Wednesday 1 October 2014

Art Recipe Wednesday: Autumn Landscape or poetry of disintegration?

Hi my dear friends - I hope you had a great week.
I was as busy as always (looks like I'm a master of filling my time right to the top or even over!) - teaching classes, organizing next events and planning projects, posts and activities for the nearest future... including Art Recipe for Wednesday of course!

This time I decided to  go bolder both with texture and color creating something a bit more abstract. I know how careful I have to be doing that as I am a huge fan of negative space and organizing elements into nice looking piles, groups and clusters and there is a risk I won't really like the final effect if I will go too crazy. To avoid the problem I decided to focus just on 3 main colours of the project - deep pinks, brown and green - with a bit of gold on the top.


Autumn feeling? Yes, please!
For me Autumn is pure the abundance of texture and colour: green changing into browns, reds, oranges, yellows - and smell of grass, soil and leaves...


There's some majestic beauty in this ending of the Summer, fading glory, hint of nostalgia and poetry of disintegration. Somehow - I could see these subtle emotions in the photo of one of my husband's ancestors  and that's how this page happened. Very accurate, I believe.
Is it possible the older I get the stronger I can feel this "autumn's vibe"?


You can see I used 2 different stencils and Light Paste to create part of the texture in my project - I just love the spongy, marshmallow effect it creates! Other elements are findings from my table top: some gems, Art Ingredients - glass beads (surely the leftovers from the pendant madness I was posting last week) and random leftovers of chipboard, veil resist canvas and fabric tape. Somehow - all that put together and colored with sprays, watercolor pencils and a bit of Inka Gold was able to create interesting, rich in layers and tones journal spread. (And no black this time! How is it possible?)

Anyway - here is Art Recipe for Autumn Journal Page 
and simple step-by-step tutorial for you! 


Step-by-step:

1. I've started priming the pages of my old book journal with 2 coats of Art Basics Heavy White Gesso. I like its thick consistence - old paper does not crumple that much when you brush it on. I dried one coat with heating tool and continued with second one. It is great medium to work on - it prevents your inks, paints and any other mediums from soaking in your surface.


2.  When White Heavy Gesso was dry I used first, more bold stencil and applied Art Basics Light Paste with palette knife on the chosen parts of my pages. I started adding layers of fabric tape, canvas, lace and glass beads right away - Light Paste (as well as Soft Gels, 3D gels and Modleing Paste) works great as an adhesive.Wherever needed I was using Soft Gloss Gel in a precise tip bottle to add more elements.



3. I dried my Light Paste with heating tool - it turned into white, light, spongy texture which reminds me marshmallows. I decided to create custom rich gold version of my Light Paste and use it with other stencil, to create more rich, interesting effect. I took 2 scoops of Light Paste into small bowl and added a bit of Silks - Acrylic Glazes: Solar Gold and and Ginger Peach. After mixing the color was deep and the shimmer looked just beautiful in my custom paste! I added one more - gold - layer on my project and dried it with heating tool. I was ready for spraying...

 


4. This time I was giving a test to my new Lindy's Sprays (Rusty Lantern Green and Van Dyke Sepia) and a bit of my favorite Black Orchid Pigment mixed with water - but you can surely replace Lindy's with Wild Vine and Autumn Butternut and get very similar effects! I added my photo, some embellishments - a bit of crystals and cogs I found in one of my boxes and add some final spraying...



5. When the pages were dry I  wanted to add some finishing touches to the color: I used my watercolor pencils (Royal Talens) but I didn't  touch them with water at all. Adding a bit of color here and there was enough to add more balance to the page - I focused mostly on green and dark pink outlining the texture done with paste and stencil or adding more definition to the colors.


6. Finally I added the finishing sparkle to the page rubbing a bit of Inka Gold (Green and Gold) on my beads, lace and embellishments. After 5 minutes my journal page was ready!




Here are products from our Mixed Media Place Store listed for your convenience:


I hope  this page will inspire you a bit to play and create your own version of pastes and gels - and to play a bit more with texture and color!

Sending warm Autumn hugs

26 comments:

Jennie Atkinson said...

Wow !!! Fabulous colours and those amazing textures. Love it Anna !! More please x

corinne de france MARCH said...

toujours inspirant ! hâte de vous revoir Finn
corinne

silvergran said...

Fabulous textures n colours! Autumn is a great time of year!

Maremi's Small Art said...

Oh my amazing colour mix, divine !

Annette said...

Girl I am panting Ilove this and the colors and the instructions xoxoxo

Jaya Raghuvanshi said...

Wow! This is fabulous!

Yasmina TIN-SANG said...

Love, love, love!!!

Debi said...

gorgeous, and happily surprised to see instruction :-) Debi x

Margiù said...

your works are a source of great inspiration!
I think you're a true artist !

Helen said...

it's stunning!

massofhair said...

Autumn and Spring are my two favourite seasons for both their sensory and visual effects.

So much lovely texture and dimension in your work. Would love to produce something along the lines of this but alas my ArT talents are lacking and so is my confidence.

Thank you for the Wednesday Art Recipes, so much inspiration :-) xxx

Unknown said...

Inspiration just started flowing!;))) thank you for sharing this great project!

Kerstin F. said...

Gorgeous, a beautiful colour combination with great textures. Thank you very much for this fabulous autumn inspiration. Greetings, Kerstin

Unknown said...

Your work totally amazes me, and even though i have just started done this track of art journaling and mixed media i have learnt so much from your blog, and i loove the way you use texture and the beautiful colours give me so much inspiration xx

Naomi said...

Love this, thanks for the inspiratiion.

famillemarleau said...

I love your page. It looks amazing. Love every details. Thanks for sharing, Johanne Lacombe

Unknown said...

waooh! love textures and colors!

Gems Inky antics said...

Wow, these colours scream Autumn, they're beautiful Ania.
The textures are also amazing, it's true autumnal inspiration xx

Mummukka said...

Wonderful, I Love your works.

Unknown said...

Stunning textures and colors! LOVE!

Lisapmac said...

My first visit to your blog, amazing artwork, captures Autumn colours perfectly x

Carol said...

Oh my simply gorgeous have a lovely weekend :)

hazel said...

Amazing!!!
xxx Hazel.

Mrs. Scrapalot said...

Thanks so much for sharing your techniques! This journal page so wonderful!

Sue Fraser said...

Stunning, gorgeous, beautiful; I can't find enough words to express the beauty of your journal pages. WOW just won't do it. Please post more!!

itsazoo said...

Just Stunning......

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