Wednesday 2 October 2013

Breaking in.................

................a new journal!!!!!!

Hmm, I was ever so naughty and treated myself to an A4 Moleskine sketchbook. Ha ha ha I thought £12.00 with free p&p was a pretty good deal considering they usually retail between £19.00 and £25.00, so I had a 'what the heck' moment and went for it!!!!!!!!

I can understand why they are favoured by so many now, they feel wonderful, are superbly made (sewn signatures too whoop whoop), and the paper is very nice to play with too. I don't think the paper would stand up to too much abuse and dye ink/promarkers will bleed through if you do not slap on a coat of gesso but I have to say that I love it already.

Here is my 'breaking in' spread........


I started by literally winging some paint at it to get over the blank page/new book syndrome ha ha ha. I then stamped all over the spread with various stamps from my stash, using coffee and sepia archival ink.  The next step was to add another coat of paint which I added some additional texture to using a couple of grout/adhesive combs. The next pic shows this in a little more detail........


........you can just see the grid patterns in the paint. I defined this a little more by sponging some raspberry adirondack over the surface using some cut and dry foam.

Next came my favourite bit, building up layers by applying paint using various stencils, my fingers, bottle tops and old plastic cards.

The final stage was the addition of the stenciled/masked figures and various stamped sentiments, some directional tags, strips of washi tape, and doodling.

These scans show a little more detail........




Stencils/masks are a mix of Tando Creative, TCW and Tim Holtz.
Acrylic paints from Ranger, Decoart and Pebeo.
Stamps - heck, I can't remember them all and some are un-named anyways!!!!!!!

Anyhoo, on a final note I have to tell you this story!!!! My delight of a 2yr old son decided to shove a sweet up his nose on Sunday!!!! I was all prepared for a trip to A&E to get it extracted as after viewing up his nose with a torch (ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!) I could see it was way beyond my reach!! Well, after a few more checks while organising my daughter too I could see that it was melting and Max had lovely frothy green sherbety snot for the next couple of hours as it fully dissolved!!! Needless to say I don't think he will be doing it again in a hurry as it did sting a little until it had gone. BOYS HUH!!!!!!!!

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, your time and thoughts mean the world you know.

Huge hugs

Dawn x

7 comments:

Gio said...

Gorgeuos spread , Dawn, so colourful and vibrant. You made a deal with that Moleskine. I see there is one in black, all the pages are black , to die for, but is soooo expensive!

Nice story, I think at first you were frightened but at the end was funny and a good lesson for your son.

BJ said...

Oh I wish I had as much confidence to start in my Dyan mini journal!

As for the sweet, our DS swallowed one of those rock gems not unlike an orange strepsil. No melting there, just searching of the ...... (let DH do that bit!!) YUK!

Super page btw. BJ

Karen said...

hehe I am still chuckling about Max!!!! And I still don't understand why there isn't a photo hahahaha!!!!!

Fabby pages my lovely...now you have made a start in your new book I hope that we will be seeing more pages :D xxx

Cocofolies said...

A pure delight for our eyes Dawn !!!! I love all things on it, the care you took to apply all these beautiful masks and lots of layers of paint... and the mix of hand-writing and stamped quotes, fab first page for your wonderful new Moleskine journal !! Well worth buying for you I guess sweetie. Big HUGS, Coco xxxx

Anonymous said...

Why is is that boys shove stuff up their noses- too funny, thankfully it was a NON-disaster....Nice new journal pages...perfect way to break and enter. xox

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

Lovely way to break in that new journal. I've never had a moleskin, so you are very lucky. And the price was apparently right, too. That spread was pure delight. I so enjoyed it and liked that you explained what you did.

BTW, I got a laugh out of your son's "snot."

Sandy said...

What a wonderful start!! I am so glad you got this journal now we just have to see more of your wonderful creations!
Sandy