Going for a walk

Hello all!  I'm just making it in under the wire with my entry for this month's Art Journal Journey theme.  I promised myself I'd play along at least once a month this year but the lovely Chris of PearShapedCrafting slightly stumped me with her "We're All Going..." theme.  It's a lovely idea, and opened up lots of possibilities for everyone, but I found myself paralysed between two phrases which really didn't inspire me at all.

Firstly, there was "We're all going on a summer holiday... " - thanks for that earworm, Cliff Richard! - but that just isn't true for me this year.  And then there was "We're all going to hell in a handcart," which seems a lot more apt for the current state of world affairs, but was far too depressing for me to want to start journalling about.  I know that you can use art journalling for all kinds of emotions and expressivity - but, just at the moment, I prefer to escape from nightmarish reality when I head into the craft-room, rather than take it in there with me.

In the end, with July rapidly running out of days, I decided my best bet was to run for my happiest possible artsy place, so on my art journalling page we're all going for a walk in the meadow.  When the world is looking dark, some sunlight and a gentle breeze are sometimes all that's needed to feel a little more cheerful.







This is a heavily textured page, since I started with a thick coat of watercolour ground to prepare the page for using watercolour paints.  It gives you a deliciously grainy, sandy texture which also allows the pigment to flow as though you had watercolour paper.

It means you can get lovely soft background effects before applying more detail in later layers.













The paper in this large 10x10 inch album from Paperchase is already sturdy (it's the same book as has the Inspiring Herbs and Wild and Organic pages), but the ground gives you even more weight and texture. 











Watercolours are the main medium here.  At this stage, that's all that's on the page, apart from the watercolour ground itself... but then I moved on to a more mixed media approach.














There are some nice thick applications of heavy body acrylic to create texture in the flower heads.















I love the dimension and movement this gives you.
















I used some large PITT artist pens to add some variation in line to some of the stems...














... as well as adding some soft blue flower heads to the distant stems in the background.  














And it wanted warming up a bit so I added some of my favourite Broken China Distress Stain, creating turquoise shading beneath the flower heads as well as deepening the colour of the sky.
















There's some script stamping in Olive Archival adding texture to the undergrowth.














I used my dipping pen and some Turtle Dove Grey ink by Colorex to write the words, which are layered over some torn strips of tissue tape.












I've no nearby meadows to head into in real life, so the craft table version will just have to do for now when I need to escape.

I hope you've enjoyed coming for a walk with me, and I'll be back soon with some exciting posts in the next couple of weeks.  Stay tuned and happy crafting in the meantime!









In a meadow full of flowers, you cannot walk through and breathe those smells and see all those colors and remain angry. We have to support the beauty, the poetry, of life.
Jonas Mekas

I'd like to share this over at Art Journal Journey for this month's theme of "We're All Going..."
At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, they're looking for projects which are Bright and Cheerful - my sunshine meadow has made me feel a little more cheerful about the world, so I'd like to play along there too
I'd also like to share this at Paint Party Friday - continuing to work on expanding my experience with watercolours, and also exploring how they fit in with my mixed media work