Art Journal Challenge----week 1

Good morning!
I am so excited about our Art Journal Challenge--"Paint your Truth"! I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time and I thought long and hard about what our overall theme should be.
"Paint Your Truth" is something that I have kept in the forefront of my mind every time I create a canvas for Paint Like Me!   I have to offer a quality product that is true to who I am as an artist....I promised this challenge would not be about selling art parties though, so I won't expand on that further except to say that I thought it would make a great overall theme for our journals! Over the next many weeks, we will discover truths about ourselves and our artistic abilities and gifts.

BUT FIRST
Let me go over some of the supplies you will need. I don't want this to cause any kind of economic hardship, so please do not go crazy buying supplies. For each prompt I will suggest some products, but you will ALWAYS be free to use whatever you have laying around the house.
The main thing you will need is a journal.  It can be anything, a deck of cards (if you like working in a tiny scale), an altered book (in which you have glued pages together to create a harder surface), or if you are like me,  a mixed media 'sketchbook'  shown here. It can be any size, but I like to work on a largish scale so my book is 11 x 14.

OUR FIRST PROMPT is simple...I want you to write down on a separate sheet of paper, "I am...."
and then jot down the first things that come to mind.
For me, it was  'trying so hard', 'starting again, again' and 'brand new'.  I have recently gotten remarried, moved into a new house, in a new town and am a new step mom.
For each word or phrase you write down, think of and jot down some correlating images. For me it was butterfly, mountain climber, compass, and a duck (paddling like crazy underneath the water's surface).

For our first journal page, I want you to
1.   Choose 3 colors of paint  only. I used Viridian, Bright Blue and White.
2.  Use  a minimum of 2 other products or tools besides paint and paintbrush.  ( I used stencils, washi tape, chipboard letters and a stamp roller)
3 Place the words 'i am'  and one of your ideas into the artwork by any means you choose (handwriting, collage, stamping...)
and
4.The final requirement for this challenge is to incorporate an unconventional collage element into the work. I used a cupcake liner.

Here is the process I took,and I am so excited to see what you come up with!

I began by applying a base coat of acrylic paint by troweling it around with an expired gift card.
I then stenciled some arrows and wings with white acrylic paint, and once that was dry I stuck down some hunks of black and white washi tape.   I then glued on some chipboard letters to spell out 'i am' and painted over them.

At this point I wasn't sure which of those images (duck, mountain climber, butterfly) that I would use, but the painting was beginning to take on a look that I felt worked best with mountains. So I painted on a mountain range going through the center of my painting. I just used a crappy (old,scraggly) artist brush and stippled on white in the shape of a mountain range.

                                            My Mountain Range of  challenging 'newness'.

After that I dripped on some bright blue india ink. India ink is one of my most favorite products of all times and ever!!! If you have never played with any colored India ink, I  highly suggest it. The color is sooo saturated and goes so far. In my painting I dripped it on, then rubbed it out with a paper towel.

I started thinking about images I relate to being a perfect mother (which I am far from...) and decided on a cupcake liner cause perfect moms bake cupcakes all day long, right?  Snort!!!!
Also, I just really like to use cupcake liners whenever I want a perfect yet imperfect circle. I wrote the words 'brand new' on it and then adhered to my artwork with Mod Podge. I applied some what paint over the top of it to obscure the whole thing.

 I have a huge collection of rubber stamps and I went looking for any that had an arrow-y look to it and found an old stamp roller that looks like arrows, and also tire tracks, which represented forward motion to me.  I applied the dark blue paint to that and rolled it over my artwork in between my India ink smears.  I then added some dots to the edge of the cupcake liner and smeared on some pink and blue glitter, to represent the flock of children Mike and I are raising  (well, 7.)

At this point I stepped back and realized I was done. I didn't want to do too much, which also felt symbolic to me. As you are working, you will realize there are parallels between your thoughts about your topic and your  work process.
Please request to join this closed facebook page if you would like to be actively involved in this process, however I know there are many who will just want to work quietly by themselves. Happy Painting!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1673713322873063/

Can't wait to meet you and share this journey of discovery!
XO ELIZABETH