Hi everyone! Kim here today, sharing an art journal spread with you. In the beginning of the year I signed up for Donna Downey’s Inspiration Wednesday video classes. These twice a month classes are a great opportunity to explore various products and techniques. This spread, created a few weeks ago, started out following Donna’s layout and then quickly diverged into something entirely different. That’s one of the things I love about the IW videos…you don’t have to copy what Donna, or any other artist creates, but artists sharing can be a great jumping off point for your own creations.
During this particular video, watercolors were used and I thought I’d give my hand a try at using watercolors in the background. I was thrilled with the soft, summery colors that were produced using the watercolors…and the rest of the spread transpired from that point!
Follow along on how I created my layout!
I started by added some masking tape to both pages of my art journal. Then I covered everything with gesso. The watercolors I used were Peerless watercolors. If you don’t have these watercolors, get them! They are papers that are infused with pigment, they activate when you touch them with a wet brush. I used a very wet brush and a variety of colors to create the background. The gesso keeps the watercolor from soaking deeply into the paper, and keeps the colors very light. I loved the look of the background so much I didn’t want to add anything else to the page!
Since I liked these pale colors so much I didn’t want to add anything with a drastic contrast so I used sections of the 12×12 Screen Print stencil (TCW525) and Tea Dye Distress Ink to add some subtle shading.
Next, I used a gold paint pen to trace around a few of the images. This added just the tiniest bit of shine and highlighted the designs. I also used Wendy Vecchi’s embossing paste, in white, to add the dragonfly image (also from the Screen Print stencil).
Once the embossing paste was dry, I put the stencil back over the embossed area (basically using the stencil as a mask now), and painted the dragonfly with various shades of Distress Paint.
I added more stenciling in the background, using the Believe Script stencil (TCW541) and Wendy Vecchi’s Watering Can Archival Ink. I also added some stamping, from some random Tim Holtz stamps, and gold paint flecks. Lastly, I added some shading to the dragonfly using some Faber Castell Big Brush Markers. I added a quote using alphabet stamps from Tim Holtz and black Archival Ink. See the rest of my photos below!
Oh, I should also note that I added two dragonflies to this layout, one on each page, along with tiny letters spelling out what Psalm this quote was from.
I hope you enjoyed today’s project…Happy Crafting!!!
What a marvellous background … & beautiful pages !
Superbes pages et un fond très doux ! j’aime beaucoup cette création et ces pochoirs !
This is beautiful and would also make a perfectly wonderful piece of framed art!
I absolutely love love love the dragonflies! They look great against the subtle yet happy background.
I love this page but wonder why you used masking tape in addition to using gesso? Just wondering? The soft watercolor background is really nice. Thanks for the inspiration.