This page is inspired by the Fern plant that I found the other day, A quote from an audio book I was listening to and Monique's touch drawing technique in making faces with individual expressions.
Even though the pages I used already had a nice color scheme on them, I didn't have those colors already mixed and didn't feel that I could replicate the exact colors again. So I had to improvise and try to use the basic colors. Hence the spreading of the yellow, green and red. It felt good just blotting paint all over the place and spreading it with the plastic card :) Until I saw the result and though to myself "Oh, Oh! What am I going to do with this mess? This is not what I had intended!" :( That was the moment I decided to walk away from this project and come back to it later.
While I was away I remembered the video I had seen from Monique that I wanted to try out myself. So I decided to do the that now. I used the anti stick silicone mat (that green thing you see under my page) to do the job, instead of the glass plate that Monique used. It worked well, even though I only made a few faces, I still had one I felt I could use!
I thought, I can always put a face on one side and write something on the other. I felt that if I added any more paint to this page it could turn into a bigger mess!
The Fern: A few days ago, while walking outside, I found a bunch of artificial fern plant in the bushes. It stood out because of the vibrant green of the leaves in contrast to the real bushes that were almost leafless! I saw it and though "could I use this in my art journals?" I am not into having those plants around me in the house because they just collect dust, so I wanted to see if I could use it. Of course it was filthy, so I soaked it for a day in hot water and dish soap and the next day washed it and soaked it a few times just to get off all the USOs (Unidentified Stuck Objects). I also removed the metal, which was rusty, and the plastic holding the leaves to the metal because that was also broken and dried out. It was a big job, but now I have a bag full of leaves/branches that I can use in art projects. I used the fern leaves as the woman's hair and a few to put behind the quote. I believe it turned out well, I was satisfied with the result! I learned a lot from what does and what doesn't work for the supplies I used this time :)
Check out how the mess started and was saved :)
When was the last time you salvaged something that was meant to be trashed?
Supplies used:
- Strips of recycled paper to hold pages together for spread and to protect other pages
- Glue stick (works better on paper than matt medium here)
- Gesso
- Acrylic paint
- Matt medium to secure transfer paper (with face outline) as well as the leaves. It worked surprisingly very well to secure the leaves that I couldn't secure with glue!
- Cardboard (yes, still in love with that stuff!)
- Glue (acetone base, to stick the leaves, but that didn't work well)
