Eclectic Paperie: Be Strong

Good morning ePeeps! Micki here with a colorful art journal spread using those wonderful, bright and vivid Dylusions Spray Inks AND Dina Wakley's new stencils.

I've been neglecting my art journal lately but when I got my latest eP package, I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to pull it out and play. And play I did! Considering I had no clear idea for the end result, I am really happy how it turned out:

I simply started by spraying Dylusions Ink Sprays in Fresh Lime and London Blue onto the pages. Letting the ink sit for a few minutes, then mopping up any excess with a paper towel roll.

Next I grabbed an arm load of stencils. First I used my Water Mister spray bottle and squirted some water over the inky goodness on the pages. Waited a minute and rolled the paper towel roll over it. Then I laid down Dina Wakley's Tracks stencil and sprayed Dylusions Vibrant Turqoise and Polished Jade through it, making sure to clean the stencil on the same page I was working on, which gave me the 'negative' stencil image:

Next I decided to add Dina Wakley Heavy Body Acrylic Paints through Dina's Mosaic Swirl and Spinners stencils. I have to tell you guys that I absolutely LOVE Dina's brushes. I used the 1" Stiff Bristle brush to pounce the paints through the stencils. I usually use a sponge because I never had any good results using a brush, even a stencil brush. But these brushes - awesome.

At this point I knew I wanted to use Dina's Stenciled Queenie stencil, I just needed to frame the pages. I love Dina's Mod Mask and using the negative, created a border around the pages. (Actually, I was too lazy to get up to walk across the room to get more stencils, :-) ) Again, using Dina's 1" Stiff Bristle brush and Lapis Heavy Body Acrylic, I painted through the stencil. I did not worry about seepage and used paint strokes instead of pouncing the paint:

By this time, I was in the "zone". I grabbed bottle caps and started to add these to the border and randomly throughout the spread. For some reason, adding those bottle cap circles was soooo therapeutic and fun. Now it wouldn't be me if I didn't have a little goof-up, right? Can you see it?

I do not know what I was thinking when I did the blob of paint. Definitely helped me decide where to place the Stenciled Queenie, right?

Before adding the Stenciled Queenie, I randomly stamped Dylusions Basic Backgrounds and Dina Wakley's Texture stamps using Wendy Vecchi's Archival Ink in Forget Me Not and Leaf Green on both pages:

Next came the Stenciled Queenie. Using Dina's Black Gesso (love the thickness of it) and the 1" Stiff Bristle brush, Queenie was added to the left page, making sure to cover my blue blob. Once she was dry, I added journaling with a white gel pen.

Final step was to add my title on the right side using Dina's You Can stencil. I stenciled the words first in Ruby acrylic paint, then offsetting the stencil a little, in Black Gesso. I used the back of my paint brush to add red dots in each bottle cap circle around the edge to help tie in the red of the title.

It's so much fun to use a stencil and create different images. Here I just turned the stencil upside down which created an overlapping X, perfect for bottle cap circles.

So much fun and I had a really, really hard time stopping. I kept wanting to add more doodling with the white gel pen.

Inks, paints and stencils - a no fail end result, don't you think? I hope you enjoyed my inky journey and most of all, I hope it inspired you to get inky!