Art Journaling, but not done well

All of these spreads are in the Dylusions larger journal

She needed freckles

The triangles are gesso through a stencil, prior to the water colors

Gesso and stencil, but over the Dylusions spray ink

This hot mess is called never again. N E V E R!!!!!

I needed a respite from faces. Didn't work out

The more you know.....

1. I started with cheap sets of water colors from Hobby Lobby and Michael's when taking the classes from Ashli Oliver and Christy Sobolewski. The Sargeant brand from Hobby are better than the Artist Loft brand from Michael's, in my opinion and are fine for beginners. Now that I have a variety of colors in more expensive brands, I am not quite as pleased with the sets. Cheaper water colors make you work harder, because you have to layer on top of layer on top....you get the idea. The pigment is not there.
2. Water colors in general will not move and lift on the Dylusions paper journals as the paints will on a better quality paper in, say, a Strathmore Mixed Media journal. I like not having the spiral binding so I can do a two page spread. But the mixed media 90 lb. paper lets you manipulate the water colors, as they should be manipulated.
3. The primary color spread was a lesson in the class Color Play with Ashli Oliver. We were to use only red, blue and yellow, the 3 primary colors, and could also use white. I will probably try this again with water colors. This was done in Liquitex Basic acrylic paints. Just. Hate. It. Seriously, there is nothing about that spread that I like.
4.The top 4 photos are from the last lesson I did with Ashli. We combined all that we had learned in the Color Play class into one spread. This was Dylusions spray ink thru a hand made circle stencil on the left. Took me maybe 15 minutes to cut that wonky shape out. Let that dry. Used a Rae Missigman stencil bit with triangles to apply gesso on the right side of the page, prior to drawing the girl. Then over the Dylusions spray. The idea is to use the gesso as a resist with water colors.

I like the effect you get with this technique, and will definitely use it again. The water colors used on this spread were more expensive, a mix of Grumbacher and Winsor and Newton. I had a very old palette full of those brands from years ago. They are still good, just need to wet them to start.

Moving on. Today it is raining, so a good morning for the studio.
Linda