A Lot of Toads

If you have followed my art for awhile you will already know that my hands-down, go-to art supply is Dylusions Ink Sprays. I love the bright, vibrant colors they give and they are so much fun to play work with. You just can't go wrong as they never fail to deliver. 
There is a group on facebook called The Dylusions Facebook Challenge. It is a group for those of us who love Dylusions and each month (this was the second) they issue a challenge. I am only 3 days late. This is my response to October's challenge . . .

. . . to use colors lime and orange, and mushrooms. I went to my Strathmore mixed media journal and set up a couple sheets of scrap paper to catch overspray. I used a flat brush and spread water onto both pages, then spritzed spots of fresh lime and squeezed orange onto the two pages. If you haven't used dylusions before - you will find by wetting the pages first, then spraying the color onto the wet areas, the colors will bleed and blend and mix and wow! In the photo above it looks like I used a yellow ink but I did not. I only used the one shade of lime and the one shade of orange.

Don't worry about those puddles in the seam of the pages. Those are easily blotted up with some paper towels and they provide texture to your finished product. I also roll the towels across the pages to pick up excess color and water. It softens and smooths out the colors. (Wow! I can see a couple fingernail indentions on the roll. I was using Viva towels - I will never get this brand again. It is so hard to pull the towels apart and rip off the one you want to use.)

Voila! Completed color!

OK, maybe not. How about some drips? I spritzed a little more color, then I held the pages at an angle to let the drips run towards the center of the book. 

I wanted even more drips, so I dipped my paintbrush into a bowl of water and dropped splotches of water onto the outer edge of the page and held the page up so the drips would run. You can see a puddle of color building in that center seam. Just blot it with a towel. I dried both pages with a heat gun.

Let's talk ghosting. This is an easy-peasy way to add texture to a page. Take a stencil - this was a new one from Hero Arts - and hold it down where you want some texture. Spritz water over the top of the stencil and wait about 10 seconds.

Lift the stencil away, wait about 10-15 seconds longer, then blot with a paper towel. You can finish drying with a heat gun. Because dylusions ink sprays are not water-fast, when you add water through the stencil the colors starts lifting away. When you are finished with this process and the page is dry - you get the ghosted images you see above and in the next photo.

Pretty spiffy. (And I have no idea why this page looks so dark. Sorry.)

I did this on both pages.

Layering is a really fun thing to do with your art journal pages. Here I used a Dylusions stamp and stamped some leaves along one edge. 

By off-setting the stamp, I was able to get the illusion of varying heights of leaves.

There are some of those mushrooms and a cute little arrow - more Dylusions stamps. (Part of the challenge is to use as many Dylusions products as you can. Yes, it is a money-making venture but since I already have a ton of Dylusions stuff it works for me :). ) 
Also, you may notice where I didn't do a very good job stamping and missed some of the lines in those mushrooms on the left. 1) I knew I was going to be placing another element over that area so I didn't worry about it. 2) it is a simple fix to draw those few lines back in with a micron.

A lot of people ask me what kind of pens/ink I use to prevent smearing when I add wet product over black ink. For these pages I used black staz-on in an ink pad, but that is not the only way. I print a lot of pieces out on my ink-jet printer that I copic over, and I am stamping more and more. Anytime you use black ink - set it with a heat gun. I have never had any problem with smearing once I heat set the black lines. You should always try this on scrap first before you - heaven help us - ruin that one piece you don't want to remake.

OK, my two-page spread is complete in its first couple of layers. I stamped other images onto cardstock to be used as additional elements. You can see a little of those at the top of the photo.

I colored all the pieces using Pitt Artist Pens, then cut them out. I figured my placement on the pages before I started attaching. (I originally wanted to make her face blue but didn't have a good face blue - hehehehe - so I went with green. Channeling a little Elphaba here maybe.)

There are some little glimpses into the elements I used.

Left page.

Right page.

Hahahaha! So much fun! Next month's challenge is to use red, black, and your favorite Dylusions stamp. Hmmm. I'm thinking the Red Queen. Such a Once Upon a Time fan! Hahahaha!
Linking up to the Artist's Play Room.