cultivate the garden

Hello, my friends.  With a couple of days of warm, 60 degree weather, it's easy to anticipate Spring on the way.  Of course, being in Wisconsin, I'm pretty sure we'll see more snow and cold temps before it gets here. 

In the OWSE Yahoo group, there is a challenge for March to make a spring art journal page/spread.  I did a single page.  I had a page started, with gesso and some paint brushed on, but I wanted different colors, so I started with a stencil and red and pink paint mixed together.  I just sponged the paint over the stencil on the lower part of the page and let it dry.  Then I sponged some blue paint on the upper part of the page.  Needless to say, the red was way too bright, so I took white paint mixed with glazing medium and brushed over the page.  

I stamped a bunch of flowers, leaves and butterflies from SU's Summer Solstice set with tuxedo black ink and colored them with copic markers and cut them out.  I tried several colors before deciding on the orange flowers.  But now my background really wasn't the right color, so I lightly sponged more white paint over it, and then added some splotches of yellow paint with a sponge.  It's pretty hard to tell there's red paint underneath.  I liked that much better. 

I decided on placement of the flowers and leaves, but didn't glue them down.  First I needed to print out the sentiment.  I came across the sentiment in a book I was reading and thought it was perfect for a spring page.  So I typed it on my computer and printed it out on white card stock.  I cut all the words apart and added some black marker along the edges with the side of the brush tip on my marker.  Then I laid them all out to make sure everything was going to fit. 

When I decided I like the layout, I made stems for the flowers with a black Pigma pen and then attached the leaves and flowers.  Next came all the words and then the butterflies. 

Of course, I needed to add some doodling, butterfly trails and faux stitching.  And I really like the final result.  I hope you do, too.

Thanks so much for stopping by.