Be courageous, be true to yourself is all about texture. Be true to yourself – I shouldn’t forget that I love textures and be courageous – is not to forget to experiment, in the worst case another layer of thick gesso and everything is white again. So here is the end result:
I had so many scraps on my table, I wanted to use some of them, so I was beginning with a scrap collage using soft gel.
I had that piece of net also from some lemons that I bought to my son, who of course had to catch a cold on the first week of school. So as lemons are going into the tea, what shall I do with that net? Then I blended everything together with some gesso.
Next I wanted to add some color to my spread, so I used Lindy’s stamp gang sprays (bachelor button blue and autumn maple crimson) and I was splattering rather then spraying. I was beginning to dry it with a heat gun and I misted with a bit of a water just before drying.
I wanted to add some more textures, textures are never enough for me, so I used texture stamps with archival ink (orange blossom and librarian green).
Now I wanted to add some image and text to my spread. So I took my ephemera bag and look for some images, I found that vintage lady from 7 dots studio and the heart and my text are also from the same pack. The V need to admit it have no idea where it is from, it’s just in the bag and it seemed to sit so nicely next to my heart.
I sealed my images with soft gel and I used my faded dot stencil to add some more textures with soft gel. As I am a real impatient type, and a bit messy what happened that my palette knife had some former color, so my dots got lightly colored in the beginning and I used heat gun again to dry my soft gel that result to some bubbles. But you know what me liked it. So I added another color layer with bonjour butter and cafè au lait. Dried it and whipped the color away from my images, text and where I used my stencil as soft gel is a resistant. Take a look at the close ups:
So be courageous and experiment, there’s so much to explore and to discover. I am sharing my spread with Journal 52 prompt textures.
lerusho 
Gorgeous and rich pages you created with all those layers Ruth
and what would we do without gesso…the great fixer and maker of layers 😉
oxo
That’s right Patty, gesso was invented for every artists’ convenience 😉
I love, love, love those textures. The lemon net is the coolest of them all! Hope the lemons have helped and your son feels better soon! (And yet another great challenge blog for me to bookmark! When I googled mixed media challenge blogs I couldn’t find any! All I had to do was visit your site and it’s like a directory of the best challenge blogs out there!)
Thank you Zsuzsa, poor little boy has a hard dropping nose, but he will survive, today already back to school, I think I should make a page with links only, even though on my sidebar most of the sites are appearing, it’s possible that I didn’t grab a badge, but I’ll check 🙂
I love starting with scraps too!! Beautiful textures! Love your journal spread Ruth! xo
Thanks my friend, it’s always nice to hear your opinion 😉
After reading your blog, and a few others i have started using scrap pieces as the base of my pages and then layered with paints & sprays. Must use more gesso to seal the layers as you have.
Amazing journal pages Ruth, loving the textures very much. Hoping your Son is recovering well & his nose stops dripping very very soon:-) xxx
Gesso makes the magic and that’s right, okey some gel medium is a must as well… and thanks, kids are great in recovery, while we can pull things for weeks they are usually over it in a few days 🙂
Wowser, this is a masterclass in technique. I love it that you used a pile of scraps too – this is another reason why I should do this! I love it all, but especially the portion with the v and the heart. The vintage photo looks right at home there too. Fabulous.
Thanks Lisette, I was just playing around, experimenting, I hate when my table is full with little pieces, but I don’t have the heart to throw them out, you know it can be handy sometime somewhere 🙂