The super sweet and amazingly talented Courtney Walsh invited me to take part in a wonderful special event on her blog celebrating the release of her novel A Sweethaven Summer. I chose to create a project on the topic of forgiveness. I had a very personal reason for choosing that topic and shared a bit about that on Courtney's blog.
I generally don't share much persoanl stuff here, so I will just focus on sharing some project details. I will say that as I worked on this page and re-visited my art journal after not creating a page for it in a long time, I remembered what I love about art journaling. . . there is not right or wrong to it. For a long time, I resisted the urge to create what I would consider an art jouranl because I am not a journaler. I imagined that to "art journal" you needed to be introspecitve and write about what you were feeling about whatever was prompting your page. With the help of two amazing friends and incredible art journalers (Dyan Reavely and Dina Wakely), I found that wasn't true, art journaling could be anything I wanted it to be. It is completely mine to do how ever I want. For me, that means that I may make a page that just looks like a pretty little piece of inky stampy art to someone else, but to me, it may tell a story told through the colors, images, and techniques I choose. I usually choose a quote or phrase to capture my mood rather than journaling. I find that no matter how long of time has passed, when I re-visit the page, I still know just what I was thinking. There is something grand and amazing in all of that and in what art and creativity gives you as you move through things, events, and phases in life.
The base of this page is a cardstock weight paper with notebook lining printed on it. I came in the binder that I used for my art journal.
I inked the new (and fabulous) Tim Holtz wood grain stamp with Walnut Stain Distress Stain and stamped the image onto my page. I love stamping with the stains because they give a very fluid looking image. In some areas the image will be sharp and others it will be runny.
After drying the woodgrain image, I blended Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans Distress Ink on the edges and onto the face of the page. I used Black Soot on the edges only to give a sharp edge. I like the way that the color goes from dark to light in the center.
I stamped a strip of vellum with the butterfly stamp strip from the Papillon stamp set using Jet Black Archival Ink. After the ink was dry, I colored the butterfiles with assorted colors of Distress Markers.
Because I wanted a very fluid look, I misted the colored butterflies with water. The markers react and move with water, which makes the color move and blend. I dried the vellum with my heat tool. The heat tool warped and crinkled the vellum up a bit, which was perfect for the feel I wanted to achieve. I inked the torn side edges of the vellum with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.
Before adhering the vellum strip, I stamped my phrase on the page using Jet Black Archival Ink and Hero Arts Printers Type Uper and Lowercase alphabet stamps.
At the bottom I used a combination of Hero Arts Playful Flowers Alphabet stamps along with the Printers Type Lowercase Alphabet. I also hand wrote a little. I have nice handwriting I think but for some reason it kills me to use it on a project.
After the quote was done I adhered the vellum strip to the page and added sewing along the top and bottom. I love the way the words show through the vellum. I think of it was the truth being there but not always being super clear.
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