Life During Lockdown – Welcome To the Jungle – AJ Page

Hello again,

Today I am sharing my DT project for the More Than Words Main Challenge.  The theme of the challenge is to be inspired by the word FUNNY and to use STRIPES. Stripes always make me think of circus big tents and clown pants so that was already in the back of my head as soon as I saw the theme, which obvs I knew in advance being on the DT.  As time went on and we went into lockdown here, and life took a surreal turn, I found myself thinking more and more about the circus and this couldn’t be more true every time I stepped outside to visit a grocery store!  It is like a jungle out there, it’s dog eat dog, every man for themselves and the person to hoard the most toilet paper wins!  Or not really since we have plenty of toilet paper and anyone who hoarded it in the beginning, preventing other people from having any, is a mug!

As I was foraging, I mean shopping last week, the shelves were still devoid of flour – any kind of flour, even the stuff that no one ever buys (gluten-free) – and will be for some considerable time because we bought up a year’s supply of flour in just three weeks!  Now people like me, who usually buy flour and bake bread etc can’t get any, because of the selfish doomsday prepper type hoarders!  Not only are some things very scarce, it is also a bizarre experience negotiating your way into shops, queuing, wearing masks and gloves, actively avoiding contact with other people, and I found myself thinking “not my circus, not my monkeys” before driving home ASAP and locking the door lol.

So now that I am safely back behind bars closed doors, I read that wildlife is gradually moving back into cities and less of them are getting murdered on roads by too much too fast traffic, and I think to myself, it is like role reversal.  The animals are observing us and we are the ones in the zoo!

So my interpretation of the word inspiration is how FUNNY life is at the moment. My blurb on the DT post reads:  Life is FUNNY now… every time I venture out of the house to go foraging (or rather food shopping)… the animals are outside looking in at us and we are inside looking out! My painted STRIPES came in handy for a little bit of pandemic journalling!

So I started off by choosing these chipboard sets – Welcome to the Jungle and Not my Circus.

I painted them all using this awesome white Gesso from Cass Art, which is probably the best gesso I’ve used so far.

Then I painted them all with black fluid acrylic paint which has a nice shine to it.  The jungle set has a backing piece which I was going to use so that my zebra could have white stripes through the cutouts but I liked it better with the coloured stripes against the black.

I painted the stripes in my journal using Paperartsy Fresco Chalk Paints in Tangerine Twist and I think, Orchid(?).  I started just painting the stripes on freestyle using the orange first.

Then painted the pink stripes on in between.

The stripes do indeed come in handy for journalling and also for adding my Tim Holtz snarky stickers with very appropriate quotes, but they are also representing the bright stripes of the circus tents and clown pants I mentioned in the opening paragraph.

Above and below you can see close ups of the journalling I added to the pages.

Here are the details for this month’s More Than Words main challenge:

I’d love to see what you make so don’t forget to enter the More Than Words Main Challenge which is open till the end of the month!

Challenges

The Artistic Stamper – May Challenge – Journaling:  I’m entering my pandemic journaling spread into this month’s challenge, love that it is a journaling challenge this month.  Stamps used – Andy Skinner:  Roll Up Roll Up circus poster rubber stamp (Creative Expressions)
Creative Artiste – Challenge #60 – archival ink, fresco paints, gesso, collage medium, fluid acrylics,
Craft Stamper – May Challenge – TIMI AG + Stamping – Andy Skinner Roll Up Roll Up circus poster rubber stamp
SSS Wednesday Challenge – Animal Fun – zebras, and elephants and giraffes and monkeys oh my!

PROJECT RECIPE:

Dylusions square kraft journal
Cass Art white gesso
Paperartsy Fresco paints
Archival ink Onyx Black
Collage Medium
Black Fluid Acrylic
Tim Holtz Small Talk Snarky stickers
Andy Skinner Roll Up Roll Up circus stamp (Creative Expressions)
GSL chipboard – Welcome to the Jungle C12S, Not my circus C12M,
From Stash: journalling pen,

I started something new for April and continuing for May:

Since we are all stuck inside and can’t leave the house, I thought I would try and do two things:
1. use this time to finish any unfinished projects
2. use as much recycled materials as possible (I do this a lot anyway) but also not to buy new stuff!
So, with that in mind, I will note the above on any posts, if applicable.
UNFINISHED PROJECT – NO
RECYCLED MATERIALS – NO, nothing new used, no new purchases!

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