WiP Journal Pages-Before and After

The first spread I did in the plaster and wire journal that I made, inspired by Jeanne Oliver's free class (See the previous post for the Wandering Muse; Plaster and Wire journal).

It started out with a layer of a pretty blue acrylic paint, which I, unfortunately, sprayed a turquoise/teal color over, then a coffee color, which, instead of a mist, came out in splotches. I did some stenciling in titanium buff, but the turq/coffee paint, although dry, mixed with the buff. I tried taking some paint off. I tried spraying a fixative. The spray paint kept bleeding through.  I added a dark tea bag, some stencils and stamps, napkins, pencil marks, a small gelli plate print (blue cat), more paint, etc. After several layers, this is what it looked like. Too dark and too busy. I didn't like it, but didn't know what else to do to it to lighten it up some.

Then I saw in one of my groups where a lady had a painting that she said didn't have any contrast much in it, so she used a roller to apply white paint over the whole background. The texture in the background picked up the white just enough to allow enough of the colors to shine through to make a huge difference. I thought to myself, "Why not?"

So I mixed a bit of burnt sienna with titanium buff and used my little hard roller to apply it over the top of my very textured pages, and this is what I got. Not sure if I like it better, or not. Part of me really does. I know it needs just a touch of something, and the crow got kind of lost. So this is where it is for now, as I wait for it to tell me what else it needs. The little flap on the right page has a stenciled key on the other side, so there are two hidden keys to all of this chaos. I'm not caring too much for the flap right now, but, for now, it stays.

Close ups of both pages. Now I can see all sorts of little images peering at me through the chaos. I hated to cover up a lot of the stuff that started out on these pages, but it became necessary. I'm thinking the rolled on light paint made the whole thing more cohesive.

Fun to work on, but I'm going to let it rest for a while and grow on me, while I work on some other pages. The experimenting and the process is exciting! It took me years to learn to paint freely, and I enjoy it so much more than I did when I tried to get everything so perfect and realistic looking, which, of course, it never was.

I am so grateful to the teachers who said it's okay for your art to not be perfect, to paint fearlessly, and to enjoy the process!

Don't be afraid to try, to experiment, to play, and to enjoy! It doesn't have to be perfect for you to love doing it!