Art Journal - I Am Not Who I Was Yesterday...

It's Mixed Media Monday here in the Korner, and today's page was a fun experiment gone right. :)

I've used my Gelatos a bit recently, but so far only for accent coloring and almost always mixed with water or an art medium like texture paste or gesso. I've never made a page or layout using "dry" Gelatos as my only color medium, so that's what I set out to do with this art journal spread in my small Dylusions journal. Heavily inspired by Tracy Scott's colorful style, and itching to play with my new circle stamps, I dove right in. As vivid as these colors may look here, they're even more vivid in person...

I didn't do step-out photos, but the process was simple. I wanted to scribble on the colors, and be able to blend with my fingers, so I applied a coating of gesso to the base pages first. I used a brush, alternating my brush strokes horizontally and vertically, because I hoped the brush strokes would show through as a small bit of texture - and they did...yay!

After applying the gesso, I stamped the circles across the pages using my new Indigo Blu "Limor Circles" stamps ...love these...I'm sure they'll be getting a LOT of use in the future! For lack of a stamp or stencil, I had to hand-draw the flowers onto the pages (using Pitt Artist pens in black).  I always say I can't even draw a recognizable stick figure, so I purposely made these flowers look inexact...but in fact, it's the only way I *can* draw them! LOL

Also, in the background, you can see some black smudges...those are intentional, as a bit more added texture. They're made with one of the other stamps in the Limor Circles set...the largest paint splatter...I just didn't stamp them cleanly and neatly. I inked them up with Archival ink, and used my fingers to press down randomly as I applied the stamp to the page. Once covered with the Gelatos, they're more subdued and fade a bit more into the background.

I started coloring in the circles with Gelatos, then the flowers, then the background. I'd originally planned to list the colors I used, but then I realized there was an easier way. I received this set of Gelatos for Christmas, and the *only* colors I didn't use are the grays and the black! I just layered and rubbed, and layered and blended, until I got the intensity and colors I wanted.

Once the colors were applied, I took a black Pitt Artist pen and a white Uni Posca paint pen and added some small accent circles and white polka dots, and touched up the edges of the flowers that had gotten lightened when applying the colors over them.

Next was to add just a bit of vertical texture by using some modeling paste and a stencil in the corners and through the center of the two pages.

The final piece was to add the sentiment stamp. I used a baby wipe to gently wipe away some of the coloring in the area where I wanted the sentiment, made sure it was dry by hitting it with the heat gun for a few seconds, then stamped the sentiment using a black Big Brush pen applied to the stamp and quickly laying it onto the surface. (As sometimes happen, my hand slid a bit, so I went back over some of the letters with an extra fine Pitt Artist Pen to make sure the letters were all there...oops!)

Because Gelatos are waxy, it's hard to photograph them without getting a bit of reflection back into the camera lens when taking the photo head-on, so I took a few pics around the pages to show you just how vibrant these colors are in real life! 

Starting in the upper left corner...

This is the actual intensity of the pink/orange in the upper corner...much stronger than it appears in the "head-on" photo above due to the way the light bounced off the page in the larger photo...

Wiping away just a bit of the background colors with a damp baby wipe highlights the area around the quote so it pops off the page a bit more...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Faber Castell Gelatos

Stamps:  Indigo Blu "Limor Circles";   Unity Stamp Company "empowered words"

Stencil:   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Confetti"

Art Mediums:   Golden modeling paste and white gesso

Miscellaneous:   Faber Castell Pitt Artist and Big Brush pens;   Uni Posca white pen;  Ranger  Black Archival Ink

Thanks so much for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!