Art Journal Mantra

Our family is in home limbo at the moment.  Sometimes my thoughts can become plagued by "when will this all be over?"  or, "Will the house we like still be on the market when our old house sells?"  It's stressful to think of these things, and it's been causing the horrible "hurry up and wait" situation.

In an effort to stay calm about it all, I decided that when I start thinking too much about it, I need to reassure myself that the right house will come along at the right time,  in the right place and at the right price.  I shortened this to, "Right House, Right Place, Right Time, Right Price."  Then I can let go of the stressful thoughts, replace them with some vague positivity and leave it at that.

Art journals can be good for focusing thoughts.  I knew I wanted to make some kind of arty/crafty expression of this mantra so that I can picture it in my head as well.  So here it is.

The inspiration for this page came from Joanne Sharpe's Art House which she made for The Art House Studio while she was there teaching some classes.

My Art Journal is a Kraft paper one, which generally means I either need to stick things into it, or prepare the paper first.   My chosen medium for colour was PanPastels.  This determined that I needed to prep the surface.  I experimented on a previous art journal page with gesso and white/cream acrylic paint and decided  on the latter.  In my experience, gesso doesn't make a good surface for PanPastel, probably because it is made with chalk to begin with.  It  also picks up all  the oil from fingerprints or anything else and areas coloured with PanPastel will highlight the oil.  it was an interesting effect, and probably one to keep in mind if I ever want that to happen on purpose.  but for the most part, the PanPastel seemed to prefer the acrylic, so that's what I used.

I made a background full of my mantra, in my own handwriting, using a variety of pens.  I need to play some more and find greater  variety in my writing styles, something that I'm sure a class with Joanne Sharpe will enable me to do.

The colour was added over the top of the writing with the PanPastels. I bought the starter kit Mixed Media 2.  it has some beautiful colours in it and I have used pretty much all of them in this page.  The colours are so vibrant in real life.  The photo really doesn't do it justice.  I sealed it with Pastel Fixative poured into a mini-mister bottle.  I can't get hold of the spray verion at the moment, but this will do and furthermore, it will be cheaper every time I need to refill.  The liquid fixative in a bottle costs less than the spray cans.  Result!