Arty Auntie: Week #4 - Artful Journeys

Wow! The whole month of January has just flown by! We are already to week #4 and our prompts this week are: "Favorite Sports Team" and/or "Under The Sea".

When we came up with the initial prompt, we were thinking about the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl and all the fun things that happen with sports in the winter time.

We aren't big sports fans in my house, unless you count the hubs' total fascination with Nascar. Not my cup of tea (either one). Now, if the Dallas Cowboys were playing in the Super Bowl, I would so be right in front of the television cheering them on. But since they literally dropped the ball during championship game, the fizz went out of my brewski. No fun for me if the hometown team isn't playing, so it is easy to get involved with something else.

I racked my brain for ideas. No mojo. I let it rest and went on to something else. Tick tock. The clock was ticking and time was running short. So just a short 3 days ago, I struck upon this idea to run with the "no sports" thing. I finished it last night. Nothing like waiting to the last minute, right? A deadline is a great motivator!

SUPPLY LIST

Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic Paint - Chromium Oxide Green, Brilliant Yellow Green
Craft acrylic paint - White, Bright Yellow, Spring Green, Caterpillar
NeoColor II watersoluble crayons - black, cadmium red, dark blue, pink, green, orange, bright yellow
Watercolor paint
Black China marker
Copic Marker in Leather
Chipboard letter "N"
EK Success 1-1/4" circle punch
EK Success small oval punch
Sakura Gelly pens in black, red, dark brown & white
Bold Uniball Signo pens in Black & White
Faber Castell black Calligraphy nib pen
Corrugated cardboard as a stencil
Green tinted sisal twine
Alene's Tacky Glue
Credit card for sraping
Medium flat sable brush & #4 filbert brush
Vintage lady image found on Pinterest

When I initially started the background in greens, I was thinking about turf grass. If I had it to do over, I might choose another base color. But there it was, and I just kept letting it unfold organically. I added 3 different greens and scraped them all on this way and that with the edge of a credit card. Then I added some stencil marks all over it with a dark Pine Needle craft paint with the inside "corrugated" part off a coffee sleeve I salvaged from Starbucks that I just painted with the acrylic paint and stamped away here and there all over the page. I find tools and inspiration everywhere.....especially when drinking coffee!

I kept looking at that page. Now what? I knew I had printed off some vintage ladies and began rummaging through my vintage ladies box to find one that suited my mood and attitude. There she was. I snatched her up, fussy cut her out (she was on slick cardstock). I used some NeoColor II's to add color highlights to her to make her stand out a little more on the page. I adhered with Alene's Tacky glue that I spread on very thin, and used the edge of a clean gift card to spread it out and smooth it down.

How to tie in the sports? I'm not loving this prompt at all and still wasn't much enthused about it. Then it hit me.....what about some floating balls like my lady was thinking about all those sports and how much she detested them. So, punch out some circles and an oval. Baseball, basketball, soccer ball & football. Researched Google for some images. I found drawing the soccer ball the hardest of all. You wouldn't think it would be so difficult until you put that pencil down. But I managed to get something that sort of resembled a soccer ball. I chose these because their images are so iconic and easily recognized...as opposed to a ping pong ball or golf ball, which I knew I would never get to look like a real golf ball. LOL So I got all that going and done and affixed to the page again with Alene's Tacky Glue, smoothing out so there would be no wrinkles.

I didn't like all that dark green, so I mixed up some white and added a dot of Chromium Oxide Green and Brilliant Yellow Green together and brushed it on in broad, loose strokes sort of down the center left of the page. I needed a place to do some slow journaling.

There. That was better, but I pretty much covered up all of the corrugated stenciling. Oh well. Such is art journaling!

Still boring. I dipped my finger in some of the leftover mixed-up paint and made some dots around the page with my index finger. Dried with the trusty heat gun. Remember I am in a hurry now... whipped out the trusty white and black Uniball Signos and went around some of those dots with some circles and made some more. Better.

What to say? I wanted whatever she said to be a little snarky, a little sassy and a whole lot of me. I don't like to sweat. I am not good at sports that require sweating. (I do excel at water sports!) So, I just started, thinking of a sweet southern belle sitting on the veranda on a crisp, cool evening sipping a little mint julep. Ahhhhhh, that is heaven. So I just started with her talking, "No, sports for me, darlin' -- I don't DO "sweat." That was pretty snarky and sassy, right? Can't you just visualize her sipping away and laughing at the boys playing tag football on the lawn?? I surely can. She tires of watching all that activity and asks "Pass the mint juleps please". There. That's it. That's enough, and it says it all, at least to me.

I had a big blank space left at the bottom so I doodled up some quirky little flowers and colored them in with NeoColor II's to represent her lovely garden, just a step off that veranda. The smell of blooming flowers wafting in the air against the crisp, cool evening. Heaven on earth.

Should I doodle a border? No border? Paint it? <sigh> Back to the stash. Digging. Rummaging. Aha! There's a big spool of green dyed sisal twine. Dark green. Perfect contrast. Since I love swirly, swoopy lines, I made some squiggly glue lines with Alene's Tacky Glue and began to cover that with the sisal twine. Perfect. Great contrast on the page. Texture. A little more visual interest.

All in all, it turned out rather well, considering my disdain for participating in or watching organized sports that require sweating or large crowds (I don't suffer those well, either).

As an alternate prompt - in the event YOU don't do sports either, we give you "Under the Sea" to work with. I have previously done some journal pages with this theme, so decided to pass on doing another. Here's a peek at a collaborative journal page with this theme that I did much earlier this year. The page owner, Martika Patton did the watercolor background, and I added all the fishes and creatures from stamped images I had received in Happy Mail, coloring with Copic Marker and then fussy cutting them all out and applying to the watercolor page. I then sent it along to the next person to add their "touch"

As an alternate prompt - in the event YOU don't do sports either, we give you "Under the Sea" to work with. I have previously done some journal pages with this theme, so decided to pass on doing another. Here's a peek at a collaborative journal page with this theme that I did much earlier this year. The page owner, Martika Patton did the watercolor background, and I added mermaid, the fishes, & creatures from stamped images I had received in Happy Mail, coloring with Copic Marker and then fussy cutting them all out and applying to the watercolor page. I then sent it along to the next person to add their "touch"

Here is a padded mailer I did with an "Under the Sea" theme in acrylics with a cute (and el cheapo) little fishy foam stamp and a Uniball Signo pen in white.