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.

TAKING MY PENCIL TO THE SECOND FLOOR

The sixth challenge on the Second Floor was to use your pencil.  I rarely use pencil so this was a stretch but I knew what I wanted to try right away.  First I took my Tim Holtz Spring and Summer Distress inks and covered my pages.  Next I sprayed them with water, let them drip, mushed them together and eventually rolled paper towel over the last of the dampness.  I loved the color combination.  Next I took out several different Crafter's Worshop templates.  Using a pencil I added them randomly all over the page until I was satisfied.  Here is the result:

I usually use quotes over my art journal backgrounds but I was afraid that the words would get lost in the pencil so it took a bit of deciding for what came next.  I was just at EXPO and picked up a few word stamps at Rubbernecker that I felt would work well on this background because they were bold.  Here's the result:

I hope you have enjoyed another trip with me to the Second Floor.

FLAVOR OF THE WEEK SERVED ON THE SECOND FLOOR

The flavor of the week at Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Summer of Color 2 was Wild N' Reckless Sherbet.  I totally fell in love with the colors the first time I saw them.  I had been planning a canvas for my Second Floor challenge and decided that the colors would make the perfect background.

I covered an 8x10 canvas with gesso and then started dripping on reinkers, gouache paint and oil pastels one at a time and smearing them in with a credit card.  Before adding my Second Floor 'found objects' my canvas looked like this:

I then added a variety of children's game pieces to the canvas and here is the completed piece.

I hope you have enjoyed your sherbet on the second floor!  Thanks for stopping by.

WELCOME BACK TO THE 2ND FLOOR!

For the Second Floor challenge #4 it was to be inspired by circles.  I decided to create a layout for this one using only circles.  This is a stretch for me as I don't often cut my photos into circles.  I also decided that I was going to use inks and paints as I had some great circle templates by Crafters Worshop that I planned to use.  I started with a blank page.  I took the first stencil and inked in a variety of spots.  Then I took my other stencil with the larger circles and various shades of acrylic paint and added those.  They were a little bright so I gesso'd over the whole page to tone it down a bit.  It still seemed to be missing something and I wanted to add another color so I took more ink and the small circle stencil and went to work at filling up the page.  Now I was happy.  Or so I thought.

Next I cut my photos into circles and arranged them on the page.  It was still missing something.  I moved all the photos, got the larger circle stencil back out and took a black marker and traced most of the circles.

Now it was ready for the photos!

And finally, here is my finished layout.

Thanks for stopping by.  

Hope you enjoyed your trip to the Second Floor!

THIRD SECOND FLOOR CHALLENGE

I had so much fun creating these art journal pages.  I used the technique of the week from the Art Journaling Club of the OutlawWomen Scrapbooking Emporium, a project that I needed to complete about myself for the class I am taking with Nana Campana called Ashes to Beauty and the Third Second Floor Challenge which was to do a project prompted by 'truth'.  The technique was to draw puzzle pieces all over the page, gesso the page then color the pieces (which I did with colored pencil and turpenoid) and then do your project on top - which I then added stenciling with Molding Paste, Picket Fence Stain and Gold Paint Dauber, and then writing down the first 10 of my Character Strengths from the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.


Here is my finished work:

I hope you have enjoyed coming with me to the Second Floor and learning a little bit more about me all at the same time as checking out my latest creation.