A new beginning...

Happy September to you and happy art journaling day to me! Today, I plan on playing with some Dylusional Ink and making a fun two page spread in my composition book- turned journal. I've found that my comp books don't scare me like the hard cover journals...I'm not afraid to just let go and let the paint (or ink) fly! I normally use Strathmore spiral bound journals, but I bought a couple hard cover books and everytime I open one of them, I freeze up. Using the comp book was a quick fix because it was "there", and now I'm having some fun. I'm hoping I'll get so relaxed that I can move on to the hard cover journals without bursting into tears. :-)

Before I start playing with something new, I want to share this page with you that was totally inspired by Kathy at the Paper Pumpkin.

When working with a comp book, I like to first glue a couple pages together to give them a bit more body, and then apply a coat of gesso to the top of the page. Comp book paper is smooth and doesn't have any "teeth" for the ink/paint to hold onto. Without it, Dylusional Inks just sink into the paper rather than mix together and blend as you want them to. You can watch Dyan Reavely's videos for some great demonstrations on how to use her ink sprays. She's fabulous and so much fun!

The background is a combination of stamps and stencils that I use most often, and then I stenciled the flowers in the foreground with a black Micron. Once I filled in the color with Prisma pencils, I outlined them again with ink and black marker to make them pop. My beautiful vintage lady is a print that I picked up at Pringle Hill. I outlined her with black marker as well so she wouldn't just blend into the background.

All in all, I was really quite pleased with the end result, and very happy with the inspiration from the Paper Pumpkin!