My progress with my funky journal a la Bautista

I took a few minutes today and read over my notes from the DVD and skimmed over the book while waiting for my son's soccer game to begin. His team won the first game but lost the second game. They won their game last week, too. His team is getting better and better. Need to work on passing though. There was one great kick where someone on his team kicked the ball over the other team's head and another person on his team used his head to knock it into the net! My son also kicked the ball out of the net (preventing a goal) when it went past the keeper (goalie in my old age). It was incredible!

Okay, I digress. I had some time today inbetween birthday stuff and soccer stuff to work on some of my journal pages. I had to do some more covers for my technique book because I ran out - again! I am glad this is my last batch going out. My fingers will never be clean again!

Anyway, I had the Adirondack color wash out and used a lot of it up! What I did first was doodle all over a piece of duck cloth. I used sharpie markers and just doodled all over it. I then put it underneath where I was doing the color wash to catch the extra colors. I took the color wash and put 8 colors into a bowl. I added some water to it. It was about 1/3 water and 2/3 color wash. The colors look kind of the same in the bowls. You might want to mark it so you know what colors you are dipping into. Wear gloves if you don't like your hands dirty. I did this on top of a huge plastic drop cloth. You should have an old towel or something absorbent so you can have something underneath the paper towels when you unfold them. I used a softer, better brand of towel this time and it did not want to separate into 2 halves. The cheaper, stiffer paper towels will separate better. This one was so soft that the two sides did not come apart easily even when I tried it without coloring it.

I had some UM stamps and textures ready. I had some punchinella scraps and mesh. You can use stencils, UM stamps, any type of flat texture. I also used the Heid Swapp masks. I liked those the best. What I did first was fold the paper towel and then dunked certain sections into the color wash. I then unfolded it and placed it over a piece of white paper. I did that so that the color wash from the wet paper towel would soak through and color both sides. I then put the texture on top of the wet paper towel and then another sheet of white paper. I then brayered it. The top piece of paper got colored very nicely as well. I put an old hardcover book underneath the paper since my floor is carpeted to give it a firm surface for brayering. Be careful, the color wash squirts out the sides when you brayer. I then put the paper towel aside to dry after I used it a couple of times. The second pressing comes out more faint. I used some towels only once if I really liked the colors. You can also do it with white card stock, but you would have to do both sides of the card stock. I also found that crumpling up the paper and then flattening out made for very nice lines and texture.

The paper towels themselves were a lot of fun. I found out that spritzing the paper towel first worked better than a dry paper towel. The colors bled together better. I folded some and just dunked certain sections. I also would crumple on end, dunk, ball up the rest of the paper towel, and then dunk into a few colors. I also would take the paper towel and just twist it until it was all twisted up and dunk sections in different colors. All had different and very fun effects. My favorite colors were cranberry, butterscoth, lettuce, stream, and bottle. Very vibrant colors. The paper towels are still drying after 4 hours because they were so wet with color. The papers are already dried. I guess I should have put the towels on chicken wire to dry. Yes, chicken wire makes a great drying rack. I found the wire at the local hardware store. They sell small lengths of the stuff.

Next, I will play with stamps, attaching metal pieces to it, and sewing some of the pages together - adding bits of fabric. I am not someone who sews. I don't quilt either. I mend clothes and sew on buttons. I know how to use a sewing machine from high school. I just got a tiny sewing machine from the internet. I does everything I want it to do without costing me a fortune. Stay tuned. I will post to my blog as I progress with this project.