Today's Art Journals and Pages

I've been working on two art journals the last few days. By this morning they were ready for paint. YAY! The larger journal is just a composition book I glued and taped pages together, then primed with gesso.  The smaller is made of 8 1/2" x 11" watercolor paper I tore in half then stiched all the pages together to form the book.  The final size is about 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" closed.  I typically work on two projects at a time just to get the most use out of my supplies. For example I used bubble wrap to pull off some paint in the smaller journal, then stamped the bubble wrap on the larger journal pages.  I've created both of these art journal just for me.  A place I can play, get the flow, and just see what comes out.  It really helped this morning.  I figured out a few supplies I'm low on, a few things I need to practice, and got a general arty flow going.

I'm terrible at remembering to take "in between" shots of my projects. And the lighting at my desk isn't the best for pics. I haven't mastered my camera enough yet to jump that hurdle, but I'm working on it. Anyway, I've got a good start on some background pages shown above. But I'm itching to put more layers down. I love layers.  I tried a few new techniques with watercolors.  Lifting paint off with a wet stamp, and sprinkling salt on the wet watercolors, and just experimenting in general.

This is the final art journal page in the smaller book. I was drawn more to this today so that's what I finished up. I didn't give myself a whole lot of time to detail, I just went with it. I don't expect that I will come back and work on it more. I'm just gonna let it be what it is.  I can't say that I love it.  But I do appreciate it.  I was clearly really drawn to blue this morning, and the last week or so.  By the time I got these pages done I was blued out.  I'm pretty happy to have worked that out of my system.  I get bored if I stay too much with one color too long.  But it seems like sometimes that color just needs to be exercised out, otherwise I just keep coming back to it and my work gets monotonous.

The above project is one I'm hoping to finish up today. It'll be heading to Salt Lake City. It's sat on my desk for a week with me brainstorming on what I wanted to do to finish it up. Sunday afternoon I had that "ah ha!" moment with an idea that just felt "right". It all clicked. Hoping to have this completed to share tomorrow.

Have a great day everyone!