Snarky Fish? An Art Journal Page

I had a play in my Strathmore Visual Journal trying out some different background techniques.  As I added text, I am entering this into the June Challenge over on Country View Challenges:  The Written Word.  I rather like the snarky comments on the Dyan Reaveley stamps and have used a few of them recently.

I started by adding drops of Bahama Blue, Calypso Blue, Indian Turquoise and Sea Breeze Americana paints from DecoArt directly onto the journal pages and brayering them out until most of the background was covered.

Next, I added texture using my large Gelli plate.  I brayered Sea Breeze and Indian Turquoise paint onto the plate, lifted some of the paint off using giant bubble wrap, then stamped the plate onto the pages.  In hindsight, I should have used a deeper shade of blue, as the effect was rather too subtle.  I did however get a lovely sheet of copy paper from cleaning off my brayer and gelli plate, so have another ready made background to use another day.

For further interest, I used the Bubble Wrap stamp from Kaisercraft (held in my hand) and Forget-Me-Not Archival ink to stamp a further layer.

The coral stamp from the Tropical Fish and Coral set by Claritystamp was added in Library Green Archival ink and coloured using Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pens.

A border was created round the page by blending Mermaid Lagoon Distress Oxide through the Seaweed frame stencil (also by Claritystamp).

The three fish from the same set as the coral were stamped onto Sheena's stamping card in Jet Black Archival ink.  They were cut out using the Direct Cut option on my Brother Scan N Cut to save time.  Carved Pumpkin Distress Oxide was blended over the images to colour them, then a Pitt Artist pen in Terracotta used to add depth of colour.

Before being added to the page, the landlocked area on the bottom fish was removed using a craft knife.  Once added to the page, a Neocolour II crayon and a water brush provided further shading around each fish.

One of the snarky sentiments from the Don't Hold Back set (Dyan Reaveley / Dylusions / Ranger) was stamped in Onyx Black Versafine ink onto scrap card, heat embossed in detail clear EP and fussy cut.  The panels were added to the left hand page.

To finish, bubbles were added on the left hand page using the Jo's Bubbles stencil (Claritystamp), blending Mermaid Lagoon through the stencil using the Claritystamp blending pen for precision.  A Sakura white, gelly roll pen added detail to each bubble.