Tuesday 24 January 2017

Journal52 #1: Portal

Another first for me this year; an attempt at an art journal page without a list of prompts, just a key word and image.  The prompt is courtesy of Journal52 which I became aware of through Mike Deakin Art, so thanks for sharing Mike. I am not worried that it is already week 3 as I am sure that I will catch up eventually; even if I only dip in and out it will encourage me to experiment.  It is fitting therefore that the first word prompt of 2017 was 'Portal', as I see this as the way in to the next leg in my art journaling journey.  I am really pleased with the final result, although there were plenty of OOPS moments along the way.
 
I started with texture paste through a stencil.  As I was working towards a portal in space effect, I found several swirl shapes on a mini template by The Crafter's Workshop (TCW502s) and used Pebeo modelling paste through them directly onto my page.  I had to space them apart, so as not to flatten them by laying another part of the stencil over a wet area.
Once I had dried this area with my heat tool, I went back in, adding further swirls linking the first layer together; having flipped my stencil over.  Once this layer was dry of modelling paste, I painted over the whole page with Pebeo black gesso (sorry, I forgot to take a photo of this step); however this made the texture very difficult to see.  To emphasize the swirl effect, I chose to go back over each swirl with some Pebeo Iridescent paint in Red/Blue, Orange/Yellow, Green/Yellow and Blue/Green, dabbed through the stencil.  I didn't manage to lay the stencil back over in exactly the same places every time, but close enough!
 









I followed up by painting some additional lines around the swirls in the same colours, using a fine paint brush and the left over paint.
As I had a 'space' theme in mind, I decided to experiment with some of the Pebeo Phosphorescent Gel in Green to stamp 'planets' around the central focal point.  I dabbed some of the paint onto a stamp from the Drips and Dirt stamp set by Stampers Anonymous (The Art of Brett Wedele) and stamped randomly, reapplying some paint each time.  It doesn't show up very well in the photo, as the paint stores up light and doesn't show up until in the dark.
For my next step, I wanted to add some stars using Pebeo Iridescent Gold paint through areas of the Mini Stencil by Tim Holtz.  This was where the OOPS moment occurred (Outstanding Opportunity Presenting Suddenly - with thanks to Carolyn Dube).  I had overloaded my dauber and some of the paint went under the stencil, creating a smudged image.  I used a wet wipe to try and remove the excess paint, but instead it added finger impressions in gold instead.  I decided to emphasize this effect around each area of stars by lightly picking up more gold paint onto my finger through a wet wipe and lightly tapping across the whole background, avoiding the phosphorescent 'planets', but not the 'wormhole'. I was really please with the final effect.
For the 'Portal'  sign, I used my favourite Word Chain Alphabet stamp set by Claritystamp to spell out the word.  As the alphabet has a full set of both upper and lower case letters, which are really quirky, I used 3 of each.  I particularly like the Upper case R.  I used a Black Onyx Versafine ink pad on Sheena's Stamping Card and dabbed Twisted Citron, Carved Pumpkin and WIlted Violet distress ink over the top. A black fineliner added the spiral inside the 'O'.  After it had been added to the page, I decided to use the same fine liner to add a star and squiggle border round the outside edge.
Finally, I went through my Tim Holtz idea-ology Small Talk sticker book and chose two quotes which linked both to the word prompt and my feelings about the page.




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