Why yes, I am nuts

I follow Christy Sobolewski on YouTube because I have taken several of her classes. Once a month she participates in an art journaling group, where one member picks a subject and the 4 or 5 women each film a project pertaining to that subject. It is a kick start to creativity.The name of this group is #ArtJournalInspiration. Each artist that participates will list the links to the other artists. For the month of January, they were to use an altered book spread. Hmmmmm. I didn't have an altered book. So I had to go shopping at Half Price Books, didn't I?

I found 3 books in the clearance section from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that are 10 inches wide by 13 inches long, and of heavy weight paper. Not super glossy. Perfect. Bea Sky, one of the artists, suggests coating the book page with clear gesso to give it some tooth. Why did I not think of that, because it is brilliant. So the above are the first 2 pages of one of my books. I applied clear gesso, let it dry completely, then use a brayer to apply some Martha Stewart craft paint randomly. Let that dry. Then started a collage of torn dinner napkins, tissue paper, old dictionary page, pattern pieces, and the inner lining from the dinner napkin that I tore apart. It is white, and goes on lumpy.

I love lumpy. I then used gesso through a stencil to add more texture. I love texture. Left all of that all day to dry, and came back with some Daniel Smith water colors to add some punch. Final steps, so far, were stamping with a Tim Holtz texture stamp (the small hexagons), and making more random marks with a bottle lid and paint spatula with gesso.

No purpose in mind, I just wanted to play. This is the first time I have used any substrate in journaling this large, and I like it. A bunch. I also like working on top of the clear gesso. Even after the paint applications, you can still feel the grit. More to come.
Linda