A Saturday spent art journaling...

This past Saturday I took a class from my friend Catherine Scanlon where we made a spiral bound art journal and learned some fun techniques.  This is the journal cover.  It began with a layer of vintage papers and then using a design traced through a stencil, we embellished our covers with washes of acrylic paint and penwork.

In this close-up view you can see how the underlying text comes through the acrylic paint wash - love it!

My favorite page technique is what Catherine calls 'the art of subtraction' where we started with an entire page filled with random watercolor splotches. You then form your design out of the shapes you see and paint out the rest of the page with gesso which takes on a lovely pastel hue from all the watercolor beneath it. I loved the flowers I saw in my piece and it's just amazing watching them develop as you paint in the background surrounding them. I used a favorite Matisse quote to embellish the page further which fit perfectly....although rather crookedly - oops! I still love the page though :-)