Hello everyone, I am so glad it is Friday and I am looking forward to some time to relax over the weekend in between essential garden tasks while the weather here is still good and dry! Today I have an art journal spread to share that was designed with two challenges in mind. One challenge requires book pages and the other challenge asks for it to be vintage inspired, so I thought, why not combine the two?
I started off with a couple of pages from this old paperback that I bought in a charity shop for 10p. This is actually a pretty good book if you like Agatha Christie type fiction, as Ngaio Marsh was one of her contemporaries and a good mystery writer, and Inspector Alleyn was one of her best creations. But I already have a copy of this book, so I was fine with using my 10p copy in my art journal.
I settled on using three pages from the book and stuck them down with matte medium, then when it was dry gave the whole page a good spray of some coffee I mixed up ages ago and keep in a big bottle. This is not the big bottle, I decanted some of it into this small spray bottle for today’s page.
Once that was dry, I applied some Paperartsy chalk paint with a sponge, through this stencil, appropriately called Vintage Wallpaper.
After all that was dry (with the aid of a hairdryer) I sketched out a hopefully vintage-looking woman on the right side of the page.
Using a combination of Chalk paint, watercolour pencils, polychromos pencils, and neocolour IIs, I brought her to life with some colour.
All that remained was to add a quote and this one is one of my favourites. It’s from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
I left some of the blue stencilling to show through on her lips and parts of her dress.
And here’s the finished page. It came together quite quickly – it’s not the doing that takes time but the thinking about doing, so luckily I didn’t think too much and got on with the doing lol. I do see that part of her face that is not fully stuck down but it was still wet and I didn’t want to smudge it, I’ve left it under a heavy book so it should be fixed by now. I added some vintage lace to the top and bottom of the page and framed the rest of it with some black pencils, a lumograph and a stabilo-all.
That’s all for today, it’s time for dinner and a bit of Netflix. Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading!
Ingredients
watercolour paper, my usual journal, book pages, lace, black pen, matte medium, Fresco chalk paint, vintage wallpaper stencil, coffee, watercolour pencils, polychromos pencils, neocolor IIs, black pencil, stabilo all,
Challenges
Art Journal Journey – Vintage – September Challenge
Try it on Tuesday – Use Book Pages – September Challenge I
Blog Along with Effy – Day 3
Links to all the days of the September blog-along
Sept 1st – UFOs Tapestry Cushion and Harris Tweed TBD
Sept 2nd – Second on the Second – e-reader covers
Sept 3rd – this post
This month I decided to join in with Effy Wild’s blog-along – 30 posts in 30 days same as we did in April this year. The idea is to blog every day if you can, but also to comment on other people’s blogs to keep the conversation going. There is a facebook group where you can link your posts and find other people’s to go visit and comment.
You might also like . . .
You added a beautiful lady to your fantastic page and it was good to see you also use Charity shop finds to create a book page background.
Super inspiration and thank you for linking to the themes at TioT’s as well as Wendy’s theme at Art Journal Journey.
I missed that you linked up to Try it On Tuesday Elle. Thanks for joining us there also!
Fabulous page, love the background and her face. Thank you for joining us on Art Journal Journey.
How brilliant this is and it’s great for both TIOT and AJJ. Your drawing is so beautifully vintage, hus,Chrisx
She’s beautiful!
I’m with you about Ngaio Marsh (I’ve read quite a few-Lord Peter Whimsey that is), and I like how you decided to make a spread about reading. It’s definitely a vintage pastime, only because people have been reading books for many years. And such a great thing to do! Nice idea to add the book pages and to draw Miss Austen (I am guessing). You made your page beautifully vintage also. Thanks for sharing with us at AJJ. Much appreciated. I hope you get your relaxing weekend and your gardening done. I have a bit to work on also. Hugs-Erika
You draw SO well, Elle. This is a beautiful woman you gave us. And she even has that vintage look to her, too. It was great that you used the book pages for a background. That stencil is lovely, too. Thanks for taking us through how you created this beauty that is absolutely perfect for Wendy’s theme at Art Journal Journey.
That’s a great page! I love that you left the book pages whole. I must try that (I have a couple of old books I use for backgrounds, but I always tear the pages and glue the pieces down, but this is really cool). I *love* that lady and that look she’s giving!
Love it – turned out great! I love the whole process and your writing is so neat!