Art Journal: Black and White

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Happy Weekend Everyone! I’m running behind again but what else is new? This week at TOFF our challenge theme is Black and White. This was a real challenge for me. As most of you know I NEVER do black and white…I’m ALL about colors! As I’ve said before I believe I was once a unicorn. I probably had a rainbow mane, tail and the ability to shoot rainbows and glitter out of my horn! I had to dig deep for this page and slap my hand a few times when it reached for the glitter and Copic markers.

If you were here for last weeks page we met the evil Imelda who hates color and anything fun for that matter. She had cast a spell and sucked all the Colors from the Octopodes vibrant world forcing them to hide out inside of this Mother Goose book. If you missed last weeks page click HERE for a recap. You can find a full recap of all the pages at the end of this post

The Octopodes are clever and crafty folk. They refused to be outdone by miss Imelda. They have gone incognito and faded into black and white to blend in with the book pages. Alishba and Buster here have created this Eye Balloon to keep a close watch on Imelda. By knowing her next move they will be at the ready to foil any future evil plans. Octopodes take the term “Eye in the Sky” quite literally.

So what did the Eye Balloon “See” when gathering intel on the evil Imelda? It saw a now colorless and shriveled up old witch…filled with regret. Don’t worry the Octopodes are also very forgiving folk. They are firm believers in second chances. There is only one page left to this story. We will have to wait and see how the “Happily ever after” unfolds next week.

Until then here’s all the details on how I created this page…

I received another package from Linda at The Funkie Junkie with some Claudine Helmuth Studio Gesso. I now see what all the fuss is about. Claudine’s Gesso is no ordinary Gesso…it’s magic in a jar! To create the background I brushed a light coating of Studio Gesso on my pages and blended it in with a baby wipe. To cover the illustrations I ripped up some of the book pages I removed from last week. I went for specific poems that I liked and applied Gesso to the back to adhere them. I then took the same baby wipe and swiped it around the ripped pages to soften the edges.

I wanted to add a checkered border so I created a custom stencil with and EK success 3/4 in square punch and some scrap paper.

I used more scrap paper to mask my pages and sprayed Dylusions over my Checkered Stencil.

For the quotes I channeled my inner psycho and clipped as many words as I could from the newspaper. For the rest I used Art Letters from the Octopode Factory and a few of my favorite fonts. I have a magazine letter stamp set and used that for some of the smaller words. To make the edges pop I outlined them with a Perfect Medium Brush pen and sprinkled Distress embossing powder in black soot.

I stamped and embossed with black soot embossing powder and ink the eye chart and some cheapo letter stamps. It appears that Imelda has had a change of heart. Now she sees how awful a colorless world can be!

I was chomping at the bit waiting for this weeks CC2C challenge. Linda did not disappoint! This weeks challenge features one of my FAVORITE Tim Techniques…Recycled Packaging plastic! You can read all about this technique in Tim’s book Compendium of Curiosities vol.2. I used one of Tim’s embossing folders and some alcohol ink to make this faux lined paper. The lines matched up pretty well with the torn book pages. This is one of my favorite poems…”Old Mother Hubbard”. I think it works perfectly lined up next to sad and sorry old Imelda.

All of the Octopode Factory characters were printed on Vellum and colored with Micron pens. I strategically placed Alishba and Buster between “A Difficult Rhyme”. It was certainly difficult for me not to grab my Copic markers and add a few pops of color to this page. I have resisted great temptation…now if I could just do it again with chocolate.

All of the characters in this story have learned important lessons today. The Octopodes have learned about forgiveness and Imelda has learned about making mistakes. I thought this quote from Bruce Lee pretty much sums it all up…”Mistakes are ALWAYS forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.” Here Here Mr. Lee!

I cannot believe that I am nearing the end of this story! It has been a wonderful artistic journey. With inspiration coming from all around. Big thanks to Balzer Designs with “Art Journal Every Day”, TOFF, and Linda at Studio L3 for keeping me inspired! I hope you will stop by next week to see how it ends…I’d give you a hint but I’m not even sure where this will go. I’m just along for the ride If you have missed any stops along the way here is a recap of all the pages:

The Octopode Factory Altered Story Book, The Octopode Factory Book Cover (Tutorial), Page1 “Under the Sea”, Page2 “A World Where Anything is Possible”, Page3 “The Rainbow Connection”, Page4 “Life is a Fairytale”, Page5 “If Animals Could Talk”, Page6 “Mirror-Mirror”

Stop by TOFF for some Black and White fun and don’t forget to swing by next week for the final page!

Thanks for stopping by!

Amy*