Sunday, August 12, 2012

waterlilies

Hello, my friends.  It's been wonderful having a few days that are cool enough not to need the A/C on.  But I think it's supposed to get hot again this week.  I'm also starting to get a few ripe tomatoes from the plants on my patio.  They taste soooo much better than the ones you get at the grocery store.

This week I've been working on a challenge for OWSE Yahoo group art journal club.  It's a background made using thick gesso and an embossing folder.  Since I don't have any thick gesso, I decided to make some.  I found several recipes on line, so I sort of ad libbed and mixed up some white glue, baby powder, water and white acrylic paint until I had a pretty thick solution.  Then I spread some on my page and pressed my embossing folder into it.  When I lifted the folder off, I could tell that my solution wasn't really thick enough.  I scraped some of it off, let it set for a couple of minutes and then did the embossing folder thing again.  Although it was better, I still wasn't completely satisfied with the result.  I was really hoping the pattern of the embossing folder would show more, but there was only a slight resemblance.  So for the facing page, I decided to use Spackle instead.  The result was similar to my homemade gesso, even though the Spackle was a better consistency for the technique.

I let the pages dry and then sanded over some of the rougher areas, and then painted the pages with a very watered down blue acrylic paint.  The next step was adding some distress ink with a sponge.  I used faded jeans and chipped sapphire. 

The next step was to use some ink spray on an embossing folder and then use it like a stamp, pressing it on the page.  This part didn't work at all, since I had so much texture, there really wasn't enough solid surface to pick up the ink.  I only got a few little spots where the ink showed.

I thought the pages looked so much like water, I decided to follow through on that theme and made some waterlilies and lily pads.  I made a pattern for the leaves and cut them from wild wasabi card stock and then sponged the edges with always artichoke and purely pomegranate ink.  I used a stylus to make a center vein on each leaf.

The lilies are made with a 6 petal flower punch.  I sponged the centers of each white flower with pink passion ink and then used a stylus to make the flowers curl.  I stacked five for each lily.  For the centers, I punched some yoyo yellow with another flower punch.  I trimmed off the tips of the petals on one and left the other, using two for each of the flowers.  I sponged the edges with pink passion and then glued each flower all together.

I decided to use this spread for my August Divine Design Bible Verse challenge on SCS, so I chose Psalm 51: 10 as my verse. Because my computer died about a week ago, I'm temporarily using DH's extra laptop, which doesn't have all the programs I usually use, so instead of printing out my verse, I hand printed it (about five times, since I messed it up a few times).  I finally managed to get one that looked OK.  I sponged the edges with artichoke ink and then glue it down.  I really love how this spread turned out.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Have a wonderful week.

3 comments:

krcmasterpiece said...

I like your style! Love your journal using the emboss folder technique.
I'm a new follower!!

Come visit me @ krcmasterpiece.blogspot.com

Starla said...

LOVE your water lilies! They are perfect!
I admire the way you stuck to using the technique despite it not "working" as you hoped. I probably would have filed it in the recycle bin! LOL!

Ohana in Bend said...

what a beautiful outcome to your technique trials. i love the colors, the flowers and most especially Psalm 51:10.
i am going to try your idea, less trying to make my own thick gesso (i have some on hand) but am inspired to try you other techniques! blessing to you and your family.