Progress

These pages are a real mix with a little bit of this and a little bit of that to finally end up with a spread for Colour Me Positive 2017 where this week's prompt was: Progress.

When I am working in my art journals I always have another smaller journal nearby into which I dump the left over gesso, paint and spray I'm working with.  In this case it's a 6 x 8" Seawhite of Brighton journal. I try out rubber stamps and clean off stencils and generally fill it without any regard for design or planning. So it is a bit disturbing that I frequently like the results in this journal better than what I am doing in my "official" art journals.

In fact, I liked the results of the background so much that I made the decision to continue on with it and make it my spread for Colour Me Positive, by collaging on the figure and the quotation I found by Khalil Gibran: "Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing to what will be".  In honour of Khalil I also added some collage with Islamic patterns.

The random things I did on these pages in the background came from ideas from a variety of sources. Someone (Nathalie Kalbach) mentioned gold gesso, so of course I immediately felt an urgent need for it and tried scraping it onto the pages (love it). Someone else (Kasia on Wanderlust) told us to add masking tape scraps so I did (had to glue them on with matte medium as they kept coming off). I did like the additional texture they provided. I had just acquired a bottle of High Flow Golden fluorescent pink so that was added to the mix (you can never go wrong with a bit of pink!).

I also used stencil L474 Mesa Verde, designed by Nathalie Kalbach for Stencilgirl Products, as well as one of Nathalie's stamp sets. This one is called Marks. You will also notice I tried out that little spirals stamp on this spread (unknown source), and went to work making marks with a Stabilo All black pencil. The pages were edged with a blue stamp pad. The circles were stencilled on through a piece of sequin waste.

Finally I wrote the quotation using my new Jane Davenport Inkredible Pen on one of the pages you find in the middle of Somerset Studio magazine, tore them out, edged the pieces in blue and glued them on. As you can tell I had fun with these pages and I like the end result. Eventually this journal too will end up filled with art.