CLASSIFIED

 “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you   come alive and go do it; because what the world needs   is more people who have come alive.” 

 - Howard Thurman 

 What makes you come alive? 
One thing that makes me come alive is making art in my Studio. Sometimes, I will go into my Studio and sit down at my table and just play. At those times, I may be putting paint on paper to see if I like the color scheme, or using one of my new stencils to see how it will look, or attempting a technique such as paint splatters or drippage. But when I am seriously working on a journal page, a card, or any other piece of artwork, I usually have an idea in mind. It may be 2 or 3 acrylic colors, a stencil or stamp, inspiration from another artist, or a mixture of those. I’d like to think that my art, in some way, will touch another person by making them feel something, or inspire them. That makes me happy. Don’t be afraid to go do the thing that makes you come alive.

 How to - 

Today I thought I’d share the anatomy of my journal page CLASSIFIED with you. I started with a new stencil TCW681s “Mini Bauhaus” (The Crafter’s Workshop), mars black and medium magenta acrylic paints (Liquitex Basics), and 2 stamps – a paper scrap (Just for Fun), and a favorite unmounted stamp,(Sorry, I can’t recall the name of the company). I decided to tape off some of the stencil so I could stencil it down the left side of the journal page. (Note: I always dry each layer of paint with a hair dryer, and especially before reapplying a stencil. This avoids smeared paint and it also allows me the ability to wipe off wet paint that I may not want. Drying your paint periodically is a good habit to get into because it can help keep you from ruining, or feeling like you’ve ruined, a page.)

After stenciling, I played around with the stamped images to try to figure out where I wanted to put them.

Next, I wanted to add some black drippage, but the paint was too thick when I put it on the left edge and it wouldn’t drip. Even after I sprayed it with water, it didn’t work so I wiped it all off. As you can see in the photo, this left somewhat of a black ghost image which I liked.

Using TCW470s “Mini Geometric Art Layers” (The Crafter’s Workshop), I decided to add a row of black lines at the bottom of the page.

Next, I outlined the pink stenciling with a black Uni-ball Signo pen. Immediately after that, and before the pen dried, I painted "Airbrush Medium" white paint(Golden) over it because I thought that the pink was too bright. What happened was it caused the black Uni-ball pen lines to smear, which I happened to like, so I continued that on the whole stenciled part. By mixing some black paint with the airbrush paint, I got a thinner paint and decided to try the drippage again on both the left and right sides.

With the leftover diluted black paint, I applied paint splatters. Because I hate to have paint splatters all over my table, I laid down white tissue paper beforehand. In the picture, you will also see the small pieces of white tissue that I used to sop up the leftover diluted paint. I’ll save that and use it at a later date.

To add more interest, I stamped repeatedly over both pages with a newspaper scrap stamp, (another unmounted stamp - sorry, I don’t remember the company’s name), then stamped the word “Classified” (7 gypsies). As you can see, I didn’t use the original stamped images layout from the beginning. Instead, I stapled one on top of the other, added a little drippage, and attached to the page with foam tape.

How do you create? Are you spontaneous or planned? I hope you’ll join me every Tuesday and Friday for more blog posts at arteverydaystudio.blogspot.com.

  Art in the Studio makes every day a good day. 
 Thanks for spending time with ArtEveryDayStudio!