LEARNING HOW TO COMPOSE AN ART JOURNAL PAGE

(transferred from kaywallacescrapbooking.blogspot.com, dated 6-18-2012)


Composing an art journal page is most generally thought to be a gathering of elements onto your page.  For instance, one might gather papers or paints or chalks, or another might gather papers and paints and chalks!  We don't usually consider the words we add to a journal page (if any) as part of this composition, but rather the icing on our cake.  There are times, however, when we want our words to be the cake (the meat) and not the icing.  It is that thought with which I approached my most recent art journal entry.

I love this old adage providing sage advice:  "Don't make a permanent decision for a temporary emotion."  This has saved me more than once from making the wrong decision!  Since this adage is the focus of my page, I wanted it to stand out above all other elements.  I also wanted to make a collage for my background.  I began with these smallest of scraps in earth tones:

To both adhere the individual strips and to give a sealing topcoat, I used Modge Podge which also gave the page a nice sheen.  I had already prepared a homemade spritz (a squirt bottle with water and a small amount of Perfect Pearls), which I then applied generously, allowing the spritz to drip down the page.  I used my heat gun to randomly push around small pools of color.  This application served to soften some of the brighter colors. 

Once completely dried, I decided the background was still too bold.  I had a background stamp that is large and has a random "dirty" texture to it, so I grabbed that and covered the entire page using this stamp and black ink.  Here's the stamp:

I absolutely loved the result.  It seemed to "mute" everything, yet provided an interesting yet not overpowering background for my quote.  To enhance the presentation of the quote, I printed it on glossy photo paper, then matted each word in black for a very sharp contrast:

So glad that you stopped by to visit my blog and check out another art journal entry.  Please do leave a comment so that I know you were here.

Cheers!