Joie De Vivre - Journal Page

Hi everyone,

This is my Week 30 ALAD/ASAW journal page challenge piece.  The theme for this week was 'self talk' i.e how to identify the good points in yourself, praise yourself etc.

I am very fortunate to have a wonderfully happy  and healthy life and in consequence, I enjoy life to the full.... being optimistic, positive and hopefully being aware are some of my good points so I decided on Joie de vivre as my sentiment for this bright page........

I started with a piece of mop-up paper (here we go, mop-up paper again!) which I cut down in size to 13 x 20 cm so that once the finished page was backed it would fit into my art journal. I inked the edges with DI (tumbled glass)......

and scraped Claudine Hellmuth gesso (white) over the top with a pallet knife.

Next was to stamp circles onto old dictionary pages and to heat emboss them using Stampendous embossing powder (midnight black).

Using both a slightly damp baby wipe and my finger I coloured the circles using water soluble oil pastels, blending the colours together until I was happy with the end result... have to say practise makes perfect when it comes to blending oil pastels! But I got there in the end.

I cut out each circle, arranged them on my background and then machine stitched around each one, and also the outer edges of the page with black thread. 

Then I went into mark making overdrive; firstly I added random circles using white acrylic paint and a bottle cap. 

Next I dipped the end of my paint brush into more of the titanium white acrylic paint and also some mustard yellow to create smaller dots on the page. I circled these using a black Uniball pen. 

I added black acrylic paint through a Aga Baraniak chevron stencil here and there together with some ver fine splatters.

To define the outside edge of the page I applied charcoal pencil and blended it out with a fine paint brush and water. The same method was used to add some shading to the oil pastel circles on the page.

My focal point was computer generated onto white card, the edges inked with DI (tumbled glass), layered onto black card and then finally layered onto colourised gauze.

As ever I backed my journal page with black card and added two tiny tags. One a date tag and the other to denote that it was a ALAD/ASAW challenge piece.

I am delighted at how this page turned out.... I adore the colours and although I would have preferred it a little less 'grungy' I'm still happy with it. Shading the circles was a challenge, as I mentioned earlier but that's just because I need a little more practise shading and blending with water soluble oil pastels.... another excuse to play more!!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Happy crafting.

Carol. xx