ARTING WITH EFFY

 

I spent the day creating backgrounds in my altered book while chatting through a live stream with Effy and friends and watching Effy create a painting. Such good information about working with inks and colorwashes and tips about layering and which mediums to use with what type of material. My journal spread for the next couple of days is all ready for the pen. I love my little hummer stencil. I found him packaged up with 3 other cupcake stencils on the dollar aisle at Michaels. Love it when I find a good bargin like that.

All in all, it was a good day for arting in the studio as it was still zero degrees outside even at noon; our high this afternoon was 8, and I never was able to get the studio warm enough to run the longarm even with the pellet stove running full blast. Not good weather for quilting, but good weather for arting.  Read on for details on a couple of spreads I worked on today.

This spread was really fun. I started with the pages of my book coated with gesso and then splatted a little bit of colorwash ink on the page and smudged the leftover ink from my bird stencil from the previous page. From there I collaged bits and pieces from the paper towel I was using to mop up extra liquid from my pages and gave the edges a little bit of stain with the butterscotch distress ink from Ranger. After that it was a little bit of this and a little bit of that with layers of paint as I searched for the right patina for my page. I used an empty paint spool as a stamp for my circles, sprayed a bit more ink to the page and decided that was enough for now. I'm not quite sure how I'll be able to journal over the texture of the paper towels, but I'll leave that to be solved another day. For now, I like my spread.

This next spread has created a little bit of a challenge in a different way. I remembered the fun I had and the dramatic effect created when prepping the page with black gesso. So I decided to do another spread that way. I also wanted to use one of the catherdral stencils I got from Artists Cellar last week. I used my pan pastels to add the color and used Fixative to seal the color. At Effy's suggestion I outlined the stencil sections with silver ... my silver quilt marking pencil is finally put to good use.

It's a very dark page, but I love the way the red "burns" like embers. I'm not quite sure how I want to continue with this page and how the journaling with fit with this design. I think this page needs some thinking and percolating time. If you have any ideas or thoughtS, drop a line in the comment box.