Whenever I talk to people about art journalling, or if we are art journalling in a workshop, people will often say that they "aren't artistic"... or they are sure they "couldn't do it"...or they are worried about "making mess of it"... and I always say its just paper and if it does go horribly wrong and you can't save it then you can always gesso over the whole thing and start again.... and this week I opened what I thought was a fresh blank journal to find the most ugly test page in the whole universe... it was truly horrible and beyond saving.
I think I may have just been testing products rather than trying to build a page, but what was there was totally unworkable. Of course I could have simply pulled the page and started with my fresh new journal, but then I thought of my own advice and decided to follow it.
Out came the gesso and I used a liberal layer to cover what was beneath. I had previously applied colour using a spray and the wet gesso reignited the colour and I was left with pinkish and yellow tones in my gesso, but that was fine because the gesso muted them from their former vibrant shades and I knew I was going to do a real cover up job anyway.
I added lots of different torn strips of papers...everything from scraps of patterned paper left over from projects, left over gelli prints, scraps form magazines and old book pages and once they were dry I lightly added some white gesso over the top with a palette knife, paying particular attention to the edges and lightly going over the centre to highlight the texture.
Next I added some random stamping before adding some modelling paste through a home made circle stencil. Once this was dry I added colour to the circles and then added additional finger painted circles in a different colour. After that is was a little more gesso and some doodling...and finally the word Dream was added and I "called it done."
I love this page now... and thee is no trace of the ugly thing that lies beneath. I am so glad I took my own advice.
Until next time
Cxx
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