life is good

Hi friends.  Happy Independence Day to all my friends in the USA! 

I recently joined another facebook group - this one about art journaling.  There are lots of prompts and challenges.  It's been some time since I've really done any pages, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to jump back in.  The first challenge was to use two colors of paint, gesso, and some designer paper or old book pages, or some such. 

I normally start all my pages with a coat of gesso, but simply forgot to do that on this one. 

I dripped some paint on the page and then used an old plastic gift card to drag the paint across the page.  I used two different colors separately. 

Then I used a crafter's workshop stencil, mini echoes, and painted gesso through the stencil.  I didn't care for the darker color.  It was much too bold, so I then used a gesso wash and painted over the entire page.  That was much better. 

I wanted to use one of the new Julie Nutting mixed media doll stamps, so I stamped the doll with ruffles with jet black archival ink and colored it with inktense pencils and a water brush.  Then I cut it out. 

I cut some strips of pattern paper that matched the colors on the dress.  I cut the scallops freehand and layered the paper on the edges. 

I pulled out an old flower stamp that I've had for years and never used (really?) and stamped it randomly over the background in purely pomegranate ink and bermuda bay ink. 

Next I attached the doll. 

The final step was printing a sentiment, cutting apart some of the words, sponging around the edges, and gluing them down. I'm happy with my page. 

Thank you so much for stopping by.