Wednesday, November 26, 2008

I've undertaken Michelle Ward's GPP Street Team Crusade this month. Crusade 25 is GESSO. Michelle is challenging everyone to play with gesso and share their results. I haven't journaled for a long time, so I thought I would start a new journal (its a moleskine cahier).

This is going to be a journal of favourite songs, poems and quotes, stemming from LK's challenge to share favourite poems and songs. I thought I would start with The Beatles Song - Blackbird.

I prepped the page using gesso and then stamped the song words (GPP), there was some remaining blue ink on the stamp from its last use and the gesso removed this ink. I then stamped the ravens and glued down the song lyrics.

I liked the look of the page, but it looked too clean and bright to me, so I thought I would darken it a bit. I added some black acrylic paint in patches and it looked a bit better, but I thought I would add some gesso over the top to tone it down. Patience is a virtue that I don't seem to be endowed with at the moment ... I muddied the whole thing. I'm not sure if it can be rectified, I might just have to live with this one, but I have learnt rule 1. let gesso and paint dry completely before adding another layer

8 comments:

michelle ward said...

Megan - thanks for joining in and sharing your pages, and your experience with gesso. i'm cracking up at your lesson no. 1. it's all part of the process - those pages look good from here :)

love the songs you chose below. you have two of my faves there - angel and angels. (i was going to share for lk's next thing).

Anonymous said...

Hi Megan
we ALL mess up sometimes, to find out later it was a happy accident! I think it fits with the song well: the music is cheerfull, but the text is kind of dark... I like it anyway (your journal page, the song too by the way)
Thanks for sharing (because it is easier to share art your are happy about than art that you "muddied")
Hedwig

Anonymous said...

They actually look nice and distressed to me now....keep working with them...when this happens to me I always so to myself, "well, it's not finished yet".. lol Happy Thanksgiving!

Unknown said...

The themes of Paint and Patience have come up a bit in this Crusade! If all else fails and you're still not happy, there is always the option of completely covering the pages with Gesso and starting again *grins*

Michelle Brown
Melbourne Australia

Chris said...

oh, I know how it is when you can't wait for the drying! But I don't see this as muddied, really, just another look. I mean, if it weren't compared to the first one, it would just be a new one!

What I love is that we can just keep playin'.

happy gesso!

Anonymous said...

hey! if one layer dries... then so will two! :) lol! believe me... been there! :) Enjoy your depiction of it all.

Kathryn Costa said...

Sometimes I will feel like I've overworked a page but then a day goes by and I look at it again and I love it! If I don't like it after a couple of days, I pull out some gesso and cover it up and start again.

Anonymous said...

Hello Megan,

i'm glad I'm not the only one who can't wait long enough the let the gesso réally dry....:)

Maybe it looks a bit messed up, but it already has some depth !!

I would consider it "not finished yet"... The black is too dominant on some places, maybe you can cover these with another layer of paint ( acrylic or white gesso). I like how your birds are partly visible, so I wouldn't touch these a lot.

But it's all about experimenting and it's only another piece of paper. that's the way we learn the most !

greetings from belgium
Inge