Joggles Art Journal Adventure ~ Week 12 ~ Blossoms and/or Birds

Hi everyone! It's Week 12 of the Joggles Art Journal Adventure and it's also time for the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC. Now that doesn't carry a lot of weight with this Canadian girl, and this far north, our blossoms are a ways away yet so I've stretched this week's prompt to Blossoms and/or Birds. One thing I have been enjoying this past week is the bird noises and songs that I've been hearing through our (still) closed windows. If the birds are returning, can nice weather and flowers be far behind? If they are, don't tell me...LOL. Anyway, for my Week 12 page, I decided to include both blossoms and my version of a robin.

I stamped one of Dina Wakley Scribbly Birds onto book text paper and started colorizing her with Vintage Photo, Scattered Straw, and Abandoned Coral Distress Oxides applied with a blending tool. Neocolor II crayons activated with a waterbrush were used to strengthen the colours and add shading/highlighting. A black Pitt Pen was used to darken and add to the scribbly lines from the stamp, and a white Posca pen added highlights. Inktense pencil activated with water added some detail lines to indicate feathers. Glossy Accents was added to the eye to create both dimension and shine and, once dry, the bird was fussy cut and edged with black Pitt brush pen.

The tree branch was die cut from kraft paper. It was then edged and darkened in a few places with both Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks. Neocolor II crayons activated with water were used to add some of the shading and highlighting to create the darks and lights of bark. Inktense pencils were used to help define some areas and thin scratchy lines were added with Vintage Photo Distress marker.

The background was spritzed with Lindy's Delphinium Turquoise and Bachelor Button Blue Starburst Sprays as well as Heidi Swapp Ocean Color Shine. Once this was dry, white gesso was applied over top with a baby wipe to knock back the colours and help them blend. You can still see the splotchy dots through the gesso which I love (great texture) and the gesso reactivated the colours so it's a much softer effect than the sprays alone.

Once this was dry, more gesso was pounced on to create a fluffy cloud. Gray Gelato was used to shade the cloud and create depth and several layers of gesso gave more coverage in some areas than in others. The bird and the branch were glued onto the background and both were shaded around with Inktense Pencil activated with a waterbrush. Blossoms were created by punching five petaled flowers from some scrap painted paper left over from another project. The centers of these flowers were worked with a stylus on a piece of foam to cup them. A small die was used to cut the centers of the flowers from white cardstock which was then inked with Rocket Red Gold Brilliance ink and then Magenta Hue on the tips of the spikes. These centers were then cupped in the same way as the flowers and adhered to the center of each. Once they were glued in place, brown flat back pearls were added to the centers and Tropical Tangerine Stickles to the points of the centers for a little sparkle.

To add a little more texture and interest to the sky, Manganese Blue Archival Ink was used to apply a dotty spiral stamp and Forget-Me-Not Archival Ink was used to add text stamping. Jet Black Archival Ink was used to apply some splatter stamping before Ranger Texture Paste was scraped through the triangles of AALL and Create #6 stencil. A doodled border was added to the outside edges to frame the page. The wording was printed onto white cardstock, matted with black, and popped up with foam tape to add dimension. Finally the page was adhered to the black base which serves as a frame and also strengthens the page.

Thanks for stopping by today. My little birdie friend and I appreciate that. To see what others create in response to this Birds and/or Blossoms prompt, be sure to pop by the Joggles Art Journal Adventure Facebook group where inspiration and fabulous art and constantly being posted by our wonderful community members. Come join the fun!

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie