Sing a Song Art Journal

My new Art Journal is under way! I decided to theme this journal. Every page will be similar in one regard; a song or several songs linked together. I put on my music and just let the random shuffle work it's inspiration. The first few pages I don't like much and I'm not sure if one of them is REALLY finished. Despite that, I'm moving forward and feeling a bit better with the layouts. So I took a few photos of the latest!

Never:  This layout has several songs in it.  "Never" by Heart, "Frank and Ada" by Suzanne Vega, and "White Flag" by Dido. I started with a background of Dylusions sprays. Added some bits of scrapbook papers that matched color wise. Threw in a little gesso with a stencil in the corners.















 I had an idea to fade a word onto the page. This is where the first song hit me. "Never". Now there's a good word to put on a page! I used some plastic letters I had and laid them on the page. I misted plain water around them and used a paper towel to mop up. Then, I removed the letters and voila! the letters showed up a bit darker than the surrounding color. The next song by Suzanne Vega had the line that I used on the bit of manilla tag. I Zentangled a touch on it to pull in some more pattern. To tone down the papers and tag, I washed over it with some watered down blue fluid acrylic and perhaps a touch of blue gelato. I needed something *else* on the word side and that's when the last song hit, "White Flag". I just loved the words of it and it fit so well with my word that I just put them on there. Liked the bright, stark white of it and feel no desire to tint it blue. Loved it!

Free Your Mind:  This layout is for one song. (I admit that I played it about three times in a row because I just wanted to keep the power of it in my ears.) This song is about prejudice and I just went with the "woman as a second class citizen" feel of it. I had old vintage collage sheets just begging to be used. Corsets, undergarments to preserve our feminine "figures", and the ever-popular '50s housewife with her skirt, apron, and freshly made bundt cake.

 I went with the graffiti feel in the big title letters. Bubble letters but then with the crayon-like gelato inside and blurred. Other phrases from the song are added with Sharpies of different colors. Stamps with StazOn ink are scattered throughout. The '50s image is outlined in blue gelato to blend the torn edge into the page.

Kiss Me Deadly: Another assemblage of songs. Challenged myself with this one. Started (again) with a background of Dylusions inks but didn't like the overage of yellow I had used. Decided to spray black over the top. But also figured I could preserve some color. Originally, I wanted to use an embossing powder resist but my clear embossing powder was clear upstairs...and I was in the basement. Two flights of stairs hardly seemed worth it, so I decided to try a tag. Laid down a manilla tag with a bit of folded over Washi tape to hold it in place. Sprayed over like a stencil and it worked! Yes, I was surprised as I thought the edges would not be so distinct. Then, had no idea where to go with the tag. I figured one of my song quotes would go in there. But disaster struck: "Island Girl" by Elton John. What? Where did I download this one? But hey, all was not lost...I just happened to have this lovely exotic flower papers lying next to me and had no idea how I was going to use it. Toned down the color to make it a bit more gray with more black spray. I kept the pieces big to cover up a mess, too, I think. (too much black spray!)

I liked the way the red contrasted with the yellow and then the next song came up to fit in nicely. "Kiss Me Deadly" just had to be the big bold words on the page. And a pair of red lips to underline the point!

I was pretty happy with that half of the layout but the other half was still just a bright outline of a tag in a black spray. Had no idea how to connect the two pages. I think another song came up but I didn't feel inspired to use it. I remembered that I had wanted to try a technique I'd seen on one of my on-line card classes. I figured if it didn't work, I could always rip out the page. It required water and embossing powder. (See my note above about going up two flights of stairs...) So the only embossing powder I had was red but it would match my other page so I gave it a go.

The next song was "They're Hanging me Tonight" by Marty Robbins. An old cowboy song about a vengeful lover. Perfect. I sprayed water (plain jane water) into my hand and flicked it across the tag page. I then dumped the embossing powder over it. Yup, all over the page. I lightly tipped my book and let the excess run off onto a piece of paper. The red stuff clung well to the water. Then, I embossed it as normal. That's how I got that great water drip pattern in embossing. I was super excited to see that it worked so well and so easily. Added that title and finished it off with some stamp images for texture. I'm going to be using THAT technique more in the future especially with some metallic powders!

So there's a few pages from the Sing-Song Art Journal. (I don't really have a title for it...) Hope you enjoyed.
---Wy
"Free your mind and the rest will follow. Be color blind; don't be so shallow." --En Vogue