The Evolution of a Journal Page

I started this page in a Massachusetts workshop on May 6th. At the time, I was really happy with it. 
It helped me to get across what I was teaching and it served its purpose. 

At the time, I had been working in another journal and using this book to demo in as I taught in my workshops across the country. I prefer to work one book at a time. When I was finally ready to finish the work I had started in this journal, this page didn't fit with what the book had become.

I tried to rework it with paint but nothing clicked. I finally ended up gluing down this image and painting white and black acrylic over parts of the page:
I let the acrylics dry. I added red, neon pink and a dark blue on top. 
I added more layers of acrylic  (I forgot to take a photo of just those layers.) Then I thought about adding more collage elements but didn't:
Using photos of dried roses turned in different directions, I painted (not stenciled) the roses on either side of the image:
I liked it better but something was still missing.

For a few months now, I have been using cardstock as a palette and scraping off the unused paint. It takes a few weeks, lots of unused paint and scraping. In the end, you have layers of acrylic on a page (my friends, Pnina and Michelle in San Diego gave me the idea as they use canvas as a palette.) I recently decided to start using an old idea of a collaged book as a paint palette.

I had squeezed out four colors and then ended up not using them. I went to wipe them away with the palette knife before they dried and I LOVED how it looked.

Eureka!

My breakthrough moment! This is the look I had been after:
I took the palette knife and the same colors and started scraping the colors onto the journal page. I let the colors dry.

Later, I added journaling and then Pollock type paint splatters done by tapping juicy paint markers with my fingers:
I have one more thing to do with this page but am letting it stew for right now. 

I don't like to give up on my pages nor do I tear them out. I was ready to just turn the page several times but I fought with it and really pushed myself. It took several days and lots of, "walking away from the page time."

Thanks for coming along with me on the journey.


Comments

E. Cline said…
Love the pages and their evolution! Gorgeous!!!

Popular Posts