Sunset Colours and a High Five

This weekend, I had a very quick, very enjoyable play with colour to prepare this week's diary/journal, based on this week's challenge from
The Documented Life Project, which was to use at least 5 layers - and do a "high five"!
Earlier today I passed by one of my favourite clothing stores and the colours in the window made me stop, stare and memorise the combination - orange, candy pink, aubergine and grey.
While I was playing on the page, we had a heavy rain shower, followed by a perfect rainbow and then a glorious sunset.
The sky turned into luminous hues of lilac, pink, orange and gold as the setting sun peeked out just below the rainclouds.
So I just had to play with these colours!  

First layer - stencilling with pink, green and black blow pens.
 Then I started playing around with these wonderfully textured paper squares on the paper.

Second layer - Relief printing with embossed paper
 & distress ink

Layers 3 & 4 - Collage with various textured paper squares - and then - finger painting with pink and lilac acrylic paint

The remaining paint was scraped onto the left hand diary page with an old credit card

Almost done - my worktable says it all!

Add some orange spray ink, 3 numbers, pencil for contrast,
some blue gel pen lines and we're done!

The Colours of O'Keeffe

One of the recent Challenges on The Documented Life 2015 was "The Color Wheel". The Journal Prompt that went with it was:  

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way . . . “ - 

Georgia O’Keeffe, American Painter (1887-1986).  

So I decided to have a closer look at her work.  O'Keeffe was a US based Precisionist painter from the 1920's and beyond.   She was known for her use of brilliant colour - hence the "Color Wheel" Challenge.  Oversized flower studies, animal skeletons, shells, rocks and landscapes were recurring elements in her paintings. You can see more of her work here.  Some of her works that provided inspiration for this specific week's planner pages were these:

Series I no.3 (1918) by Georgia O' Keeffe

Summer Days (1936) by Georgia O' Keeffe.
The current fascination with antlers and faux taxidermy isn't a new trend.  I'm not an art historian but O' Keeffe's series of antler paintings might have highlighted the decorative potential of these organic forms - in the 1930's already.  Incredible - isn't it?

My subsequent planner pages:

Brilliant oranges, blues, pinks. cubist flower shapes, abstract swirls and curly antlers - all elements that O'Keeffe was known for in her wonderful paintings.

O 'Keeffe was a wonderful wordsmith too.  I discovered a long list of inspiring quotes that she is credited for, so I included two of them in my weekly spread.

We are so inundated with visual information these days.  Staying original is becoming a real challenge.  What O' Keeffe  said about originality then, also applies to how I think we should approach this challenge today....

List of materials used:

A5 Week-per-page Moleskine diary 2015

White drawing paper for the flap

Washi tape to adhere the flap

Acrylic paint - turquoise, orange, blue, magenta, yellow, pink

Stencil with flower shapes

Gesso - white

Packing tape - for making a transfer print of the quote

Gel pens - blue, fluorescent pink

Pentel aqua brush with dark blue water soluble ink

A Tale of Gesso

Today, I'd like to share another one of my diary/visual journal spreads that I've been creating as part of 
The Documented Life 2015.  The weekly prompt for this specific week was "Gesso".  It is a white fluid that consists of a binder mixed with a combination of chalk, gypsum and pigment.  Gesso is mainly used in artwork on canvas, paper, wood and sculpture as a base before painting and adding other materials such as collage. 

                                           It provides absorbency, adherence and strengthens the  

                                           substrate.   Info & photo courtesy of Wikipedia                            

I took inspiration from one of my antique sari cushions and decided to go for a simple, monochrome colour scheme where I would use the white of the gesso, add some turquoise and lime green and focus on contrast and texture.

And here's my process..

I added a flap using a cereal box

Then I covered the page in gesso, sprayed some turquoise and lime green inks randomly.  Using more gesso and turquoise acrylic paint with a stencil,
I added a third layer.  I used a discarded hotel room card for spreading the gesso. 

Lime green distress ink was added to colour and age the edges of the paper

On the other side of the flap, I added turquoise paint. Once that dried, I spread some gesso with my fingers and wrote into the still wet gesso, using a blunt pencil.

Texture & colour = delicious!

I added meaningful words and phrases using a grey felt tipped pen

2B pencil smudges and scratchings added contrast
and a turquoise gel pen provided the finishing touches.