Mixed Media Mayhem - Layers You Will Love - High Five and the Documented Life Project

Documented Life Project

February Theme

Layers You Will Love!

February 28

Art Challenge:  Using at Least Five Layers

Journal Prompt:  Give Me a  High Five

The challenge for this week was to use at least five layers which is easy enough for me who can not keep from slathering on the stuff.  Harder was addressing "Give Me a High Five," the theme of the week so I decided to keep it simple.  

My first big decisions were choosing a color palette and selecting a tool/technique for applying the color to my page.  To start layering I wrote the prompts on my pages and gessoed over it.  Using a credit card, I spread acrylic green and yellow to give me some variations of bright grass green. 

For images on the pages I used a technique I learned in The Art Journal Workshop: Break Through, Explore, and Make it Your Own by Traci Bunkers and in the Youtube videos of Dyan Reaveley and Dina Wakley.  I placed my hand in several locations and used a baby wipe to remove the surrounding paint to leave my handprint.  I took this a step further by inking my hand with acrylic paint and stamping it on to the page.

To make my layers stand out I used a variety of pens and pencils to outline my hand images.

More layers included adding violet through the circle stencil, writing random related thoughts around my fingers, recording the steps or layers, and adding the "high five."

With the literal and figurative high fives on the page, I decided to stop and call it complete.

Mixed Media Mayhem-Documented Life Project - Two LuLu's

February Theme

Layers You Will Love!

February 21

Art Challenge:  Repeating Elements

Journal Prompt:  It's Worth Repeating

And now for the cognitive part..."worth repeating"  I began thinking about my name, LuLu which is a repeat.  I made three Gelli printed layers of repeating elements (alphabet) finishing with the luscious Pebeo purple/blue.  I made a effort to reserve some white space.  Now for the journal prompt.  I began calling myself lulu when I made a major life change and it stuck. My jewelry is made under the name of "It's a LuLu" and my students call me Ms. LuLu.  I hadn't put much thought into this change...my dear friend Jeanie Goddard had always called me Lindy Lou, a teacher in my department, Gail Vaccaro, always called me Lu, and a dear boyfriend used "LuLu" as an affectionate term. Years later when I was researching Ancestry.com I came across two old census reports in which my grandmother, Lucretia Gates Badgley, had been nicknamed LuLu. Gave me a chill.    So for "Worth Repeating" it was natural to think of two lulu's and the letters needed to spell that making for more repetitive elements. I went through family pictures to find photos of me and her at similar ages.

The bottom left is Lucretia in her twenties, the top two are me at close to the same age.I used the photos which I hand colored to establish our identity, added the painted, embossed letters to spell out our names, and wound a thread among the pieces to hold it together.  I painted the letters using the gelli plate.

I always write the challenge in the margin so that it shows through for that reminder-"Repeating Elements, It's worth repeating."