Backgrounds

I love my art journal but sometimes it does not receive the attention it deserves, (i.e. I ignore it and don't journal).  This means I don't reap the rewards that come from spontaneous and free flowing art. Mostly the neglect is time related and I think I might have figured out a remedy.

Seems to me that when I'm busy and away from home for several days I don't work in my journal because I don't have any joy for that plain white background on the pages in my journal pad. To alter that background while away from home would require me to tote too many supplies. I think the solution is as easy as pre-making my backgrounds?

I enjoy making backgrounds and preparing a substrate for working on later. This gives me lots of background choices for journaling on the run or just when I'm in a hurry. 

Here's a few backgrounds I've worked on lately

This background I like so much that I probably won't add anything to it, (except maybe some journaling), I glued down a few vintagey looking ephemera pieces and covered them with small pieces of an old sewing pattern. I used gel medium for my adhesive.

Watered down fluid acrylics spritzed with water and then blotted created this background. The white lines are from painting the edges with fluid acrylics and a lot of misting with water. The paper is held up until I'm satisfied with the amount of running. 

I created this piece with watered down craft paint then misted it with a water bottle and blotted. Brown paint was thinned and splattered on the paper. Tapping the brush against my wrist easily created the splatters. 

Both these backgrounds were created with water soluble crayons. I like to color and then use a water brush to move the pigment around. I randomly bolt with my favorite rag, a coffee filter. On this one I used a heavy hand and blocked the color.

I used a very light touch with the crayons on this page. The colors are more randomly placed than in the example above.

The little bubbles in the corner of this piece happened when I was drying paint on the back side of the page. I like the way it looks but a lesson learned from overheating or holding my heatgun too close.

Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by. 

Happy Creating.

Susan