Abstract art journal pages using France Papillon stencil "rockformation"

Having been focusing on large canvases lately I fancied a change so I have returned to art journaling.

These pages are actually a rework of pages that I considered to go horribly wrong the first time round, which is why my Youtube video starts with the pages partially completed. Initially I cover it all up with white gesso and start again.

 

 To help cover my previous work and add texture, I used France Papillon stencil "rockformation". I had no idea at this point just how much I was going to fall in love with this stencil.

However, after applying the gesso and starting to add Lindy's spray inks it still did not feel that I was getting anywhere with these pages. It just looked very messy until I let the inks dry and began to add white paint to calm it all down.

 

Suddenly the richness of the Lindy's spray inks really became apparent. The main two colours I used were Lindy's Cocklebells Coral and Red Hot Poker Orange. 

However, it was the addition of Golden's Sepia high flow acrylic that sealed the deal for me. I can't tell you how much I love this colour paint except to say I ordered a really large bottle after discovering it!

 

Now the difficulty with the Lindy's spray inks is that they are water soluble and so reactivate when wet. So when I added white acrylic paint there was initially some mixing of colours but this actually added to the depth of colours.

But the bit that really brought these pages alive for me was lightly brushing white acrylic paint over the texture of the stencil and then using a palette knife to really bring out the beautiful detail of this stencil. 

I have to say these reworked pages turned out better than I could ever have imagined, but it was the "failed" layers underneath that really formed the basis of, I think, the successful outcome. So the moral of the story is if you don't like your original art work, gesso over it and start again, you never know what you may get!

Despite my happiness with the art journal pages themselves, I can't say the same for my video. I used a glass mat to protect my worktop form all the spray ink but it caused a lot of glare in the video. Having said that you can still clearly see the process and for anyone who watches it I hope this does not spoil the experience for you.

 I will be entering my art journal pages into this week's Simon Says Monday Challenge which is "use stencils". 

I hope you enjoy the video and I will be back soon! Eleanor x