Documented Life Project – Acrylics & gelli print

After my ‘watercolor experience’ (see this post) I was glad the next prompts at “The Documented Life Projects” handled working with acrylics and using a gelli-plate. I am familiar with these materials/techniques, I like working with acrylic paint and am a huge fan of mono printing. So last week, on a sunny but cold day, I went into my atelier and created up a storm… I made 2 (two!) art journal pages on one day!

The challenge I started with was this:

April 11
April Theme: Color Safari (Exploring Inks and Paints)
Art Challenge: Acrylics
Journal Prompt: Cry Me a River

I first gave some thought over the journal prompt. I know the song ‘Cry Me a River’ but did not want to use the lyrics. I took out my folder with cut-out sentences to see if I could come up with a few sentences/words that would make a nice ‘found poem’. I found some and lay those aside.

Then I thought of a photo from a fashion magazine that I cut out years ago, and found it in the file where I keep big images for collage. (I found more beautiful images in there that sparked my inspiration. Amazing, how you seem to forget what you have.) The photo I was looking for shows a woman laying on a bed and it looks like she’s crying – which fits the theme ‘Cry Me a River’.

I prepared the art journal page with gesso and gave it a little dimension using a diamond template (see upper right corner.) Next, I sketched the image on the page and then painted it.

When the painting was finished, the ‘found poem’ did not seem to fit. It just weren’t the right words for this paining. I also did not like how it looked when I added text in print on the page. Painted words looked better, so I wrote the lyrics on the page after all.

Here’s the result.

The Documented Life Project #15

This page came about pretty quick, so I had plenty of time left to take out my gelli plate and start on the next prompt.

April 18
April Theme: Color Safari (Exploring Inks and Paints)
Art Challenge: Gelli Plate
Journal Prompt: A lot on my Plate

I still had that ‘found poem’ that I had not used on DLP#15  laying on my desk so I started from there. I interpreted the words/poem as if it described a relationship in which people are not on the same wavelength. I used a silhouette template of a head twice, overlapping each other, to illustrate the words.

However, the print missed the idea of confusion that I wanted to express, so I took out the sewing machine and stitched the heads. I left the end of the threads hanging loose. It made for the right view and gave the image the desirable feel. I scribbled some text (about how my beloved and I got a lot on our plate last year and how we don’t always reacted the same way on it) and glued the page in my art journal.

The Documented Life Project #16

Thanks for stopping by today, and if you’re in the Netherlands (Zeeland) you might want to stop by ‘for real’ on Sunday. I will be presenting my art journals live on “Middelburg Boekenstad.” More info HERE