A Peek at My New Sketchbook

One of my dear art friends, Catherine Russell, made this gorgeous journal.  She created it with layered strips of painted paper towels, stenciled white spirals and red marks surrounded by a striped washi tape border. The cover has a wonderful, knobby texture.

 Inside I spray painted stencils with gesso and added water-color washes over the pages.  Some pages had some gelli plate prints on them.  I like how the gessoed stencil shows through the paint on the right.  I learned this technique from Jane LaFazio.  Go to her Tutorials on the sidebar and open the one from May 16th entitled "Blog Hop Giveaway".

 We visited Portland Nursery a few weeks ago and I sketched the items nearby- gecko, fountain, plant and hydrangeas.  The large leaves are from a gelli print and the white flowers from the sprayed gesso.  It makes a great resist. Although the spray can clogged up and I had to resort to painting the gesso onto the stencils.

Here's the figure of another sketcher.  The gesso shows up on her outfit and hat.  The green is from a gelli print.  I like the softness of the colors and contrast of the sketches, a departure from my usual style.

I'm off to the Focus on Book Arts Conference taking a five-day workshop with Tim Ely and will have more to share next month.  Hope you are enjoying summer.