Yesterday I was determined to accomplish something, anything in the studio. I’ve been wanting to experiment with peeling paint off my palette and using it in some manner. So I decided to try it on one of the junk mail cards. It peeled off in chunks and strips and I used Liquatex Matte Medium to glue it to the card. I discovered that side that is against the palette is often very differently colored than the front, so you get some surprises.

Another underpinning! Again, this is a text example, but this time, the text was added to a gessoed page using rubber stamps and various colors of Archival ink. When the stamped images dried, I went over them with a heat gun, just to make sure they were set. Then a light coat of gesso was applied. This knocks back anything that is too strong, and insures that the next layer will not cause the ink to bleed.

Today, I have another underpinning. This week I am experimenting with different ways to get text texture added to the backgrounds of pages. Here, I’ve used various sheets of printed text, torn into pieces and glued to the page with matte medium. There are pieces from books, junk mail, calculation sheets, a print out, and even some hand written notes. After the papers dried, I added a light coat of white gesso to knock back the contrast while allowing the texture to still peek through.

Things are changing rapidly over the world. That got me to thinking about all of my friends who live, not only in my country, but around the world. My art friends, my Zentangle friends, my Facebook friends. I want all of them to know that I think about them. I worry about them. I pray for them. And if I could do something for them, I would and I will.

This week, I challenged the members of the Micro Art Journaling group on Facebook to create a page or layout that included the color green, with the theme of healing. It’s a stressful time, and we need to think about taking care of ourselves. It is important to maintain as much inner peace and calm as possible, along with taking care of ourselves and our community. Because of this, I’ve chosen to create a “glue book” style layout using colors chosen to represent watermelon tourmaline.

A while back I showed you a page in my art journal that was just a scribbled background. I call this kind of page an “underpinning” because it is what will end up under whatever else goes on the page. It may or may not show in the final version. I’m making a section in my journal of various type of underpinnings. I’m showing you this one this week because I’m working with teal, yellow and grey.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m working with the colors Teal, Yellow and Grey this week. I decided to do a layout in my micro art journal. As I was looking for papers in the appropriate color scheme, I came across this big yellow partial circle shape in a magazine. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I cut it out and set it aside.

I’m tackling an older (from January) color challenge this week: Teal, Yellow and Grey. This is another small (2-5/8” x 4”) card cut from a junk mail advertisement. I began by swiping the three colors in various places across the card. When that dried, I used a stencil to add the deeper, teal-blue design. I also added a few yellow hexagons. To me, the lighter color near one side of the card looked like water, so I reinforced that with a bit more streaks.

I showed you a page from my art journal on Friday. If you remember, it had a design issue: The way it was laid out, the page was divided into distinct quarters with no flow between them. I decided to tackle a revision of the design. The first step was to get rid of the worst parts and restore the basic design as best as I could. I began with Liquatex white and bright aqua green gouache.

This is both a fail and a win. Initially, I started with the second color scheme challenge for February. I had brushed on streaks of Bright Aqua Green, Quinacridone Magenta and Dioxazine Purple. These colors are intense. I didn’t like what they looked like on the page. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to tone it all down and possibly cover it up with a coat of gesso.

Yesterday, I challenged the members of the Micro Art Journaling FB group to practice mark making. That was the inspiration for this layout in my tiny art journal. I began with a Carbon Black, Liquatex marker. I made marks around the pages to create a kind of frame. Next, I used Medium Magenta, Brilliant Purple and Light Blue Permanent, Liquatex markers to add scribbles of color to the pages.

This is the reverse side of the card I showed you yesterday. When I flipped the card over, there was this shape that was part of a speech bubble in the advertisement that was originally on the paper. When I flipped the card upside down, the shape reminded me of a bird, so I went for it. This began with painting the lighter blue, and violet color on the card, avoiding the bird shape.

This is a simple color test for a color challenge for this month. The colors are Light Blue Permanent, Deep Violet and Prussian Blue. This is a small (2-5/8” x 4”) card cut from a junk mail advertisement. I hate to throw perfectly good paper and cardstock away, so I often cut the cardstock into this size/shape pieces. Then I use the small cards for various small art. In this case, the card was mostly white with a small amount of printing.

I’m creating a section in my art journal for things that I call “underpinnings”. These are basically ways to break the blank page syndrome that befalls all artists from time to time. It’s also a good way to pull out your supplies and try new things, because you can always cover it up and move on if you really don’t like it. So this is my first one. It was done using Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayons on “raw”, not gessoed paper.

Here’s another color wheel added to my Art Journal. (You can see the previous one here.) For the previous wheel I used opaque colors. This one was created using colors that are more transparent: Quinacridone Magenta, Pthalocyanine Blue (Green Shade) and Indian Yellow. The center ring is the pure paints mixed with each other. The outer ring is these mixtures with Titanium White and the inner ring is these colors mixed with Ivory Black.