Journal 52 - February Wrap Up

Well, we are 8 plus weeks in and I am still going strong on my Journal 52 art journal project. One page a week is working great at this point- it is still winter, and boy a winter it has been here in the Mountains of Wyoming. We have had snow, snow and more SNOW, and several bouts of below zero F temps. I have not been overly ready for Spring til about this week, when I realized it is only 2 weeks til my birthday, and we still have well over a foot of snow on the ground- not just in spots, but EVERYWHERE. That is very uncommon for our area, but I am hoping with the amount of snow pack we have, that maybe our summer wild fire scares will be diminished greatly.
Well- onto the project, and my last 4 weeks of pages:

Week 5 Prompt : Abstract Art

I haven't worked much with abstract art, but I started the page with just some random line squiggles, then zentangled inside the sections of the random doodling. I then added some color with markers, then put down a floral stencil and covered it with black gesso. I used the gesso, because it gives great coverage, and I did not want anything but what was under the stencil to show. When I removed the stencil, you could almost make out the floral shape. I decided it was kind of one dimensional, so I added an outline with a white paint marker. It made it really busy, but gave it lots of motion. 

Week 6 : The Lost Art of Love Letters

I did not want to dig out all the little messages my sweetie has given me over the years, but still wanted to incorporate the fact that we are together 20 years and going strong. He asked me to marry him on Valentine's Day, so this prompt being the week of Valentine's, seemed very fitting. The photos were taken by my mom, in City Park in Cody, Wyoming where we still live. We have moved around a few times, but have come back to Cody. It is home, and where we want to stay. I look forward to the next 20 years with my sweetheart. 

Week 7 : When I Grow Up

I loved the way this page turned out. It was just a random stick of stuff on the paper. I started playing with the new washi tapes I picked up on sale, and then it just kind of evolved into hair, so I added the face shape, and the shirt, and then I thought she needed to have a face that looked as if she were pondering the question: "When I grow up, I want to be..." 

I took a class from Claudia Rossi, which really changed the way I do a face structure. It is so important to get those proportions right, and it is amazing how much better my faces are turning out. I will definitely be able to come into my own style with this newly gained knowledge. Best class I have taken to date! 

This page is mostly washi tape, a little acrylic paint and a few alphabet stickers. 

Week 8 : Found Poetry

This was so hard for me-- I stewed over it all week. I am not great with taking a page of text, and circling a few words in succession, and making it read anything understandable. It just isn't something I can do well, or at all for that matter. I envy those that can, because it really is cool when people do that. So I started flipping through junk magazines, for cool "key words" that caught my attention. The first awesome word I found was "cosmic". I knew I had to use it somehow, because it is such a great word, and to find that in a magazine snip-it is pretty rare. Then a few pages later I saw the word "attract", well, I had to use it too. So the phrase I came up with is: "Your Love sends me into a state of Cosmic attraction." Yeah, I don't know that it means anything, but it was funny, and fun all at the same time, so I made a galactic background using my Inktense pencils that my sweet hubby bought me for Valentine's Day, and then  after I activated them with water, and then let them dry completely, I covered them with a very watery layer of black gesso- it is hard to see in the photos, but you can see the different haze of color shine through the black. Then I sprayed the page with some ink sprays, in both metallic shades and just white and black. That gave it the forward and backward layers of "stars" shining in the night sky. When that was all dry, I then used a wet paint brush and tapped on it with some white paint to make splatters- these are the closest stars you see. I then put the photo of my husband down, and then used water soluble oil pastels to smudge a halo effect around all the words and the photo. I feel like there is still an element missing, but I can't put my finger on it yet, so i am going to leave this page as it is for now, and move forward- I may come back to it at a later date. 

Well I am rambling quite a bit tonight, but there are my 4 pages for the weeks of February. Yay, I have completed two full months of the project, and I even remembered to share them with you here on my blog! Great big high five! Toodles :)