Happy first day of March and the start of Artful March! Today's prompt was "In like a lion," and my interpretation reflected the stressful day I had. We all have those days, but sitting down for a few hours to just be free to create helped to relax me and melt some of the stress away. Being creative can be very therapeutic!
I started by doing a little upcycling and I turned a small advertisement booklet into a little journal. It was junk mail I normally would have put into the recycle bin, but I put it to use instead.
I taped all the pages with masking tape down the center of the spread. This will help protect the pages as I start to add gesso and paints, and keep the mediums from oozing down into other pages. My masking tape has a tape-measure design, but that doesn't matter; it will get covered up.
After taping, the pages are ready to take gesso, paint or collage mediums. I covered the first two pages in gesso, and while they dried, I drew the lion on some waxless deli paper, which is a little like tissue paper.
After drawing him in pencil, I then went over him in ink using a Sharpie fine liner and a regular Sharpie. I tried to keep the drawing loose and simple and used a Google image as a reference.
Next, using gel medium I adhered some old dictionary pages over the gesso in the new journal. I then tore the paper away from around the lion image and adhered just the image over the dictionary paper. Since the deli paper is semi-transparent, the words of the dictionary show through the drawing and I love the way that looks. It also means that the torn edges of the image faded away into the background and it almost looks as if I drew the lion directly onto the dictionary paper. I then colored over the dictionary paper and the lion using Ranger Distress Inks in vintage photo and scattered straw and an ink blending tool.
Using a Sharpie, I wrote onto more deli paper some of the things that were stressing me out today, and I cut out the words and glued them to the page so that they looked like they were the lion's roar. I then added a black border around the page, and the March 1 title. I finished off by splattering a little gesso onto the page, then painting in the March 1 with white gesso. The page was fun to create! Tomorrow's prompt is "World Day of Prayer." What will you create using that prompt, or a prompt of your own? Remember to share your Artful March projects on Facebook and Instagram using the hash tags #artfulmarch and #freeheartart. If you don't feel comfortable posting your work publicly, feel free to email us a photo at freeheartllc@gmail.com. We can't wait to see what you've been working on!
<3 Mindy
