Love is all you need ~ Rick St. Dennis art journal page

Hi all. I'm here today with a Valentine's mixed media piece using one of Rick St. Dennis' new motifs. These are so fun to colour. You could easily make it look different each time you coloured it. This particular one is called Valentine Tangle - elements digi. How fabulous would this look on a card, too.

I coloured the motif with Prismacolor pencils and added some dots with a white paint pen and black Micron. I fussy cut the image leaving a narrow white border, then matted it with a black border as well as a white one, fussy cutting in between each layer. Yep! Lots of cutting...lol. Foam dots were applied to the back of the image.

The background began as a rectangle of white mixed media paper. I was experimenting with some new colour combos of Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst sprays so I combined Witch's Potion Purple, Autumn's Maple Crimson, and Hottie Patottie Hot Pink along with a little water. I tilted the piece every which way to get blending and drips. After drying the first layer, the background was dipped into the over-spray numerous times, drying between dunks. White embossing paste was scraped through Memory Box's Stars Starry Night stencil and allowed to dry thoroughly. The stars were outlined with a black pen.

Because I was humming the song referenced in the sentiment on the image the whole time I was creating, I had to add some torn pieces of vintage sheet music to the background. It just seemed so fitting. I smeared a little gesso over the sheet music to embed it a little but also used a Stabilo pencil to outline parts so they were on top. The image was adhered over the top with a length of cheesecloth sandwiched between the image and the background. It provided awesome texture, framed the image,  and provided a bit of white to rest the eyes from the busy piece. A white chipboard heart was stamped with some distressed dots and tucked under the image.

To finish up, a border was doodled with black pen and dotted with white to repeat the dots in the image. More of the song lyrics were added with a Dymo labeller. After adding black Big Brush pen to the edges of the background, mats of white and black were added to repeat the matting around the image as well as providing contrast and a neutral border for the eye to take a break from the busy bits.

Thanks for popping by today. I appreciate your awesome company. Be sure to check out our Progressive Challenge here on Sparkle and Glitter as well as our Facebook contest. We would love to see what you are creating with Rick St. Dennis images.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie