The sea is only... - art journal page

I'm participating in the Summer of Color. Where this year the colors to be used on your projects are chosen by the participating artists. This week, week one, the colors are Citron Green and Turqoise. Two of my favorite colors.

Here's my entry for this week:

“The sea is only the embodiment of a
supernatural and wonderful existence.
It is nothing but love and emotion;
it is the ‘Living Infinite...”
― Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

I remembered to make some progress pics and of course some detail shots, so this is a rather picture heavy post =).

I started with a gessod page in my altered fairy tale book. Put a piece of blue masking tape down the middle and glued two dictionary pages down.

Slapped some Citron Green on the page with a credit card and then I cheated a little, because I added some dark green blue color for depth later on. I dripped water over the still wet dark blue and blotted it of with a kitchen towel to create those splattered bubbles.

Tried my hand (again) at transferring 2 pictures (Jules Verne, 2000 leagues under the sea) with gel medium. I must be doing something wrong, because I never get a clear picture. I guess I'll just have to practice more. The first picture I feel is usable, the other one not so much.

Added Turqoise to the page followed by Citron Green this time through a stencil. The remaining paint I put on one of the pages of the book that had been torn out, while prepping the book for use as an art journal.

I then printed another picture from that same Jules Verne story and put the same stencil I used for the Citron Green on the print after I wet it thoroughly. This causes the print to change color on the places it gets wet.

I cut out some parts from the picture and glued it to my scene. On the right side you can still see the failed transfer peeking trough under the Turqoise.

I doodled and sketched an outline to all the pictures with a black pen and later added some white detailing with gel pen.

Added some "sea weed" strips made from the page with the excess paint. Painted some white bubbles and added a quote from the story.

Played with some embroidery floss, punched out circles, doodling/out-lining and added some journalling to finish the page.

I also stamped a teensy weensy bit on th page with Aquamarine archival ink and wiped the white of the printed quote with that same ink.

So there it is, my entry for the Summer of Color, week one.

I would also like to enter this in the June Challenge - Underwater over at SanDee and Amelie's Steampunk Challenges, as I feel this has still a steampunk underwater theme, even though there are no gears in sight. To me Jules Verne is the founding father of steampunk, so I hope it's alright.

I had a lot of fun making this and trying out things. I hope I didn't overload you with pictures. It's just that I so love all the little details in this page. 

I'm off now, I have some booklets to make. Going to try my hand at Japanese stab binding and some file folder booklets. Got my tea and coffee deyed papers all ready to go.

Thank you all for watching and I wish you all a wonderfull day.