Journal About Me! Your Best Friend(s)

Hello! Today I am ecstatic to be a part of Embrace Your Art 2016 Journal About Me! (JAM)

When Tiare asked me to be a guest artist I was so excited and buzzing with ideas. Our theme today is "Your Best Friend" and our challenge art supply is --- WASHI TAPE!

(If you're new to Journal About Me (JAM) and want to catch up and play along with us, go HERE!)

I started with a round piece of watercolor paper and added some of my favorite Washi tape. Then, I went over it with a layer of clear gesso. You can use any kind, however I use Prima Art Basics. 

Once that was finished I used a palette knife with a stencil and Dimensional Effects from DecoArt (it's a lot like modeling paste).

My stencil had some left over gelatos on it, so it stained the Dimensional Effects blue. I didn't mind.

To speed up the drying time I used a hair dryer. It makes it dry a lot faster so that you can keep painting - and that's really the goal here, right?

Anyway, next up I picked a couple of my favorite colors -- Golden High Flow "Indigo" and DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics in "Payne's Grey". I used a watery paintbrush to add it to the page, letting it run and drip and splatter at whim. 

While that dried I went through my stash and found three pieces of ephemera I wanted to add. In my case, it was a page from a vintage Alice in Wonderland book and a couple pieces of scrapbook paper. I also found a photo of my best friends Jordan & Sarah.

Once the background was ready I used clear gesso to glue down the ephemera, and then DecoArt Media Liquid Glass to glue down the photos of my friends. Since their photos were glossy, I took care to make sure that absolutely no glue made it on the front of the picture. (It can really mess it up.) 

Finally, I added in the rest of their dresses with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics in Carbon Black and also added embellishments throughout with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic in Titanium White and Prima's Art Alchemy in "Opal Magic - Pink Blue". 

That's it! I found it was so much fun to be able to honor people that I love through art-making and I hope that you are able to enjoy it just as much.

Cheers,
Cristin (PanArt)