Corroded - journal Page

Hi everyone, 

sorry for not having posted recently, but I’ve been in sunny Norfolk lambing.  Wow, what an amazing experience it was too but totally exhausting. I loved every single minute of it (yes, even getting up every two hours throughout the night to check the flock), especially seeing the miracle of a wee lamb being born to the gentle encouraging nudges and bleating of it’s mum. There really is nothing so heart warming as seeing the lambs gambling around the paddock like Tigger on springs only a few hours after being slapped into the world on a bitterly cold night like a wet fish........it really is amazing.

When I got home I had every intention of marking the whole experience by including sheep in a journal page somehow. That is still on the cards as my mojo still hasn’t decided quite how yet. So in the meantime I thought I’d share something with you today that is completely out of the box for me. It’s an art journal page which I’ve called Corroded, it's all about rust and texture and here it is.....

As I’ve been reducing the blank pages in my Moleskine art journal I decided to use one of the spare pages for this project. Using an AALL & CREATE  stencil ( #6)  and Sweet Poppy Pearlescent Stencil paste I created some random dimension on the page. The #6 stencil is awesome and I know I am going to get A LOT of use out of it.

Next I spritzed the page with a little plain water and used PaperArtsy Fresca Finish Chalk Acrylic paint (Inky Pool) to colour the page, letting the paint drip and flow across the page, adding more water here and there to aid the flow until I had the look I wanted.

To add more texture, I ripped up tiny pieces of gauze and adhered these randomly around the outside of the page using Ranger Distress Crackle Paint (Rock Candy).  I left this to dry overnight and awoke to find the most glorious crackles on my page the next morning...... crackle paint is like magic, don't you think?

Out came some Golden Acrylic Paint (Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold) and adopting the same method as before, I dripped the paint down the edges of my page, building up more colour intensity around the gauze. To add a little more of the rust effect, I touched the page with a Versamark embossing pad and sprinkled on Seth Apter’s Baked Texture embossing powder (Patina Oxide).

Now for ‘rusting’ my gears and washers.... to provide tooth I applied Artists’ Acrylic Clear Gesso with a paint brush and then when dry applied Quin. Gold. When this layer was dry I touch each gear and washer with the Versamark ink, sprinkled with the patina Oxide and heat set. I was delighted how these turned out and will definitely be trying this again... and again.. and again.

My central focal point was an old silver pendant that had started to tarnish.  The small piece of gauze behind my focal point was coloured using the same Inky Pool acrylic paint that coloured my background.  

I used  Golden Heavy Gel (Matte) to secure the gauze to the background and then the pendent and rusted gear on top.  The smaller rusted gears and the two washers were glued in place with Glossy Accents.  

My label was computer generated onto white card and the edges inked with  Archival Ink (Potting soil), as were the edges of the page to act as a frame.

As usual I backed the page onto black card stock and created a tiny date stamp... et voila.

Here are a couple of close ups ...............

I really was chuffed to little mint balls at how this page turned out. The Quin. Gold really accentuated the cracks and crackles created by the Rock Candy and the Patina Oxide added that little extra depth of colour to the background.  I almost added some random stamping before I called it a day on this page but after ummmmming and ahhhhhing I decided less was more and left well alone. Glad I did now.

One last close up....

Thanks so much for stopping by and happy crafting.

Carol. xx