Something New to Stretch My Wings

The last art journal prompt I worked on was - to spread our wings, reach outside our comfort zone, to try something new. Well. This has 'try-something-new-stretch-your-wings' written all over it!

Believe it or not - I started with this. I used the same journal I've been working in, gessoed a two page spread, then covered it in this beautiful teal Golden's Fluid Acrylic.

Once that was dry, I started adding elements. I used Liquitex matte medium,  coated the back of each piece, stuck it in place and covered the front and the edges with the same product. Basically just glued all this stuff in place. (That piano music is from an old Broadman's hymnal that my grandmother gave to me when I was about ten. I used a page that had fallen out of the book.)

Somewhere I read that Dylusions Ink Sprays spread well if you used your finger and just rubbed them on the page. Whoever wrote that comment needs to be fired. Immediately. I still have pink stains on my fingers and I started this project almost a week ago.

And, as much as I love dylusions, I hated the way this looked. So I used a baby wipe and removed as much as I could. A shame the same doesn't work on your hands. I did like the coloring I was getting then with the teal/blue background and the hints of pink here and there.

I still wanted that crazy pink look - just not the one I got with dylusions - so I took some Jasmine Inka Gold and rubbed it around the two pages. Then I sprayed some Sparkle Shimmer over both pages.

Now I was getting somewhere. I added some texture by smearing texture paste - I actually used modeling paste because my texture paste is MIA - through a stencil, which gave me flowers and cool little circles. Then I brushed a line of dylusions Funky Fuchsia across both pages, tilted the book, and spritzed water, allowing it to run down the pages.

I liked the way the dylusions adhered to the modeling paste. I used my finger to remove modeling paste from the top of the butterfly,  and used some London Blue and Crushed Grape dylusions to rub on the butterfly wings.

I just kept adding color with cheap WalMart acrylics . . .

. . . and Golden's fluid acrylics, until I got a look I was happy with.

I added doodles here and there and tried so many products,  trying to find ones that gave acceptable coverage. I used Derwent's Graphik Line Painters for the black circles. That is a mistake I won't make again anytime soon. Smear. Smudge. Skip. Spit. Not happy. I traded out and started using Posca Paint Pens. Happiness in a paint pen. All the instructions are in Japanese, so I just winged it and did what seemed right.

Then I added some gloss to the butterfly and the box on the left page using some gloss gel medium.
I learned a valuable lesson - even though I still like the way this looks. I forgot that Dylusions Ink Sprays are not waterfast. When I used wet product on top of them - like the posca paint pens - the paint picked up that lovely funky fushcia  and turned the white posca to light pink :).  Ta-da!!! But I'm totally ok with that cause I love pink!
Outside my comfort zone? For sure This is something I've wanted to try for a long time. And I love the way it turned out. Warts and all.