Saturday, October 13, 2012

Sketchbook Pages: Word Grid

Thursday, I showed you a page I started before going skating for the first time this year (so much fun!). Here's how I finished the page (you can see the start here if you need a refresher).
This is basically where I left you - I only added a quick white wash (with watered down titanium white paint) to tone down the collage and molding paste polkadots. I added paint next. I started with purple on the left (mixed quinacridone magenta, smalt hue and athraquinone blue), then went with a orangey-red on the right (red oxide and quinacridone magenta), blending it over the purple. I really like the effect this gave:

Now I knew I wanted to add some words or a phrase, but wasn't sure where to go. So I picked up a magazine, flipped through it and started cutting out words that resonated with me. Soon, I had one for each "space" in the grid and really liked how that looked. Here it is before another quick white wash to tone down the collaged words:

I was pretty happy with that, but I wanted to play up the pattern aspect that was going on, so I chose to add black India ink circles around the words using a toilet paper tube. Somewhat serendipitously, the tube formed a bubble within it for a single circle and before I noticed I had stamped a huge black circle onto my page. I wiped it away quickly, but just a bit... I just wanted to word to be revealed: flexible. Indeed. What a great reminder to always remain flexible in our art - mistakes often become the best part!

Last, to finish my pattern, I added white circles around the molding paste polkadots, blotting here and there to soften it up:
I added a "words" tab so that I can easily find this page when I'm looking for an inspiring word to add to another page. It's like my own mini word bank!

The repeated pattern on this page makes me really happy. Go make a pattern in your sketchbook today!

OK - I have another sketchbook page to show you, but that will have to wait! Off we go to look at some apartments!

1 comment:

Angie said...

Very nice! love the colouring....thick paste mediums are so much fun to work with!