WAKE UP ...

 

I'm struck how very differently this page ended up from its early beginnings - I do love it when that happens and you end up not going in the direction you thought you might!  In fact I was having a conversation with my other half on quite a serious subject in the middle of this, which might account for a swerve going on in my mind?

Anyway, thought I would show more of my process with this.  The blue background is acrylic paint on top of gesso, which I then splodged with a baby wipe to give this textured look.  I'm moving away from using collage sheets and enjoying using (free!) bits and pieces cut from magazines, found circulars etc.  What I don't like is shiny paper, and I rarely use the stuff - but then again my heroine Teesha Moore uses lots of it, although I think she gives her work a coat of gel medium when its finished so that its kind of shiny anyway.

My prejudice against shiny paper means that I am always searching for matte images - and more and more circulars (and even some magazines) seem to be going in that direction.  This was a Fairtrade flyer which I'd finished with, and I liked the simple teardrop shapes and wanted to use them.  I save stuff like this in my collage box.

Then I got out a stencil to make the background more interesting - and this is what I use, a sponge dabber which goes on your finger and a water based ink pad.  It works for me, and I never had a lot of luck with paint and stencils, it always bleeds and makes a mess!

I knew when I started that what I wanted to do was some zentangle style doodling on the teardrop shapes, which as you can see below worked out well.  I also added some stamps and the headline cut from another flyer (local estate agents paper).  The message to wake up originally concerned a completely different subject, but my conversation with the old man send me in another direction.  (He came and peered over my shoulder at about this point).

And this is how it all ended up, a result I'm pleased with because once again I've stretched myself and tried something new.  I like it.  You can see from the pictures above and below that I outlined the teardrops using my Posca paint pens and added more pink to balance the page out.  My preferred pen for the doodling is a Pigma Micron, which I have in a number of thicknesses.

Only just noticed that I've virtually obliterated the stencilling, but I never worry about that, putting down different layers and then covering them up is all part of the process!