Friday 1 November 2013

November Calendar Journal Page

 Hi everyone - well the year is speeding past way too fast as normal.  Less than 8 weeks to Christmas - not that I'm trying to add to your stress or anything!! LOL!
Here's my November calendar journal page!!


When I started this at the beginning of the month I didn't really have any idea as to what I was going to do apart from the fact that I wanted to do mixed media on it.  I have been to a couple of classes in the last couple of months where we have layered up all sorts of different things to create a texture and I wanted to have a go at it myself at home. 
So I coated the page up with gesso using a scrapper (well in my case an old credit card) and left it quite rough.  Over this I randomly stuck down some lace curtain material, strips of me fix medical tape, Tim Holts tissue paper and and off cut of card which had a pattern punched into it.  Once the layers had dried I brushed on another light coat of gesso.
Once that  had dried Iadded some Dylusions ink sprays and some Fireworks mica sprays.  I sprayed some water on to get it dripping down the page and dried it off with the heat tool. It took quite a bit of drying as the background wasn't very absorbent.
In my paper stash draw (well its 2 actually - as I don't throw anything away) I found the embossed tree tag which I did a while ago and never used on the project it was intended for, a torn piece of embossed card and some tags, so I layered them up and glued them in place.
In my stamp draw I found this unused Octopode factory stamp and though he would work nicely as the focal point.  I coloured him using Inktense pencils and Dylusions ink and glued him on the front.
The date spaces were stamped in archival ink using a Tim Holtz stamp and I added some work stamping on the background.
The final touch was some doodling and blending some ink round the edge of the page with an ink blending tool.
I have to say as I only managed to do this in 10 minute slots, each time I returned to do a little more it changed direction, every time, so I'm quite pleased that I managed to pull it all together and make it work.
I will have to be careful what pen I use to write on it as most pens will smudge on this gesso surface.  
So all in all pleased with the result and I'm pleased that I had a go at the mixed media layering!!
Have a great month.
XXX hugs XXX


6 comments:

  1. Color (or texture) me impressed. I was surprised when I read how much you put into that page. You made it sound like it took forever (in 10 minute intervals). Please be careful because I ruined a Zig pen by writing over gesso. It gummed it up and the pen refused to write after that. I don't have really expensive pens, but each one is about $3.50 (USD), which to me is not cheap.

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  2. Love it. I had changed directions a few times this month too.

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  3. Love how your calendar turned out-the textures and colors are yummy and the composition is so eye pleasing!

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  4. Well it's a huge success,love it, so nice to see something unusual instead of sticking to the usual format. xx

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  5. Isn't the change in direction the best part of art!?!? Love your calendar. It looks like fall to me!

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  6. Your November calendar is full of Fall color and looks wonderful. It will be a joy to fill in those blocks.

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