Sunday 5 February 2017

Journal52 #5 Anticipation: All Caught Up

Three art journal pages in less than a week; that's a record for me.  To be honest though, none of the pages have taken me more than a couple of hours from start to finish (not counting drying time), and the ideas have come thick and fast.  This page 'Anticipation' is in honour of my brother, who will be visiting the UK from his home in Canada in a short while, for only the second time in over a decade.  I can't wait to see him, even though we keep in touch via Skype.
 
I wanted to keep the colour palette simple beige/grey with the maple leaves (in honour of Canada) in bright red to match the flag. I laid a section of the Town Super Stencil by Claritystamp along the bottom of the page and initially used stencil brushes and Adirondack ink pads to create an ombre effect from light to dark (Lake Mist, Pebble, Latte, Mushroom, Espresso).  I was pleased with the effect, but realised that the ink would react with water.  When I tried to seal it with a light coat of Mod-Podge, the image smudged, so I had to start again.
 



 This time I decided to use the paint dabbers instead.  Unfortunately I don't have Latte, so instead added each of the other four colours onto my large Gelli plate, brayered them together and 'stamped' onto my page through the stencil.  Although the image didn't come out quite as clearly, I was able to pull another couple of prints onto deli paper, having added some Buff Titanium paint over the dried on Adirondacks. I dry brushed some of the Lake Mist paint over the top half of the page to complete the background.
 




The Claritystamp Maple Leaves stencil provided the perfect tumbling leaf effect that I wanted to add at the top of the page to represent my brother flying back home from Canada.  I started by masking off the area that I didn't want to use and then added Pebeo high density modelling paste through the rest.  I then set the page aside for an hour to dry.  As you can see from the picture, I didn't get the smoothest effect through the larger leaves, but I wasn't too upset as I was intending to add colour anyway.
 



Having cleaned the stencil and used my heat tool to speed along the drying process, I placed the stencil back over the leaves and brushed Dylusions Postbox Red paint over the top of the raised areas.  i was delighted with the contrast between the splash of colour in the foreground and the more subdued background colours.




 





Once again, I used the Word Chain Alphabet stamps by Claritystamp to add the word 'Anticipation'.  By combining a mixture of upper and lower case letters, I was able to stamp the word in one go.  I laid the letters down on my page, mimicking the falling leaves before picking them up with an acrylic block and inking them up.  I used Coffee Archival ink as I didn't wish to introduce another colour and felt that Black would be too stark a contrast.  I love the quirkiness of this alphabet.
My finishing touch was to stamp the heart from the Emojis stamp set by BoBunny in Vermilion Archival ink above the second 'i' in anticipation; an additional splash of red to go with the leaves, this heart dotted the i and reflects my feelings towards my brother's impending visit.  I can't wait to see him!

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