I’ve been journaling on the same page for a week, and then turning it into art. I really like this practice, so I’m going to keep doing it each week. Here are my last three weeks.
Tag: gesso
Full Pink Moon 2019 Art Journal Spread
I’ve been participating in Effy Wild’s Moonshine course since January. I love how it’s helped me become more aware of the moon’s cycles. I’ve noticed that since I’ve created a ritual around creating at new moon and full moon each month, I receive visions tied to them each month. When a vision comes to me, which usually happens a few days before new moon and full moon, I try to get down a rough sketch, and then I just let my mind work for the next few days on how to translate what I’ve been shown onto paper.
Below is my full pink moon art journal spread. It is a bit different than the vision I received. In the vision, I saw a woman curled up inside the center of a fully-bloomed rose which was encased in a full pink moon. For this spread, I covered the page with gesso. Once dried, I sprayed it with water and added several different colors of Brusho crystals. I then created a moon mask with cardstock and painted the remainder of the page with black and payne’s gray acrylic paint. I sprayed gold and white acrylic ink on the background once it was dry. I then applied a stencil from Sarah Trumpp with gold acrylic paint to add texture to the moon. Adding the curled form in the center was difficult. I ran into a lot of issues with pens that would not write on the surface, and so it took several tries to get her to a place I was okay with. I traced her image onto the moon using carbon paper, then tried to outline her with white which didn’t work out very well. So, I painted the image with black acrylic, and then tried once again to outline her with white. It still didn’t work out. I took a baby wipe and wiped most of what I had done away, and then added the same stencil image with gold acrylic as I had added to the moon. That left her looking a bit snakish. So, I took a gold gel pen, outlined her, and then started to outline some of the markings from the stencil, and that created an image that I was really happy with. Since this moon was a full pink, willow moon, I added willow leaves with a stabilo-all white pencil, so they would be less prominent than if I had used a gel pen. Overall, I really love how this spread turned out.
Daily Art Devotions: Day Two
For day two of #DailyArtDevotions with Elizabeth Foley, I continued prepping my repurposed book for my #artjournal by gluing pages together and adding watercolor paper, different colored cardstock paper, canvas paper, and black art paper. Then I completed the first page with watercolor, gold gesso (which I made by mixing gold acrylic paint and white gesso), calligraphy markers, and a sketch I had drawn on tracing paper that I glued onto the page. Then I worked on a few additional pages in the journal. I added the mandala that I created during the Art of Spiritual Living Retreat into this art journal, and I think I will color it in at some point. The travel page is cut out from one of my favorite magazines, Daphne’s Diary.
More Sketchbook Play
For today’s creative practice, I decided to do more #SketchbookPlay and test out a technique I discovered while playing yesterday: dual brush markers spread out with a wet paint brush over gesso. It was AMAZING! I love the soft, glowing look it creates. I loved it so much that I kept on going. I added stenciling with distress and archival inks. Then I added butterfly stamps using more distress and archival inks. Then I added Bombay ink sprayed from a spritz bottle, and more water with a paint brush. I love the result…AND it’s been a lot of fun taking a break from my art classes just to play.
EMI Internal Compass and Finished Idea Journal
I am participating in EMI’s year-long Quest, and for today’s sketchbook practice, I completed the first step of this month’s art prompt. The prompt had to do with marking your internal compass using colors, words, images, and symbols of your own choosing. Then throughout the week, you add whatever comes to you building upon the foundation you created. I used an old piece of round cardboard that had been part of the packaging of something I received in the mail (I can’t remember what). I covered it in white gesso, and then used a red paint marker to mark the compass. I then used acrylic paint for the color and symbols.
In the Quest, we are always looking for the red thread (common theme) throughout each of our steps, so I decided to write the four directions and their questions in red. Then I chose symbols and colors that spoke to me. For North/Earth I chose purple and the symbol I kept seeing was home. For East/Air, I chose green, and the symbol that came to me was wings. For South/Fire, I chose yellow, and the symbol that came to me was flames. For West/Water, I chose red, and the symbol that came to me was a magic wand. I look forward to seeing how this develops over the next week.
As a little extra, I thought I would also share pictures of my completed idea journal. The cover didn’t turn out how I had envisioned, but the rainbow cording I used to bind it together is divine.
Sarah Joyce Bryant 