Art Journal Page: Want to Fly

In my last art journaling post, I wrote about knowing when a page is finished. This time around I went a step too far and completely spoiled the layout. See the staining through the gesso middle left and bottom right? That’s archival ink soaking through several layers of gesso. I thought once the butterflies were on, and the gesso painted around them that I would stamp more butterflies over the top. What a mistake to make…

I’d forgotten that I’d added texture paste through stencils, so the stamped image was far from recognisable. The colours were too bright, and the stamped image too large. In short, I was very unhappy with myself.

the recovery

It took some work, but eventually, there were enough layers of the gesso to white out the archival ink, but it’ll carry on staining even though. Gone was the subtle whiting out of the painted background. Instead, I rewrote the quote and took the opportunity to add the cursive words. I’m still beating myself up, but hey, that’s art journaling.