Thursday, June 13, 2013

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.

39 comments:

  1. Wonderful Journal Pages,Beautiful colors,Love it!!!

    Greetings Jeannette

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  2. Beautiful work, love those pops of acid colours, great! Valerie

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  3. A wonderful, mystical underwater world! The color matches perfectly!

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  4. This is awesome!! Love the colors...the placement of the circles and strips really make a statement :-)
    Thanks for the sub and I will be back...great blog

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  5. Of course there is more than enough Jules Verne feel to your awesome page, Monique!

    Steampunk at its best! Who says that it always has to have some gears to make it Steampunk? ;)

    I LOVE your page - especially the sunken city and the colours combined with the words! Awesome!

    Thank you for joining us again at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges!

    Hugs,
    Claudia xx

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  6. Wow, what an interesting couple of pages. Loving how you did transfers. Well done. :)

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  7. Lovely pages - it's fascinating seeing how a piece of work develops in stages - I always forget to photograph mine until it's done! Great use of the this weeks colours.

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  8. wow your journal spread is awesome, so many wonderful layers. Happy SOC, Annette x

    http://nettysartadventures.blogspot.co.uk/

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  9. Wow! love seeing your process. I never remember to do that...LOL.

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  10. Amazing to see your progress Monique and the page is fabulous! I love all on it!

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  11. Super paginä's Monique en wat een aparte en gave achtergrond.
    Groetjes Janny

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  12. WOW! This is fabulous! I bought an art journal a few months back, but it is still blank! Maybe you can inspire me with your gorgeous pages :) keeley

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  13. Thank you all so much for your lovely comments.

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  14. Such interesting pages...wowww...your creativity is so special!

    kind regards, Alie :-)

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  15. Monique, this page is stunnig! I really love it! Thanks for showing us how you did it!

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  16. WOW, how YUMMY this page is, love seeing the process! I can see how much fun you had creating this, these colors are beautiful together. So fun to see what others are doing for SOC. Enjoy the next week too!

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  17. Fab! I love all the detail photos - helps you to see all the yummy textures.

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  18. I loved being able to see all those details so i could appreciate the textures and work... a wonderful spread... happy SOC ...xx

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  19. Awesome pages!! I love all of the color and texture you have here!! They are so beautiful and creative!

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  20. This is a joy to watch come together! Thank you for the pictures and for sharing your process with us. Love your bold, beautiful page with all the dots and details. Love the transfers too, xoxo

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  21. WOW, these are wonderful journal pages!. The color combos or bright & dark, layered such a way with bubbles & sea weed paper strips make them look magical. I want to visit this underwater world :)

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  22. Fantastic pages, Monique... amazing layers of depth and texture. And I love that even with those bright colours as your starting point, there's still lots of room for shade as well as brightness. Brilliant! Thank you for all those close-ups of the amazing detailing.
    Alison x

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  23. Wow...great work and that quote...loved your entry...x

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  24. These colours work so well on this journal page. Gel medium transfer is hard to get perfect, isn't it? I tried it for the first time the other day in a new journal. My image was way too big to do, but I was happy with it in the end because I wanted it to look like a peeling poster. I'm going to keep experimenting with this technique. Thank you for sharing these inspiring pages - loved the text on your page. Julie Ann xx

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  25. Oh my goodness I feel like I've found a kindred spirit! I LOVE your art journal spread, and thanks for showing us the process! That quote about the sea is a treasure! I will be back to visit you again! Thanks for visiting my blog!

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  26. Love all the gorgeous depth and color, and thanks for sharing all the steps!

    I find with gel transfers that if I want a really clear image I have to use a laser printed image, not inkjet. I often like the softer, more indistinct inkjet ones better though.

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  27. I love seeing process shots of people's pages. So many lovely layers make up this glorious page. I love it. I look forward to seeing what you do next week!! :)

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  28. So many things can be found in your pages. All those layers make it way more expressive! Really like how that came out! :) Have a wonderful weekend!

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  29. Gorgeous pages, i love the layers and colours very reminiscent of the ocean and all it's treasures
    Toni x

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  30. This is really, really beautiful work! Thank you so much for commenting in my blog, and I'm very glad I found yours that way, too. I'll definitely sign up to follow your blog because I adore your art journaling style. Let's see what colours we get next at the Summer of Color 2013

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  31. These pages really came to life as your description unfolded. What a dramatic representation of 20,000 leagues under the sea. I love your choice of colours here. Hugs, Jenny x

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  32. Thank you all for your sweet comments. They are very encouraging and mean a lot to me.

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  33. lovely underworld pages! loved watching the process!

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  34. Dear Monique, I am currently trying to do some Art Journal by myself and find your step by step tutorial very helpful. This is really an amazing work!
    And thank you for joining the SanDee&amelie´s STEAMPUNK CHALLENGE
    xoxo SanDee1899

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  35. beautiful colors.
    i like all your journals so much....they are so cretive and colorful !!!

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  36. Wow! Love love love all the layers and colors here!!

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