Autumn is one of my very favorite seasons. After so many weeks of hot humid weather, I feel invigorated by the return of cool, crisp mornings. Walking with Muppet (our rescued mixed-breed dog) is totally enjoyable! When she first came to live with us several years ago as an 8-month-old puppy, we walked many miles together each week. She learned to be patient as I stopped to collect beautiful fall leaves. I carefully pressed them in an old phone book until they were completely dry and later collaged them into an art journal to use as reference.
During this LIVE Drama-free Friday the leaves in my journal provided the perfect inspiration for an art journal page in the Breathe Creative Journal. The prompt suggested collecting leaves and adding them to one page while the facing page was reserved for drawing the collage. Since all of my leaves were already attached in a different journal, I chose my favorite shapes and sketched them in pencil on the “collection” page. Next, I drew over the lines with a fast-drying, permanent Pigma Micron Pen.
To add color to the page, I chose Distress Oxide Inks in autumn colors. I smeared the colors on a piece of Palette Paper and used a wet brush to pick up the colors as paint to fill each leaf. I filled some shapes with one color and others with several colors to see how the inks blended. I love the soft, chalky appearance of these inks! I brushed the left over colors all over the facing page so as not to waste anything.
Once the Oxides were dry, I filled the background with Broken China Distress Oxide in the same way that I colored the leaves. One thing to note. . . the paper in the Breathe Creative Journal is a text weight paper and certainly not intended to absorb much wet paint. Although the paper wrinkled somewhat, I don't find it objectionable. In fact, I think it gives more character to the pages. 😉
Details inside the leaves were easy to add with Prismacolor Pencils. I used many light layers of pencil to develop some depth and brightness. I love the way the inks and pencils worked together! I wanted the leaves to stand out against the background a bit more, so I chose a dark blue Pastel Pencil that I blended with a Blending Stump. To stop the pencil and pastel from rubbing off the page, I sprayed a coat of Workable Fixatif over everything.
The facing page became the perfect place to record my autumn memories as well as all the things I particularly love about fall. I chose Sakura Gelly Roll Pens for my journaling because I love the colors and quality of Sakura products. As always, I edged the pages with Cobalt Archival Ink because I like the way it looks.
Below you can see both the inspiration leaves as well as the completed art journal pages.
Please join me every Drama-free Friday at 2pm Eastern for some art and chat. You never know what I'll be doing, but it's always fun!
Until next time ~
Remember to Get Creative today! It's Easy!!
Barb
