Journal Pages

This 2-page spread in my Aquabee was completed today, but originally was an entirely different journal page done in watercolor and pen. I covered everything up with acrylic and just began to play. It gradually evolved until I noticed I had painted dots and shapes that resembled an eye. I began to develop that and add to it. I am so pleased with these pages. I spent about 2 hours tonight completing them. After the eye developed and I refined it, the hymn, "Open My Eyes that I may see," began to run through my mind. I added the lyrics to the pages with gel pen and that finished it off. I really like the eye, the gold acrylic paint and the repetition of circles - all of which just happened. Below is a closeup of the two pages individually...








More pages completed today. (I've really accomplished a lot today! smile...) I picked up a leaf during a walk around the campus at work and did a leaf rubbing the other day (page at right). Then I just stuck the leaf inside the sketchbook to press and dry it. Today during my lunch break I traced the outline of the leaf (page at left) with a cream Prismacolor pencil. The background at that point was a rather dull brownish red color. Tonight I added the gold paint to both pages and added the dark blue background to make the leaf at left pop off the page. The leaf rubbing (with Tuscan Red Prismacolor) was refined with the gold paint and very thin washes of blue and raw sienna. I may add more to these pages - a quote about autumn, some texture, something...



Lastly is this 2 page spread in acrylic. I actually was using up paint from a project at work with most of these pages. This one in particular. On a background that was done prior to this and dry, I painted the left page first and while it was wet closed the book, stamping a mirror image on the right page. This was reminiscent of the butterfly paintings we did in elementary art classes - remember that ? I will definitely add to this, but I like the start a lot!