Art Journal Page on Break

Hi blog friends! I'm taking a break today from making origami tiffany balls and getting ready for the Christmas shows...making time to play with art again, and to catch up on art journaling. Saturday's overnight low was forecast at 14 degrees chilly Fahrenheit, my friends. We heat with wood, and the house was still nice and toasty Sunday morning, but when I let the dogs out the cold hit me like a ton of bricks. Until I noticed the quality of the light. And the hundreds of birds perched high in the trees, singing and warming themselves in the early morning sunlight. Blue sky, golden grass, dried leaves catching the yellow dawn, birdsong, warming my fingers on a hot coffee cup. Morning perfection. So, here's Sunday's page, finished this morning.

This is the first time I've played with silhouette imaging, and I think I like it. The image is from a photo of me taken on vacation several years ago, sailing off the Florida keys. Cropped, reversed, grayscaled, blown up big, then printed on regular text weight paper. Cut out, painted black, then glued down with liquid gel medium - after setting down the base colors of the page, of course. "Wonder" is written with a Sharpie paint pen (if you can find them, buy as many as you can! They're being discontinued...). I applied an aureole around the silhouette with a white stabilo pencil (wet), then outlined the silhouette with gold. Must say I'm very pleased with the overall effect...So, you'll probably be seeing alot more pages featuring this image!

Seems like I learn something new every time I make a journal page, and this one is no different. I've historically had alot of trouble writing on the finished page - the texture and composition of the paint seemed to interfere with the smooth application of any and all of my pens. Go figure. On this piece, I applied a thin layer of gel medium over the finished page. Problem solved. Sweet.

Are you an art journaler? Have a sweet trick to share? Post it!

Thanks for visiting. Come again soon.