So thankful

Hello my friends.  I've been working on another art journal spread for Hands & Heart.  November's challenge was to list things we are thankful for.  I decided to use the technique from last week's art journal meeting at OWSE Yahoo group for my background.  It started with my pages covered with old book pages.  Then some spray inks, paint and more spray inks.  I got a little heavy handed with the paint and covered up more of the book pages than I wanted to.  It also turned out a little darker than I had intended, but I wanted to stay with the technique, so I left it that way.

I decided to make a tree with the leaves representing things for which I'm thankful, and chose to make the leaves all light colors to counteract the dark background. 

I lightly sketched the tree with a white colored pencil and then painted over it with gesso and then brown and black acrylic paint.

I printed words on my computer of things which I'm thankful for.  I cut them apart and sponged ink over the words and then cut them into leaf shapes.  I edged them all with a black marker.  As I was gluing the leaves down, I realized that these things barely even begin to touch all the things for which I am thankful.  God has just blessed me in so many ways.

I wanted to add just a little spark of brightness, so I punched two red birds with a Martha Stewart punch and then trimmed off the wings to give them a different shape.  I also punched some flowers.  The leaves are a single punched flower cut apart.  The stems were cut freehand. 

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I hope you are feeling blessed, too.