Ransom Note Art

In an effort to “stretch” myself and satisfy my curiosity...  

Lately I have been preparing to attempt a little piece, done with some art journaling techniques that I have seen on the Internet. 

I really like the art journal pages that have a bit of text showing through, and pieces with quotes made with typed words.  It gives the pieces so much energy and visual texture.  And lots of Busyness.

I pretty much know nothing about art journaling, but I see these things online...  And while I don’t know if it’s my “style” or not, I still wanted to try it out, ya know?

Most of these art journal pages seem to begin with white gesso, so first I had to buy some of that.  Next, I needed some printed words to use.  And since we don’t take the newspaper anymore, I asked Mr. Man to bring one home from work. 

(Maybe I’ll go to a used book store and look at old books for my next Artist’s Date.)

So, I got out a piece of bristol board (heavier than most paper--to take the layers of gluing, but cheaper than, say, my Rives BFK), and I tore up some pieces of newspaper copy and glued them on with a gluestick.

Oh, and I found out by trial and error that if you glue on lots of small text but then, here and there, glue on some headlines at various angles, you get a lot better variety and contrast.  Otherwise, it’s all the same and kinda dull.

And then, since I’m so weird about painting (haha), I painted the now newsprint-covered piece using pastels.  What I do is, I wipe the pastel stick with a tissue and wipe the color onto the piece.  It’s soooooo easy, it’s ridiculous.  My kind of painting!  LOL   

(BTW, I used my Schmincke pastels rather than my PanPastels, for a softer color, but I plan to try out both and see if there’s much difference.)

Okay, then I globbed on some white gesso and spread it around with my fingers, and dabbed at it with a tissue to remove some here and there, and let it dry. 

After that, the piece had some boring areas that looked like they needed a little “strengthening”.  So I got out my new punchanella (AKA sequin waste--something else I learned about on the Internet) and, using the same blue pastel as I used on my piece (to echo the same color scheme), I put some very soft punchanella stencilling here and there with a stencil brush.  And then with a tissue, I also wiped a bit more color on top of the dry gesso wherever it looked like it needed it (where it looked a bit weak).

Then I brought the piece down to the kitchen and propped it up against the wall on the kitchen desk, where I always put my new pieces at the end of the day.  I do this so I can live with them awhile, view them from a distance, and see what else they need.  And also enjoy my latest creation!

After awhile I thought, it needs some words, but not calligraphy.  And not gel pens or Sharpies, either.  No, it needs words also cut out of the newspaper, to harmonize with what all is already going on.  At least, that’s the way my brain was going at the time.

So I got the newspaper out again and “harvested” letters and words for my Scripture quote and glued them on.  And then it was finished!  ♥  Yay!  ♥

However…  I can sure see why most artists use words they’ve typed or printed out.  It took tons of time to find the right size letter that was the right color and also the right kind of font.  Good grief!  Maybe some of that was because I only had one little ol’ tiny Air Force Base newspaper to harvest from, but still, it took a lot of time!

It made me smile, though, cutting out letters and gluing them on, sorta like a ransom note.  (!)  It takes me back to my junior high school days, when I would cut out pretty letters out of my Seventeen magazines and save them in envelopes.  How weird was that?!?  Ha-ha!  I guess my lettering and my collage roots run deeper than I realize...!  ♥

ANYway, I am especially thrilled with the results of this particular experiment because it’s so different from what I naturally do.  Because it looks so jazzy and busy and artsy, and unlike what I usually do.  (clean. quiet. simple.)

So!  That’s the latest from the Studio! 

I hope you enjoy it!  It was lots of fun!

XOXO,

Lucky Dog 
♥