original documented life project week one 1st January 2015

I mentioned and showed the unfinished first page in my previous post (it is still unfinished), however I did not really show how it came from a blank page to what it is now.  So I thought that I would post a few more pictures of the process to go along with the explanation. I have also been going off on a few tangents, again, so I needed to get back in some sort of order.  Therefore it made sense to start at the beginning and go from there.

ok so the documented life project week 1 The theme of January is about the blank page and how to deal with it.  I am particularly bad at staring at a blank page and being afraid to do anything, so this month is a very good start for me, especially as I am relatively new to art journaling.  I am certainly new to this project and excited about developing my artistic skills again.  As much as I enjoy using my craft skills and being creative with it I have neglected my painting and drawing skills. so..........

book paper is my challenge and so I covered the double page with different types of paper I could find that was close enough to being book paper as I did not have any books handy I could use pages from.  So the closest things I could find were scrapbook paper that had lovely writing effect, a printed page of music I had from choir practise, a page from an old diary and a page out of a note book I had scribbled dance moves on and a couple of envelopes, one of which came all the way from Germany from Valerie when we did an artist trading card swap back in the days when we there was a gang of us active on the docrafts forum  You can find her fantastic blog here , where you will find some fantastic art journaling inspiration. 

 

 

Next I used Gesso and covered the paper, over the top of that I painted burnt umber and wiped off and spread about with a babywipe to give the distressed antique look to the page

 

 

Next I used acrylic paint to put on some colour, unfortunately my mixing did not really go according to plan, I think the undercoat mixed with the colour and made it a little muddy looking, rather than the colours I was going for, but that's ok I went with it anyway.  I think used my one and only stencil and dylusions ink spray (turquoise) to put some patterns onto the page.  there were a couple of accidental splashes so I used the other end of my paintbrush and dragged it through the ink to make a pattern rather than leaving the splosh.  I am not completely happy with my page so far but that is ok, it is all learning and I have learned a few things that I will hopefully not repeat. As you can see from the picture below I added some sprays from a brush with white acrylic paint, using my finger to flick the paint onto the page.     

 

The page is not complete as the prompt is "be your own goal keeper".  I have not put on my goals but they will be added at a later stage when I am inspired as to know what technique to put my goals on with.  The quote that came to me from the prompt is -  " In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.  The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility" - Eleanor Roosevelt.  Of course a couple of my goals will have to be to not leave projects unfinished and be more organised lol

 

I hope you have enjoyed reading my basic tutorial on how I did my first art journaling page for the documented life project.  Hope you come back for my next instalment.