What a hoot it was to complete a journal project using three Stencil Girl stencils in a journal spread! Have you heard that I love to art journal? What I love about working in a
book is the non-preciousness and freedom to just have fun making marks and playing with color. There are no mistakes. I’m a big fan of inspiring words, so those
will often find their way into my pages, giving me much needed reminders when I
page through the book at a later time.
I’m so
thrilled to create this journal spread for you, using 3 of Stencil Girl’s
wonderful stencils:
L301 Circles Circles by Traci Bautista
L091 Dots and Dashes by Jessica Sporn
S400 Military Stars by June Daley
Okay….let’s
get started…..
I started my
pages with some gesso, haphazardly scraped across the pages with a credit
card. I purposefully left some parts of
the page uncovered. When the gesso
dried, I spritzed Adirondack color wash in Butterscotch all over the spread,
and quickly watered it down with a soaking brush, moving the ink all over the
surface. I blotted the surface with
paper towels, leaving a lovely variegated pattern behind. Next, I scribbled with a Stabilo All pencil,
happily and randomly moving my hand around.
I love making marks!
Next, I
brushed matte varnish over the lines I had drawn, causing them to activate and
smear a little bit. I do this for two
reasons. One, I just love the way the
lines look when they smear and blur.
Two, the matte varnish acts as a fixative for the pencil lines, keeping
them in place, so they don’t muddy up future layers on the page.
While the
pencil lines dried, I turned my attention to the first stencil, Dots and
Dashes. I sponged a dark turquoise onto
some deli paper. I LOVE deli paper,
don’t you? Its transparency when I use
it as collage material is a blast!
When the
pencil lines dried, I started filling in shapes with color. I am not a purist when it comes to
paint. I love it all! From Golden to craft paint, I use it all! When painting in my shapes, I am again being
haphazard. I love how some of the pencil
lines are obscured when I go over them with the paint, but others remain strong
dark marks when I avoid the lines. It’s
up to you how careful or carefree you want to be with this step.
After laying
down some color, I pulled out my Circles Circles stencil and decided to add
some texture to a few areas with a reductive technique. I painted a light turquoise over the
dark. When that paint was almost dry, I
placed the stencil right on top of the paint, and rubbed through the stencil with
a damp baby wipe. This left a really
cool “ghostly” effect to that area.
I did some
more scribbling with Neocolor pastels, and added more texture to the page by
pressing tissue and paper towel into wet paint.
With my
Stabilo All pencil, I scribbled through the Military Stars stencil randomly
throughout the page, and then added some paper collage elements. I decided on a quote a friend shared with
me….a lyric from a song she loves. It
seemed the perfect sentiment for the light spot on the page.
And here is
the completed spread! A crazy, scribbly,
patchwork-y burst of happy thoughts….from me to you!
Thanks so
much for joining me today, I hope you had fun!
Big thanks to MaryBeth Shaw and the gang at StencilGirl for this fun
challenge!
Love this, thanks so much for sharing your process.
ReplyDeleteHi Sandra! THANK YOU!
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