documented life challenge week 3

Finally, at last, I have finished my week 3 journal page. I have definitely thought too much about this page it has taken me almost 2 weeks to do.  It has gone so well, compared to my other pages, that I found myself worrying about ruining it. So here is a run down of how I did it.  The art challenge - colour wheel.  Journal Prompt " I found I can say things with colour and shape I couldn't say any other way"- Georgia O-Keef.

I have just discovered that I have not taken photos of the start of this page but started half way through, oh well, you will get the idea.  First I started by covering the entire page with Gesso.  Then on the left side I used acrylic paints and painted using black and white paint to establish a grey and colourless storm background.  Then on the right side I used blue acrylic to make a more colourful storm/rain scene.  I also added a little bit of dylusions ink spray in turquoise to represent the dripping water and stickles turquoise to make it reflective.   I then bled some of the colour onto the left side.  This part of my thought process was inspired by Lorraine Bell .   The pictures start where I decided to draw my dancer freehand on a separate bit of paper cut her out and stick her down on the colour side

 



 Once stuck down, I coloured in my dancer.  As I wanted to use colour I used my favourite colour RED, it made sense its the most contrast  colour to Blue I had and I wanted my dancer to stand out.

 

I then spent a long long long time wondering, pondering, hemming and hawing as to what I was going to do with the Quote I had in mind for this page.  It has taken me longer to decide than it took me to get my page to this stage.  I finally decided I just have to go for it and get on with it. 

 

 

 

The word life proved a little problematic lol I was inspired to do this quote by watching a YouTube tutorial by Einat Kessler I liked her idea of using white oil pastel.  However, I did not have any.  I decided to buy some cheap ones and also bought cheap pastels too.  The white pastel rather than the oil was much better at being white on the page, however the pastel was rubbing off :( I wondered about fixing it but did not have anything to fix it with.  I had read about hairspray as well as purpose fixative and also heard about steam fixing but decided, oooh I know I will try using glossy accent as this will give it some texture too.  Alas it did not work as well as I had planned.  It dulled the white to a grey.  So As I had bought an ink paint pen on the same day as the pastels I thought aha I will use that to outline it, it kinda worked but it just wasn't standing out like I wanted it to.  I had also bought another type of white pen so drew round the letters again edging the white ink pen.  This again kinda worked so I had to think of something else. So I used stickles crystal to add a little more sparkle in only specific areas.  I then left if there before I just made a huge mess lol

 

I was about to leave the page for a spell, again, while I decided how to proceed with the rest of the lettering.  However, I then gave myself a good shake and went for it and finished the rest using sharpie pens black and red and the white ink paint pen and what you see below is the finished results

 

 

So there you have it, the chaos that is my creative process.  I have to say I am rather pleased with this page.  It makes a nice change.  I am slowly learning to let go my idea that my page has to be professional looking.  I just need to let go and enjoy.  I am not saying I will be able to do that right away as it is hard to let go my need for a pleasing looking finished article but I will let go more often until I am more comfortable with this process.

Thank you for reading this post.  I hope it has been of interest and help to someone. It has certainly helped me :)

T