Finnabair: Quiet Moments by Emilia Tapiola

Hello darlings,

Here is a new journal page from my Quiet Moments journal I want to share with you!

It is my very special journal where I pick some inspiring elements, mostly a dried flower from our garden or a quote that feels perfect there and then, listening to my heart, try to capture those beautiful, precious little quiet moments in life.

The size of the journal (14cm, 5.5 inches) is perfect for Quiet Moment journaling, where the main element is something simple, yet meaningful.

The only thing I had in mind when I started to create the page was that I wanted something blue. You can follow the entire creative journey in video, where I tell you in my own, peaceful way how, why, and what I am doing.

I started with deciding the flower and quote that would go well together, ending up with columbine that symbolizes wisdom, strength, courage, and happiness and a line by Leonard Cohen underlining the message. As usual, I had typed the quote with my vintage typewriter, using Japanese rice paper, as it is a nice, soft combination.

After planning the general composition, I started with gluing a beautiful, Nile greenish 7 Dots Studio paper into the background to give the whole journal spread a soft blue hue, and then layered vintage paper bits on top, attaching them with Soft Matte Gel. Next, I primed the pages with Heavy Gesso, only very lightly as I wanted the vintage pages and the 7 Dots Studio paper shine through.

Next, I mixed Old Walls Texture Pastes to get a lovely Nile green shade dimension into the pages, and lightly blended them into the background using Heavy gesso. Then I attached the columbine flowers and my Cohen quote with Soft Matte Gel, and the composition was ready for painting.

I chose Impasto Mint, Snow White, Linen, and Manor Blue as my basic background paints for the journal spread, adding just a hint of Dark Chocolate for depth. I painted first a very uneven and kind-of-impressionism-layer of acrylic paints on the pages, and then started to add more depth with Liquid Acrylics. I used Prussian Blue, Ultramarine, Ink Black, Umber, Ochre, and created an abstract painting style layering with spraying some water onto the paints to make them spread and blend naturally and wiped some off with baby wipes, creating darker and lighter spaces to the pages. Then, I added Titanium White for highlighting and sprinkled some white on the pages, too.

As a final touch, I used the new Winter Release Sparkling Metallic Flakes, containing both gold and silver flakes. I applied only a little Gilding Glue where I wanted gilding and dapped just a hint of gold and silver flakes on the pages. Then I gently added some of the new Sage Leaves Matte Wax on top of the gilding, to blend it to the pages and to make it look aged.

And that’s how the very abstract, impressionism-like journal spread was created. It’s a bit dreamy and somehow reflects both underwater and universe feeling of timelessness with the columbines floating and the gentle gold and silver gilding shimmering.