Make a Mess..an art journal page.

It's another day of playing without and end result in mind.

This page was inspired by Song Li on 

the Flying Unicorn forum.

She created such a fun bold piece that immediately caught my eye and had me wanting to create.

This is what I created today.

I covered my page with Gesso and let dry.

Then using a spatula I spread Gel Medium through a Crafter's Workshop

diamond stencil.

The medium will act as a resist for the water based mists I was planing on using once it is dry.

I used 3 coloring mediums here:

First I randomly misted with Heidi Swapp's ColorShine in Georgia Peach.

I love how the mist looks on the Gesso, almost mottled in appearance redder in some places, orange in others.

Making sure to dry the page completely before the addition of more color.

Then I dripped Ayeeda Ink in Sky Blue onto the page & misted with water.

The Ayeeda Ink is water based so the addition of more water caused it to drip and pool in places.

LOVE IT.

You can also see in spots where it traveled around the Gel Medium texture.

After drying the piece completely again I misted in spots with Tattered Angels Plain Jane Baseboard mist in

Plain Daffodil.

The yellow added an extra pop of color as well as mixing with the previously applied colors.

I used my heat gun before the last mist could reactivate the others too much.

Some stamping with a check stamp and StazOn ink.

The title was created by placing stickers down, tracing with a Sharpie marker, and then removing the stickers.

Using a fine tip paintbrush and Gesso I colored in the letters.

I had to go with this title, as I was playing I definitely made a mess, 

but it was oh so fun.

So go ahead…make a mess :)

That's it for today.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Dare to be Different

An art journal page using Gelatos, Gel Medium and Gesso.

This was done for another challenge at Flying Unicorn. We had to pick from a list and how happy was I to pull out my Gelatos again and play. 

I love these little tubes of color lol.

The background is all Gelatos covered with Gel Medium. The black squiggly lines in between the blocks is from Dylusions Black Marble.

Several stamps used with both Archival and pigment inks.

I did large circles with Gesso and then sponged some through a hexagon stencil by Crafter's Workshop.

My collage image is the last one on a sheet from ArtChix. I've made some fun art using these images for sure.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Creating paper from tissue paper

The other day I was browsing Pinterest and came upon a video where a woman was making her own decorative papers using tissue paper, gel medium & coffee grounds.

Specialty papers without the price of specialty papers.

I was immediately inspired but really didn't want to dig the coffee grounds out of the trash, at the same time I didn't want to wait.

It's rained here for the last 5 days and I just wanted to play.

After thinking for a bit I came up with my own take on the process.

I started with plain tissue paper and watered down some gel medium until it was the consistency of skim milk.

I placed 2 sheets of tissue paper onto a piece of freezer paper (so when it dries it will peel right off) and using a large paintbrush covered the sheets.

On some  I placed twine between the layers and once the water medium dried the twine was embedded in my new paper.

I wanted colored pieces and tried several mediums. Mists, and acrylic paint were 2 of my favorite ways I soon discovered to really get the color on.

When the paper, medium, color mix all dry the paper is surprisingly strong.

Perfect for all sorts of future crafting.

This sheet is twine laid out in a grid pattern embedded between 2 layers of tissue paper.

I randomly dropped some  Raw Umber on spots and using the same brush as my medium/ water mixture spread the color.

I love how it is darker in some areas and light in others.

Next I tried some NeoPaque paint by Jacquard.

I love the color and am thinking this will be a good base for a future page in an art journal.

This piece I misted with a Lindy's Stamp Gang Moonshadow mist.

You get wonderful color variations on the page with this one.

Here I just added Iridescent Gold onto my paper.

I am in love with the shine here.

Here I pulled out the twine again but just made lines.

Embedded it between the tissue paper again and misted with a Heidi Swapp mist.

Again I like the color variations I get when I misted the pages versus painting them.

Last but not least another misted page. This one was using some old Lilac Walnut ink mist I have.

No shine with this one but the lay down of color was awesome.

These papers came together so quick and easy. They will make some really fun additions to my art journals and mixed media pieces.

I may have to make more today.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!