SECOND FLOOR CHALLENGE - HIGH FIVE!

For this week's Second Floor Challenge you had to choose ONLY 5 items to work with.  This includes the surface you are working on.  I decided to do an art journal page so my first item was my journal.  I nearly always coat my pages with gesso, and besides, gesso is such a great medium for doing other things so that was item #2.  I love my Pitt pen for adding quotes when I am done with my background so that was item #3.  I realized that I needed something to apply the gesso and whatever else I used so for me that would be #4, an old credit card.  I just got a new set of tubed watercolor paints so I decided that would be my last item.  Now to get to work.

I started as I usually do by coating my journal page with gesso using a credit card.  (3 items used already!)  I put little blobs of watercolor paints one at a time and smeared them with the credit card.

I was happy with this but realized it would be too dark for my black Pitt pen.  I could either switch to a white Sharpie paint pen or lighten things up by adding more gesso.  I opted for the gesso as the Pitt pen really is my favorite as it never skips no matter what I am writing on.  

Now for my final item - the black Pitt pen.  I began to write my quote and realized that some of the paint was still a tad too dark to get a clear reading with the pen so I added more gesso.

and now to finish my quote and hence finish my project!

Just like Julie and Nathalie said, this was much harder to do than one would think.  I am so glad that I chose gesso as one of my items.  It gave me the flexibility to continue to make changes as I went along.  

The quote is by Beverly Sills.  It is "...You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."  I loved this quote as I love to try new things - sometimes they work well, sometimes they don't but I would never know if I didn't try.

Hope you have enjoyed this 7th visit to the Second Floor.