DLP Week 44

Week 44 Planner Pages

A Gelli-print with doodles for the header and a matching one on the second page this time. :) This week ended on a Friday, and since I split up my months, I had some extra room at the bottom. :)

I asked myself, "Why would I include leaves in snowy October? Well, the challenge for Week 44 was leaves, so I did. :) Kudos to the summer I will be patiently (and sometimes unpatiently) be waiting for in the next SIX months! 

The background of the tip-in shown above is an index card. I colored circles with multiple colors of pencil crayons, practicing blending colors. 

I covered it up with Gesso partially, ran a plastic card through so that some areas show through. 

The "O" is a stamp. I smudged the paint to make it look looser. 

Added a frame with a Dylusions ink-filled waterbrush and added some more doodles as well.

 And there you have it. The last week of October. Only two more months to go until 2015! EEEEKKKK!

:) :)

I Love September! My Week 38 in DLP

Fall

all at once

summer collapsed

into fall

-- Oscar Wilde

I wish it could always be September. 

On that note, here is my fall-infused entry week 38 of The Documented Life Project. 

The colors, the smells, the way the sunlight plays on the changing colors, it is just utterly breathtaking to me! 

^^ Full spread with tip-in open pictured above. ^^

^^Tip-in closed.^^

The top of my tip-in is a collage of my late summer and early fall Instagram photos. The collage is simply done by going to www.Prinkl.com, connecting your Instagram account, adding photos to template, and saving as a PDF to my hard drive, then printing it out on my printer.

I cut off strips of my fall watercolour painting that is in the inside part of the tip-in to accommodate the smaller width of the tip-in, and added the strips to this page.

The yellow strip on the right is some lovely Scotch brand Washi tape that my twin gifted to me. Thank you, Sis! I love it!

^^ Tip-in open.^^

I painted the fall leaves many years ago, and the piece was sitting all this time in my art journal filing system (I do have some of my art journal fodder organized but most of it is all over the place. LOL) It now has a HOME! :)

This is week 38 of my art journal/artsy planner, but I did the week 39 challenge. See HERE for more information about DLP if you're not familiar with it yet. :) See HERE for this week's challenge: Splatters and Drips

I wrote the "Fall" part of the quote with a watercolour brush. Added water, and made it run by holding the paper upright. Simple, but a little dangerous, because I wasn't sure how it would turn out...#bebrave

Doodley-dos with my Sharpie fine-line...

An apology to my Canadian readers: I spelled "potato" with an E! Sorry about that! Up here in Canada we leave out the e, so this kinda bothers me! Teehee! Oh well, too late to change it now.

I scribbled around some of the photos to add a bit of interest and to help ground the collage. Black always manages to ground things visually.

The header above ^^ was created by first sketching/doodling the leaves messily, then messily added drops and splats, you know, like the challenge says to. :) I altered it a bit with a brush until I liked the look. I used acrylic inks for the splattering and Dylusions inks in a waterbrush to move the color around, and to add some other colors.

My handmade Journal for DLP

Some of you have been asking how I made my DLP journal. Here goes:

I used Canson 15x11" 140lb watercolor paper, with each sheet folded in half.

To prepare my journal for binding, I used this method: How to Make a Sketchbook: Coptic Stitch.

To bind all the pages, I plan on doing this: Coptic Stitch Binding Tutorial

The only reason I haven't bound it yet is because I haven't taken the time! In hindsight, this is better for working in, because even though the Coptic Stitch binding method gives me a lay-flat binding, I won't have to wrestle with trying to have a flat surface to work on. As the book gets thicker and thicker, the more I'd get frustrated with an uneven surface. To work on my pages, I just grab one month at a time. I do wish every now and then that my book was all intact, especially to carry it around and when people want to see it. :)

My daughter and I made a video where I page through my pages, showing each signature and some more little details. Nothing grand or professional looking about the video, but it'll give you an idea of my set up. :P At about 1:20, I show the folded pieces of watercolor pages.



My bubbles page:

Supplies:
Watercolor paper
Neocolor II water-soluble wax crayons
Black marker, fine-tipped (I used Sharpie)
White paint pen (I used Painters)

Directions:

1. With the wax crayons, randomly color different circles, pressing hard, and then softly coloring in the middles. Cover the whole page with multiple colors, not paying too much attention to placement, as long as you don't leave huge gaps in between circles.

2. Wet brush, dissolve the color in the circles, focusing on allowing water to pool to one side of each circle. Try to collect the color in the same spots of each circle. Let brush touch the dark outlined part of each circle to bring in lots of vivid color into the circle. Let dry THOROUGHLY.

3. Outline each circle with the black marker, attempting to not touch the actual circle. Doodle another circle around the first one, being careful to not overlap the other circles. So some circled outlines will be behind others, depending how close the circles are to each other. Do it randomly, in no particular order. I started at the bottom, and kind of moved to the top, to the edge, but really no particular order. Important that you keep it random.

4. Color in the little gaps with black.

5. Add dots to each circle with the white paint pen, ensuring you add the dots to the same side of each circle. I painted them all on the right side, but it doesn't matter which side you choose, as long as they are consistently on one side. See photo. Let dry.

And you're done! Easy peasy, just a little time consuming, right?

:)

Haha, looking at the close-up, I noticed I missed a few areas with the white paint pen. Perfectionism kills creativity, I will just say. ;P

Let me know if I missed any details, and I love questions!
Thanks for visiting! Happy day to you!

Anna