'a further state of messed-up-ed-ness'

before i get to 'a further state of messed-up-ed-ness', have you seen these?!

two incredible travel journals... fran meneley's japan journal, and seth apter's greece journal. Wow. and elsita has been doing paper cuts again. this beautiful woman has two small children and still she finds time to do art like this!!

and now, for 'a further state of messed-up-ed-ness' ... my basic art motto is that if i don't like the way a piece is going, i take it to a further state of messed-up-ed-ness... over and over again.



i started the page on the right on july second and finished it on the third (i know the date on the page says the fourth... i can't seem to get it right these days). the background was so incredibly ugly that i decided to scan a before and after, just to see how much it changed. i'm working on 90# arches cold press in this journal, which i'm not liking very much. so after a bottom layer of watercolor i added clear gesso. then some oil pastels smeared around, except they didn't want to smear around on the gesso-- liquitex clear gesso has a texture almost like sandpaper. then i stamped some swirly designs on top of that, which looked pretty awful. and matte gel medium on the ink smeared the ink which took the whole thing from bad to worse. i added a few scraps of paper, some stenciled design in acrylic at the top, and a piece of ribbon at the bottom (it's my motto, right?).

and then i started painting... a spirit figure seemed like the place to start, and then the circles, and then blobs of color (watercolor) here and there to make the eye happier. and finally, drawing/doodling with a stabilo black marks-all pencil. i like to dip it in water before i draw to get a more inconsistent line width.



in the end, the page made my eyes smile...

it's a good motto! : )

this is the front of my 'daily book'. 4" x 6", coptic stitch binding, homemade.



and now, have a wonderful holiday weekend!