2nd Floor Challenge - Circles

Hi There

The next Second Floor Challenge laid down by Julie Fei Fan-Balzer and Nathalie Kalbach is circles.

I started off with a background I already had.  I had just swiped a couple of different coloured ink pads down and across the page.
To start the challenge I used a toilet roll and painted one end with black Gesso and stamped all over the pages.

At this point I had no idea what to do next.   After a break and a bit of a think about it, I decided to use a few different acrylic paints colours and a paint dabber to dab circles inside the circles.

I then broke out one of my favorite supplies, oil pastels..... and coloured in the negative spaces between the circles with a light blue colour.  That didn't really turn out the way I thought it would.  I probably should have used a darker colour I think.  Then I coloured in around the inside edge of some of the circles with different oil pastel colours.   I am liking where this page is at right now.

I wasn't quite sure what to do next, so I had a poke around in my craft room and came upon some Zentangle squares that I had done previously.

I coloured them and cut them into circles and stuck them to the page.  I then used the oil pastels to draw in stem and leaves.

To finish the page off I used a Dylusion's circle stencil with black Gesso and bubble wrap with white gesso to carry on the circle theme.  I adhered two felt butterfly's and a white crocheted one that I inked around the edges.  Added some chipboard letters to spell the word "Bloom".  To finish the page off I edged the pages with a black oil pastel.

What I learnt from this.

• I really like circles. 
• It's ok not to have clue where things are going. Walk away and come back to it later, something will come to mind.
• I love oil pastels ... ok I already knew that!!
• I love bright colours, in particular bright blue is calling to me lately.... and of course red, my all time favorite colour.
• I have a lot of "stuff" in my craft room and unless I go digging, I forget what I have. 

Have a lovely day.
Lynn

Thought I would share this art journal page that I have recently finished.

I decided to do the "Second Floor" Challenge run by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer from Balzer Designs and Nathalie Kalbach. This first challenge was to create something using Gold Acrylic Paint.

So here is what I did.

I already had the orange, flower, tissue paper background in my art journal ready to use.

When I heard of the challenge, I immediately pictured gold hand prints.

So off I went and painted my hands with gold paint and slapped them down on the page...... mmmm not what I expected....   the hand prints just looked like globs of gold paint and definitely not hand print, they didn't stand out as I wanted them to.  The background is to busy.... so what to do.

I decided to spray on some hearts using from a Crafters Workshop Stencil using Adirondack Color Wash Spray ink  in a few different colours.   The page was getting there but the gold paint was even more hidden.

I then painted the word Believe on black card stock and when it was dry covered in crystal Kindy Glitz, glitter glue, cut it out and stuck in on the bottom of the page.  I was not happy at all, with where this page was at.

I left it for a day and then came up with the idea of drawing some leaves on the page and painting them in Gold.  This was much better, but the page still wasn't done.

I added a Dylusion stamp, Tallulah Tripp, and coloured her in.   I then started doodling with a white out pen and finally added some words to the page to build on the word Believe.

I finished off using my Inktense Blocks to do a bit more highlighting.

Now the page was done.... well for now anyways :-).

I am quite happy with the way the page turned out.  The lettering could have been neater but it was the first time I tried lettering with a white out pen so overall I am happy with it.

I really enjoyed this challenge, it made me push myself and to use gold paint, which is a new thing for me in my art journalling.  I am really looking to the next the next challenge by Julie and Nat.

Have a great day
Lynn