It was so good to work on a new art journal post this weekend, and this time, I reverted to my usual process where I begin with a concept. This spread would celebrate a deer fairy in a fantastical forest.
Here’s the beginning. There’s a layer of collage and the start of a decorative border.
Once I had my concept, I began looking through my stash of magazine clippings. I was looking for two things: forest backgrounds and old stone ruins. Although I did find some ruins which were nice, I decided on this window from an old Scottish castle. I really liked the light shining through it and the way the stonework framing the glass panes echoes the tree shapes. Rather than just looking for color, pattern, and texture, I also wanted recognizable images which fit my theme, as I was going to rely on them rather than painting a background.
I decided to add the two small pieces of black and white patterned tissue paper—just because I liked them there.
When I glued the magazine clippings down, I used a technique which I regularly use with masa paper but haven’t used with magazine clippings before. I crumpled the clippings, soaked them in water for about ten seconds, wrung out most of the water, uncrumpled them, then glued them down. The result was this spidery pattern where the ink had washed away along the lines of some of the crumples. The large forest image on the right shows the effect the most.
At this point, my spread was quite wet, and here’s an important caution for you. Especially when working with collage, don’t judge your piece while it’s wet. Here’s why. When the clippings are wet, the paper becomes translucent, and what’s printed on the back shows through somewhat. Also, everything will appear darker—sometimes much darker—than when it’s dry. In other words, the way the piece looks when wet is deceptive. Before doing any more with the collage, I let it dry.
But I did begin on the border.
When I was looking through my clippings, I found this ad whose border really caught my eye. So, I used it as inspiration for the border I painted on my piece. This is just a reminder that clippings can serve as useful inspirations even if you don’t use them directly in your spread.
Next, I turned my attention to the deer fairy. I probably could have found a good clipping of a deer and just added wings, but I decided to draw my own. I’d need to be sure to make the size right, so I laid a piece of tracing paper over the spread and drew the outline of the deer. Once I had the outline at the right size, I just laid the piece of tracing paper on a sheet of white paper and continued to work on the drawing.
But what’s really exciting to me about this drawing on tracing paper is that I might be able to use it directly on the piece. I could paint a layer of gesso on the back, but only behind the deer. Then I could rip out the deer with only a small edge of tracing paper all around and glue it down. Theoretically, the tracing paper edge would mostly disappear while I’d have the pencil drawing with the opaque white of the gesso. Then I could go from there to develop the deer—paint, colored pencil, more pencil, or nothing at all.
The problem will be adding the gesso and sealing the pencil without the tracing paper crinkling. So, I’ll have to think about that for a while—AND do something I seldom do: test first! If I can get this to work out, it will be a very useful technique. If not, I’ll give vellum a try instead of the tracing paper.
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Keep designing, creating and using your God-given gifts. Diann