  The theme was Winter/Christmas.  I chose to do a Christmas Tree.  I have seen the tree done like this in several ways.  I have to say I was very inspired by Christy Tomlinson's canvas creations and her techniques.  I love her doodling, she does it so freely.   I tried to add a bit, very discreetly as I'm not too comfortable with it yet.

There's a lot of layers here - I love looking for them all when I'm looking at the pages.

I started with spreading Iced Spruce and Evergreen Bough Distress Paint with a credit card over the tissue wrap which was adhered with Liquitex Matte Medium.  I had a few issues adhering the tissue wrap - there is a couple places where it did not adhere properly, but you can't notice after all the layers.

Here you can see the snowflakes also stamped in Iced Spruce.  

Once the background was dry, I started adhering the tree pieces with the Liquitex Matte Medium.  I used the bone folder to crease the paper pieces into the seem of the book.

This part was really exciting for me - I got to use my new Big Brush Pitt Pens to outline the tree.  I used my finger to blend and this helps ground the image.  See the difference from the photo above?

A little more definition was created by outlining the tree with a black fine tip Pitt pen.  

Here I used some more colours and stamped the poinsettia and added the bubble wrap.

I added the Stormy Sky colour through the stencil.  

Here I added a border with some more stamping to the edges and the I added the rub-ons as well.  At this point I added some gesso with bubble wrap and and thought I was done.  I liked it here a lot and could have left it, but I REALLY wanted to add the chevron texture with the embossing paste and glitter.  

Now hop over to see Tracy's Winter Challenge creation.  It's beautiful and I love how whimsical it looks, I can't wait to see it in person.   Our next challenge is Love/Valentines.  

I am entering my journal page in The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #8 - Something New for the New Year, since most of the techniques I've used were new to me :)

Supplies:

Ranger/Dylusions 5 x 8 Creative Journal;
Tim Holtz Tissue Wrap and Remnants Rub-Ons;
Basic Grey Jovial Paper
Distress Paints - Iced Spruce, Evergreen Bough, Festive Berries, Aged Mahogany, Stormy Sky, Pine Needles;
Brilliance Archival Ink Graphite Black;
Stamps:  Unity Stamps Like a Snowflake, CTMH December 25th and Snowflakes
PITT Big Brush Artist Pens
Simon Says Falling Snow and Heidi Swapp Chevron Stencil 
Liquitex Matte Medium, Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste, Martha Stewart glitter, bubble wrap