Sweetness: A Mixed Media Journal Page

This is the first double-page spread in my Goddess and Poet Moleskine journal. The idea is to shabbify (is that a word?) the background with layers of mixed media while still enhancing your goddess. Then you write a little poetry to accompany the mood of the piece.

I started out with a color palette of lime and raspberry, taken from the rub-on on the goddess' neck. Then it varied between pinks and greens and golds. I ended up having to paint her hair with Dr. Ph. Martin's Bombay White India Ink (love that stuff!). It started out a pale lime green which was cool at first but then it blended too much into the background. Then I added heavy layers of Clear Gesso to give a lot of texture to the hair (and the background, too, while I was at it). Next I tried painting the hair with Silver Lumiere paint and a fine brush. I didn't like that so I just painted over it all with the India Ink. I did like this. Ooh, I have a whole set of these inks... must do more painting with these!

Next, I wanted her eyes to be luminescent. I used Golden's Fluid Acrylics in the color Interference Violet. I am sold on the Interference colors by Golden; I'm getting them all. This photo below was taken at an angle to try and capture the iridescence of her eyes and the texture in the two pages from the Clear Gesso. You can click on the photo to get a better view of these effects:

So I'm playing in Photoshop to figure out where to place the poetry on the page. When I decide on a final verse I'll write that in with something, either a gel pen or one of the inks. I WISH I knew how to do Calligraphy! I have a how-to book and a beginner's set but have never really sat down with it and applied myself.

This workshop of Suzi Blu's is so much fun! All of the experimentation with the layers and layers and more layers of paint, papers, inks, ribbons, etc. really motivates me to start more pages and drawings and expand the journal even further. So I'll be working on these for awhile. I won't post all of them all of the time but wanted to give you a peek at the journal work from the class. Today's lesson, when posted, will cover working on the graphite drawing that we adhered to a birch plywood base. I'm really looking forward to this one. I want to start working more with wood. I talked hubby into buying a 36" x 36" piece of birch plywood and he's been cutting it up into 6" x 12", 9"x 12" and 12" x 12" pieces for all of the art I've yet to make. ;)

Now I've really got to get serious about the faux encaustic workshop canvasses I've started. The process looks so cool! I haven't forgotten about it... just been giving all of my time to these little goddesses! I hope to have something to post by the weekend.