The Sky’s the Limit….

How true is that…..the sky truly is the limit as we’re often more limited by our own hesitations/beliefs in ourselves than by anything around us.  I’ve been busy creating so far this year and having so much fun in a couple of groups again.  It seemed I really struggled last year finding a balance between creating art and my family.  My word for 2016 is balance……but that’s a whole other post.

I was over at my art friend, Karen Burchill’s studio this evening and decided to work on my week 3 prompt for the Facebook group called, Journal 52.  Week 4’s prompt is “Explore or Celebrate the full moon in your art journal”.  I was looking through Pinterest and found a couple of quotes that resonated with me and finally narrowed it down to this one.  I wanted to create a night scene with soft, fluffy clouds surrounding the moon.  I used my acrylic paints and started with my Metallic Blue by Artist’s Loft mixed with a tiny bit of my Titanium White by Liqutex Basics and applied the paint to the page with my fingers.  I then outlined the page with my Prussian Blue by Grumbacher.

I then blended it out further with more of the metallic Blue and Titanium White and started to add the ‘moon’ with the white paint.

I wasn’t very happy with the wispy feel so I came in with more of the three colors mixed and smoothed out the background a bit.  I also added some wispy clouds using my fingers with a mixture of the metallic Blue and the Titanium White.  I just ‘tapped’ my fingers on the page to create the ‘fluffs’ in the clouds using the white to highlight the ‘fluffs’.  (Real technical, huh?  LOL)

In consultation with Karen, she suggested I add yellow and that’s exactly what it needed! I added a mixture of the Titanium White with Naples Yellow Hue and filled in my white moon with my fingers.  I also took the yellow out very faintly into the clouds to suggest a yellow moonlight highlight to the clouds.  I then decided the moon needed a bit of shimmer, so I added a layer of Iridescent Medium by Artist’s Loft over the yellow.

Now it was time for the quote, which I handwrote myself using Karen’s Pocha pen (no idea if that’s what it’s called…..cause that doesn’t look right…..lol)?

I’m so please with this finished product!  Off to post it to a few of the Facebook groups I’m in.  Till next time friends and please feel free to comment (I love reading comments) and subscribe to get notifications when I post a new blog post!

Much love,

Yvonne

Journal52

I joined a free Art Journal Workshop Facebook group with some friends last week.  The idea is she’ll give us a journal prompt at the beginning of each week that we use to create that weeks art journal page.  She’s also planning on doing some YouTube video’s with different techniques, etc throughout the year.  It’s called Journal52 and it’s a pretty incredible group of women with literally all levels of experience in the art of Art Journalling.  I decided to use a binder I found at our local Thrift Store a while back.  It was an old recipe binder that was empty when I bought it so a few coats of Gesso covered this rather busy cover to make it ready to alter and use as my Journal for the year for this workshop.  Good deal!!  $0.25!!!

 

I decided to go with a Steampunk theme and use my Lindy’s Stamp Gang set called Industrial Chic.  This set is available at the Frosted Designs  on-line store.  It’s probably my favorite of all the sets!  I used a homemade brick stencil and some wall repair compound gave the page some texture.  Then I layers a BUNCH of misc things to the front to give it a bit of an Industrial Chic feel to the cover.  I used some old stuff I’ve had in my stash for years, a few chipboard pieces, one of which I cut in half and made into the wings on either side of the compass, a Tim Holtz knob and some nuts and washers to spell out the 52.   I painted all the pieces with a coat of Gesso so the sprays would adhere to them and started to spray……..and spray……and spray some more.  Then I did some painting with the sprays…..and then sprayed some more.  There are sooooo many layers of spray on this!  I finished it off with a few light touches of Rub ‘n Buff and it’s done!!

I kinda feel like maybe I should have put more things on it….but oh well.  Next time. 😉  Here are some close-ups of some of the elements…

 

So, that’s it!  I’ll do another post with my first page one it…..I didn’t want to make this one too long….I’ve probably already lost Sandee after the first paragraph.  Good thing she likes pictures!!  Luv ya girl.  😉

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to step into my therapy room for a few minutes….I love the company!!

Hugs,

Yvonne