Saturday 1 March 2014

March Calendar Journal Page

Hi everyone!! Well its the start of another month and so I have another calendar journal page to share with you.
Yet again I get together with my sister, Juliet, and we did our pages together and we are going to try and see if we can continue it throughout the year.
So here is my March page!

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out especially as there were a few major technical difficulties which had Juliet saying I should just give up, salvage the houses and added them to a new background.
However being a stubborn sort of a person I wasn't willing to give up and I pushed through the problems and made it work!
I made the background by spaying large puddles of  rangers colour wash spray ink and Dylusions ink and letting it drip down the page, helped along with a few sprays of water!  Oh I had applied a thin layer of gesso on the page first using a credit card so that the ink didn't sink into the paper straight away.
I had already bought and downloaded the houses which are digi downloads by Lavinia stamps!!  I was so pleased that she had started to do downloads as I love her stamps!  I had decided I wanted to use them but wasn't sure how.
I randomly placed the houses on, to see if they would work and it looked like a landscape so I decided I would make the journal spaces look like clouds.  It was at that point that everything went pear shaped!! LOL 
I used a template to draw the clouds straight onto the background - it didn't look right after I had done the first few but I had to continue as I was committed by that point.  I hoped that by the time I had them all drawn in that it would look better - well it didn't!!!
So I decided to paint white paint into the day spaces hoping that would improve the look - unfortunately I forgot to take into account that the ink is reactivated when you put another liquid on top of it.  So my clouds were now looking like malformed green sheep!!!  Not really the look I was going for! 
So I tried applying gesso with a sponge to brighten them up!! Nope didnt work. 
Next came the ever faithful multi medium - I thought if I spread that over the day spaces it would seal the underneath layers and allow me to make the spaces white!!!
Im still not sure why that didnt work - because it should have.  It was a golden multi medium so it's good quality but some how the colour kept bleeding through.  By this time my frustration levels were rather high but I would not be beaten.
So over the next hour I painted, gessoed, gel mediumed away like mad, but still couldn't get the clouds white or to make them look like clouds!  By this time the outlines had vanished under the numerous layers of product and ended up looking more like greenish cotton balls.  
So a step to the right was required.  
Abandon the clouds and make tree/cotton plants instead.
So more paint got sponged on, some write all pencil used to lightly outline the shapes and create some sort of a trunk/stem and some additional shading and that was that!!!
We counted up that there is probably 12 layers in that top section and I will be very surprised If I will be able to write on it!!! but at least I made it work without giving up. Never give up never surrender!!! (ok can anyone name that film?)
So to calm myself down I sat and coloured in the houses using inktense pencil!! colouring in for grown ups is very soothing!!
I printed out the quote, added it and doodled round it and then stick the letters on for March and stamped the year.  The final touch was to blend round the edge with a distress ink pad!!!
So the lessons to be learned from this is 'always remember to seal water activated mediums before painting over' and never give up LOL!!
Hope you all have a great month and that the sun shines on us all!!
Hugz xxxx

9 comments:

  1. Well done for persevering the result is fabulous.

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  2. Enlarged the photo to see more clearly and your clouds look like cotton balls in a field with the houses in the foreground I think it's amazing I really do
    X

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  3. Golly, I left a message and Blogger ate it. What I basically said was, now I know why my inks didn't work properly. I didn't gesso the page first. Thanks for letting me in on the secret. Of course, unlike TIM ALLEN in Galaxy Quest, I did give up, and went a different route this month. Love your page, though, and like you, hope you find a pen that will take all those layers.

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    1. Glad I could be or some help. Love that you got the Galaxy quest reference. I find the statement 'eeew thats not right!!' springs to my lips on a way to regular basis, think I may have watched it too many times LOL. Have found a pen that writes on it but its reluctant to dry!! A nice lady on facebook suggested using a Fude pen - I have one so im going to see if I have more luck with that one. Happy creating xxxxx

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  4. Wow, love your page lovely combination of colours.

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  5. Love your endurance!!! I know the feeling! It really turned out to be such a nice page.

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  6. Love your calendar page! Glad you keep at it until you got the look you wanted. Love those little houses!

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  7. How wonderful! I love those funky houses!
    Alison xxx

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