When To Stop? - It's Sooner Than I Thought

I've returned to the book. Yes, as you can see, these two pages are in a new art journal/mixed media spiral bound book. I think I'll work in two different ones to begin with. This one's going to have ink and dye based backgrounds. The other has paper more suited to acrylic painted pages.

I tried two different masking ideas for these pages. The first has a straight edge. The second, a torn one. At the moment, I feel the straight version has the edge (pun intended).

I've been flicking through a plethora of books and magazines which show all kinds of mixed media pages, as well as watching a slew of youtube videos. And I kind of had the sense that you put down a background and then layer it up with visual interest. Then you add your focal points and accessorise!

Thing is, once I laid down my stencilled and stamped images, intended to be backgrounds, I looked at the result and thought well these pages are finished.

Future pages may see me adding layer upon layer and going the next stages forward. But not these. I like them as they are. So they are finished sooner than I was expecting.

Time to turn the page.

More Experiments with Paint

Urghhh!!! I have had a week long bout of Man-flu! And it's still lingering. Sore throat, turned into dripping nose, morphing into tickling cough and throughout all these symptoms, lower than average energy. And given my usual low energy output on my best days, I'm doing well to just move.

However, so it doesn't look like I spend all day in front of the TV, bingeing on Netflix TV series (American Horror Story, Bates Motel, Daredevil) I occasionally haul my ass into the art room.

The above page is a result of one of these moments. It's not a page which means anything. It's a play page. I wanted to see how a design would look if I masked off a border. I took a piece of card which I'd previously painted green, slapped on some masking tape and sprayed it red.

The other experiment was to try out a variety of brushes with paint and ink to create a variety of splashes. I used complimentary colours of green to provide contrast and then set about making an educational mess.

In thinking, how to use the page I created, I took a die I have of a mock polaroid, and used it on some card which I had painted blue, which was lying around. I've recently added a new profile photo to my instagram account which I thought would tie in nicely with the polaroid theme. Printed a copy out, attached it, covered it in mod podge and it was good to go.

After some doodling around the edge and writing the two words of journaling (I can still be a minimalist, even in art journals), I was finished.

As you can tell, I haven't moved into a journal yet. However I have inked up a background on one page in a book. So I'm trying it out again. More experiments to do yet I feel. Just get rid of this stinking cold and watch me go at it in a blur of activity!