Color The Sky

For JOURNAL 52 this week the prompt was to "Color The Sky".  (I love that phrase!)

I started out with a whole different idea for this prompt...I was going to do a Dylusions+stencils thing that turned out being a pretty background, but not what I was going for at all...so that page will have to be the beginning of something else.  

I was disappointed at first, but then I made this page and I really, really love how it came together:

"And then there are magic days, and it's practically impossible to tell where the mountains stop and the sky begins."
I live near the Blue Ridge mountain area, and sometimes you really can't tell the difference between the tops of those glorious, hazy mountains and the sky!  East Tennessee is such a beautiful place to live...

I've had these Inkadinkado Blending Chalks forever and ever (like THESE but the 'Bold Brights' colors instead of the 'Soft Tones'), something I bought because they were on clearance and I thought I'd use them...and then they just sat there...literally for years...until tonight!!!

I had seen something similar to this on Pinterest using Pan Pastels and wondered if it would work with the chalks I already have...and success!  I cut wavy lines in a manila folder and then, using that as a stencil, blended the chalks onto the page using a makeup sponge (starting on the folder and pushing away onto the paper...don't do it the other way, your folder will bend ...don't ask me how I know that...).  I moved the folder around so that the lines would be in different places each time and I overlapped the previous chalk color a little as well.

I've spent the last hour adding pages like this to several of my journals...it takes about five minutes to do a page, so go ahead and do the math on how many pages I've done like this...it's addictive, and I think it looks SO COOL!  When I'm done here, I'm going to cut different shapes (pointy lines and what not) and do a couple more pages...I can't stop!!!

Just for the record, this is once again proof that it's ok to buy something just because it's on clearance and you will use it...eventually...*high fives fellow art supply hoarders*  

Now I'm wondering what else I can do with my under-utilized blending chalks...

And the gratuitous close up...

I even like my lettering attempt pretty well!  I've been reading Joanne Sharpe's The Art of Whimsical Lettering (thanks to the free trial month of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited program...which seems like a pretty good deal, FYI, and they're not paying me to say that...  it's $10 a month after the free trial, and there are actually a bunch of art journaling books that are available...I think it will be worth it for me, but we'll see how I feel about it when the free trial part is over...).  Joanne Sharpe encourages you to learn to love your own handwriting and go from there, so I'm trying to put her advise to good use and take note of the parts I like and then work on the not-so-great parts...

Also thanks to the Kindle Unlimited program, I've been looking at No Excuses Art Journaling by Gina Rossi Armfield.  In an attempt to add more irons to the fire, I bought a 2015 planner after I had my tooth pulled on Wednesday and am going to try my own version of this type of journal...  I figure if I fail at it, I can still use the planner as 2015's bill book and I won't have to make one like I did this year...although I do love the gal that I painted on the front of this year's bill book, so I'm gonna have to cut out and keep her. 

I think there are some good ideas in the No Excuses book so I figure I'll give it a go and adjust a little bit for the parts that I can't use...nothing wrong with that, right?  

That's it for tonight, I guess...I'm off to do a chalky background in my new "No Excuses" planner right now...and then see what else I can put a chalky background on...the dog better watch out because at this point nothing's safe and, really, he could use a good chalk dusting to snazzy him up...