hello sweethearts! REV IT UP time! This week it is all about FEELING. And the first thought that came to my mind was “feeling alive”. And how important it is to do the things that makes you happy. Otherwise it is just surviving your live and not FEELING alive, right? I think it is very important we have hobbies we love to do. Especially when you are crafty, you can escape from reality by creating and feeling good. Ah well, that is how it works for me. Especially when feeling down (yes, I also can feel down and miserable, although I try to look on the bright side of life), than creating, making stuff with my hands, just gives me the relaxing feeling I was looking for. I instantly start to feel better the moment I touch or even look at my art supplies. How is that for you?
for now, here’s to another week, another creative play for you!
Prompt: FEELING
Exercise: use fabric in your art journal
I came up with this page
How did I make this page?
I got my favorite art journal out, I have used a beautiful stencil from Art by Marlene (MASKBM04), I dug up some old spray paints from Heidi Swapp, some Tombow markers, white posca pens and scraps of fabric.
first get out your favorite spray paints. I fell in love with the colors & glitters from Heidi Swapp.
but when I sprayed, it was not the effect I was hoping for. Big drops, and the spray thingies were not working properly anymore (hehe, haven’t used them in a while!)
luckily there is always a small bottle of water to spray to the rescue! So just spray a little water to make the colors more watery. and yes, that will also mess up your stencil a bit, but I am fine with that!
I have used these 4 colors, and I was not to sure about how they would look, but hey kinda love it! Sometimes you just have to surprise yourself, right?!
carefully pick up the stencil when your spray paint is still wet. I really love how at the bottom it worked perfectly, and in the middle the lines are just dripping with spray paint. Perfectly imperfect 🙂
now get out your fabric! I decided to cut some hearts (when not haha!)
And I will allign them a bit like this, just covering a little over eachother.
Using gel medium to glue them down. Remember: the spray paint will react with the gel medium, but my experience is it will not react as much as for instance watercolors will. So clean your brush in between to prevent the ink to bleed here and there.
Just glueing them down with an (old) brush. Make sure to clean that brush after using your gel medium. Otherwise you can throw it in the bin…
I decided to write my title with pencil and I will fill it up with white posca pens. Remember: the page has to be a bit more dry. I kept ruining it, by poking my pencil into the paper and tearing it a bit. A well, patience is not my best part 🙂
I wrote “stay close to what keeps you FEELING alive”. And ain’t that the truth!
Now the struggle started. Yes, not every page (hell not even half!) are working out the way I had in mind. The problem here was: how to get my letters beautiful white. Because when I used my posca pens, the spray paint kept bleeding through! I am so used to watercolor, I kinda forgot that spray paint has a lot more pigment / strong color in them. So you have to go over it a few times to make your letters as white as you want…. Maybe I should have used white acrylic paint, but hey I can be stubborn and I just WANTED to use my posca pens 🙂
while the white dries, I used my Tombow markers for the edges of my fabric (the gel medium also has to be dry before you do this). Be careful to not ruin your tips of your pen!
I have used greens, reds & pinks to outline the hearts.
After going over with my posca pens, I decided to outline the words with pencil again, to make them stand out a bit more.
I still felt the white was not white enough…. ha! So I used my smaller posca pen again to gently go over my words. Trying to keep my pencil lines clean and stay in between the lines. Also, not my strong suit haha!
Remember to get your coffee too!
And today was so gorgeous, I figured I might as well sit outside my studio to enjoy my coffee, nature (lots of trees and bushes in our garden), here the birds and frogs (those frogs really annoy me when I try to sleep and they seem to need to make noise as if they are being killed…. guess it’s that time of year, right? ha!).
I missed something. So I’ve added some splashes with my beloved Ecoline (thick liquid watercolor).
Look at those yummy big drops. Now let completely dry before ruining it 😀
And here are some more detailed pictures of my page this week:
so this was already my fifth REV IT UP DARE. I hope you liked it and I mostly hope you are going to play along! If you want me to see your beautiful creations (and I cannot wait to see them!), you can tag me on Instagram with @revlie but you can also use the hashtags #revitup #revitupdare #revitup2020 #revitupdare2020 #revlie #thecreativeplayground. I will & come looking for you to give some love!
Thanks again so so much for PLAYing along. I hope you had a great time and I’ll see you next week!
Love
Revlie