IT MAKES ME SMILE ...

These colours are just so JOYFUL aren't they - just splodging about with them made me smile and cheered me up, so I was working on this page and giggling to myself whilst doing it.  If I keep this up there may be doubts about my sanity!

Anyway, below you can see how it all began, acrylic paint in wide curving bands across the page, with a few shapes cut out from my collection of collage bits and pieces. Some of it is sections cut from colour copies taken from previous journals, and the rest is bits of magazines and other publications.  What I liked most about the page at this stage was the touches of red which really added something ....

So I added a few more reds - you might notice that the piece in the top left is redder than before.  I coloured it using my Promarkers, which is a great way to change cuttings to suit your purpose!  I was having fun with this, and had no particular theme or message in mind, and in the end I just wrote about how happy the colours made me.  The red spots were added with my Posca paint pen, which is wonderfully opaque and writes over anything.

And then the red spots sort of took over!  I admit there are rather a lot of them, but what the heck I was enjoying myself.

Sorry this is a rather brief post - we have had a new grandson this week and I have been somewhat distracted by this joyful news.

I also wanted to add these pictures which should have been included with last week's post, which shows the difference adding water makes to Caran d'Ache Neocolour crayons.

  

On the left is what the page looks like when you've scribbled with the crayons, and on the right you can see what happens when you add water!!  Perhaps this demonstrates just why I love them so much - alchemic magic!!

AN EARLY AUTUMN??

 

I made this page just over a week ago, one of those times when I'm recording life around me rather than wrestling with stuff I find difficult.  I do both.  Historically I've always dreaded the approach of Autumn - it comes from decades of living in old, cold houses with not enough money to heat them properly.  Every year I have to remind myself that I now live in a modestly sized house which has cavity wall insulation and double glazing, and that I won't have to huddle in 3 sweaters and fingerless gloves if I want to make art!

Anyway, this was one of those pre-prepared backgrounds I regularly make - in this case blue paint with Neocolour II crayons in fuschia pink around the edge, plus some ink blot/rings stamped in purple and burgundy.  I've got lots of ink pad colours because I like to use them as you might watercolours.

Then when I decided I'd make a page about the early Autumn, this didn't seem quite the right sort of colour palette, I mean shouldn't it be golds and browns?  Then I thought, it can be any colour I like, so why not blue and burgundy?  I had some new leaf stencils I wanted to play with so tried these out with gesso, added a wormhole or two and some bits of collage.  As you can see the white didn't really work too well for the leaves.

So I went back and outlined the leaves with a fine point pen, added a Modigliani lady who looks a bit cold if you think about it, and doodled some dots.  I still wasn't that thrilled with the leaves, but didn't hate them enough to trash the page.

My solution in the end was to introduce some some colour into the leaves, and that seemed to work out OK, although now I wish I'd left them black and white.  Never mind.  Anyway, I do rather like the finished page, particularly the colour scheme.  The burgundy dots were done with my Posca paint pens, as were the light pink doodles on the collage - this is where their opacity really comes into its own.

But best of all, where I am right now we're having a bit of an Indian summer, so long may it continue!  It won't of course, but I don't need to dread winters any more - maybe I'll do a journal page about looking forward to snuggling up by the fire in my favourite blanket and warm PJs, watching feel-good films on the TV as I wait for it to be Christmas ....

PS: Still loving this new square journal!