May Theme
Touchy Feely (Texture)
May 30 – Week 22
Art Challenge: Textured Paper
Journal Prompt: I’m So Not Feeling It!
I guess I could say that I wasn’t “feeling” this challenge for the week. It took me a long time to get into it. I have stacks and stacks of textured and handmade papers but I just wasn’t inspired by them. {That’s probably why I haven’t used up any of those stacks – pretty to look at, but then what?}
Whenever I have trouble getting started, I always lay down some ephemera as a base and see what happens next. I used gel medium and a flat brush to adhere it. After it was dry, I used a dry brush to lightly coat the surface with white gesso.
I remembered I had some old embossed paper – this was from the Recollections collection at Michael’s and is years and years old, but it is something like THIS. I also have something similar I found at the hardware store – it’s embossed wallpaper and is great for using in mixed-media projects either to paint on or to stamp with. It holds paint beautifully!
I pulled out my watercolors and began to put very wet color down and let it run – the pictures aren’t great, but it looked quite pretty when it was allowed to dry. Like that cool palette? I get asked about it all the time. You can find out about it in another blog post HERE.
I sketched a little face and “designed” a dress and hat for her. She looks like a “Calliope” to me. Yes, that suits her. I used a UHU glue stick to attach the dress and hat – the gel medium just didn’t seem to work on the raised paper.
She’s a bit precocious, I think. She came to life with rough pencil sketching and neocolor crayons. I used the crayons and a stabilo pencil for background and accents.
When It was finished, I started having second thoughts about the hat, and then it came to me! I just wasn’t “feeling it” and neither was she!
I am extraordinarily excited about this week’s featured artists, Andrew Borloz! We miss Andrew – he was a very active member last year and must hold the record for the largest DLP Planner! But we are so fortunate he agreed to make time for us in his busy schedule and I am sure he has a big treat in store for us this week, so be sure to check him out HERE!
For more information on this week’s challenge you can find us here:
http://arttothe5th.squarespace.com/
Flickr
Instagram: #documentedlife #documentedlifeproject
Looking for previous challenges? click HERE
Visit our blogs: Sandi Keene, Roben-Marie Smith, Rae Missigman
Join us on The Art to the 5thâ„¢ Academyâ„¢ – a thriving “community” and classroom for “The Original” Documented Life Projectâ„¢! Find us on Instagram: #documentedlife
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Comments
Love the way you integrated your beautiful colors with the rich surface…and I like that you left some of the background the gorgeous neutral colors! This is something I’d like to try since I usually fill my entire pages with color! Thank you for the inspiration, Lorraine!
So gorgeous!
You are sweetness!
This came out GREAT Lorraine! And I love her hat… it’s just perfect! The colors are scrumptious… love how vibrant!!
Thank you so much Jill!
Oops. Posted too soon by accident. You are so clever Lorraine and I love how you incorporated the wallpaper. Your girls make me so happy to look at and she is beautiful.
I love your colors & verbiage
Thanks for stopping by Sandra!~
I love Calliope’s hat and dress and everything!! The textured paper is really wonderful!
Thank you Jane – I am so happy you liked it!
LOL….love her precociousness! I really enjoyed reading about how you progressed through this challenge! And that wallpaper idea rocks!
Thank you so much Kathy – she was a lot of fun!
She is beautiful Lorraine. Perhaps fascinators are not her style! I love your color palette and will def explore that further. Thanks for sharing!
I love that Cindy . . . "fascinators" . . . a term we American’s never use! It sounds so sophisticated! Thanks for commenting!
I love your page and Calliope! Thank you ! I am gonna go see if I can find some embossed wallpaper!
Yay Marsha – try the local hardware store! So glad you were inspired!
I love Calliope AND her hat. It’s so cute how you used her expression to express doubt about the hat. You also gave me an idea about what to use for my textured paper! Thank you for the inspiration, Lorraine!
Thank you Karen – I kind of loved the hat too, but Calliope wasn’t having it! Thanks for commenting – it is so wonderful to get feedback! Have a great day!
I love your page! And love how your page evolved to fit the prompt perfectly! Your faces are evolving and looking so beautiful, Lorraine. And love you your used strips and cut-outs on the facing page to balance the spread. Just love it! 🙂 Thanks for sharing your page with us!
Thank you so much Cindy – You made my day!
This is so cute and I love how you used the textured wallpaper. I thought about using textured wallpaper but did not have anything pretty and I have never seen paper like yours. You turned it into an amazing element in your page!!
Thanks Roben-Marie – I ended up loving the challenge after all!
It’s wonderful how it all came together in spite of not feeling it! Love how you colored the wallpaper which has such a yummy texture. The simplicity of the background is also nice to see. Sometimes less is more.
I agree and thanks so much!
I think she’s stunning! The idea of coloring that embossed paper is genius and the colors are just so perfect. Love it!
Thank you – you are always so kind – I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Your spread really brought a smile to me this morning. She was definitely NOT feeling it. I thought that the minute I saw her eyes. Too funny. I love the embossed wallpaper painted and the colors you chose and the background with its scratchy color and written journaling. This is really a cool page.
I’m so glad you got a giggle Mary! You would appreciate that you can also paint on that wallpaper and turn it over and STAMP with it – LOL – you are the texture queen!
So cute!! Love the comment about not feeling the hat… that’s the look she’s got. SO cute!!
Thank you Aino – so sweet of you to comment!