Happy Thanksgiving

I posted this yesterday at Artistcellar for Thanksgiving.  Happy Thanksgiving to all of my USA readers. Since I get to post on this holiday I wanted to share a gratitude spread that I created in my journal.  I make gratitude spreads often so that I remember all that I am grateful for throughout the year, but especially on this holiday. I started on the right hand side by laying down my four stencils in the Playful Pod series. I sprayed through the stencils with a mix of Dylusions sprays and my homemade paint sprays.  I used a mixture of red, orange, green, and brown sprays.  I wanted to represent many of the autumn colors.  I then removed the stencils and sprayed over this layer with an antique gold and a bright gold spray paint while it was still wet.  I let the page dry thoroughly. Next I applied a thick layer of modeling paste with a card along the edges of the page.  I pressed my hand carved leaf stamps into the modeling paste.  This left a basic impression of a leaf and a lot of texture.  Make sure that you wash your stamps right away and use a stiff brush to get off all the modeling paste, so that your stamps don't get ruined.  I let the modeling paste dry completely. I outlined the leaves with a dark brown Inktense pencil so that they would stand out more.  I used a stiff brush to add Inka Gold to the inside of the leaves.  I love the shimmer that Inka Gold adds to the page and the gold color went perfectly with my spread. I wanted the leaves to stand out even more so I painted around the leaves with raw umber paint and scrubbed it out so that there wasn't a harsh line of paint. This helped the leaves to pop off of the page even more. I wanted to add pumpkins to the middle of this page, because they symbolize Thanksgiving to me.  I used a charcoal pencil to sketch them in since the page was too dark for graphite to show up. I painted my pumpkins in with Quinacridone Burnt Orange with Cadmium Red Light Hue and Titan Buff for highlights.  I painted the stems with a mixture of Green Gold and Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and I brought the Green Gold down into the top of the grooves of the pumpkin.  I used both Liquitex and Golden paints. I used the left hand side of the spread for my words.  I started by rubbing distress ink pads on my page.  I used a variety of green and browns.  I also sprayed this page with the two gold spray paints in random spots.  I stamped my larger leaf stamp into each corner with StazOn ink in Timber Brown. I wrote Give Thanks on mulberry paper and I stamped Happy Thanksgiving on wax paper. I glued both down with fluid medium.  They both kind of melt into the background but leave some added texture on the page. I stamped and wrote words with a couple sizes of Pitt Pens in the middle of the page and I wrote "I have much to be grateful for this year" on the top of the page.  I decorated around "Give Thanks"  and "Happy Thanksgiving" with a white Gelly Roll pen and a clear star Gelly Roll pen. Don't be afraid to experiment and try out new things in your art journal.  It is a great place to have fun and grow as an artist and to remind yourself about what is really important. Here is the finished spread. Have a Happy Thanksgiving weekend Janelle