Change Art Journal Page

Hi there

This art journal page is one that I am uncertain about. I think I should have stopped before I did, but that is what art journalling is about isn't it, learning as you go.

This is the page.

You can see the process video here.

I am happy with the background, the alcohol ink butterflies, the concept of the butterflies and the border. It is the decoration of the butterflies I am not happy with, I should have limited the application of the Nuvo Drops to the bodies only.

So let's talk about the creation of the page.

The page is from my Happy Planner notebook. I have stuck two pages together and then given it a coat of Gesso.

To colour the page I have used Mont Marte Pastel Gliders and Gelatos. I scribbled each colour on the page and then smoothed and blended each colour with a baby wipe. I repeated this procedure until I had the strength of colour I was after. I used a green, yellow, white and two blues to do this.

I then used a baby wipe through a stencil to wipe the colour away from the patterned area. I did this in the top left hand area. Using the same stencil and some Mont Marte Modelling Paste I added some pattern to the bottom right hand corner of the page.

To help the pattern at the top of the page stand out a little better I traced around the stencil with a Uniball eye micro black pen. I did not trace around the pattern at the bottom of the page because I felt that the risen texture was enough to make the pattern stand out from the background.

Using Yupo paper and alcohol inks I created the paper to cut the butterflies out of.

I had recently bought some new alcohol inks and wanted to try them out. Each combination of colours were squeezed onto a foam blending pad and pounced onto the Yupo paper.

The colour combinations I used were:-
Papermill White, Amethyst and Citrus with Tim Holtz Cranberry and Silver Mixative.
Papermill Ruby, Amethyst and Citrus with Tim Holtz Pearl Mixative.
Papermill Leaf, Turquoise and Citrus with Tim Holts Gold Mixative.

If you are planning on using your die cutting machine to cut anything out of your alcohol ink paper I would suggest you do not use Yupo paper, it is very hard to cut and if I had of thought about it before I did it I would have realised this.

I used my Spellbinder Butterflies 2, Kaisercraft DD503 Butterflies and Cheery Lyn DL112 Exotic Butterflies Small to cut butterflies from my Yupo paper. The small detail of the dies did not cut out but I decided to use the die cuts as they were.

I attached the butterflies to the page using Atelier Regular Gel (Gloss). I applied this heavier than I needed to and this made working on the butterflies more difficult than it needed to be. Another lesson learned.

I drew a checkered border around the page with a black Sharpie and a white Post pen.

Using an assortment of black pens I outlined and detail the butterflies. I then added Nuvo Glitter Drops to the butterfly bodies and randomly on the wings.

The title was cut from black cardstock using Kaisercraft DD700 Alphabet Upper Case dies and attached to the page using the same gel as I used to attach the butterflies.

Last step for this page was to water down a little black acrylic paint and add splatters to the whole page.

I certainly learned plenty from this page and I think I may even create another page using the same ideas but better executed with a few changes.

You can pop over to my YouTube channel and see this page come together if you like. You will find it here.

Thanks for drooping by
Stay safe
Till next time
Hugs
Julie