The Tree Page is finally up!

With spring break over and me back with my 4th graders, I've finally got the time to post the lovely tree page. This is the water color picture I did so poorly and went back and rescued it with some acrylic paint, markers and leaves stamped on various green papers. I added a quote from e.e. cummings I picked up at the Quote Garden web site. I thought it turned out rather nice. I didn't do so bad on the second water color forest, so that page will complete the spread with the tree as-is. I can't wait to finish the rest of the pages and bind the whole thing into a book so I can start writing!

Just one and a half weeks until my kiddos start art journals. Our big stakes test here in Arkansas is the week of April 12. After that, we are going to relax and have some fun! Our reading focus for the 4th quarter of school is poetry, so I'm going to incorporate it into our art journals. I'll post some of the kids work here. Every year I'm amazed at the art these guys turn out.

New Journal Pages

I've been taking a journal class on-line and have gotten caught up making pages instead of working on journal entries! The 2 pages were made on sheets of 140 lb. water color paper. I used a mixture of 1/3 school glue, 1/3 matte gel and 1/3 water mixed well to glue the pieces down. Collage pieces are junk mail! I never knew that junk mail could be so cute inside. Lots of the enveloped have security lining and each seems to be a little different. Use lots of the adhesive mixture. Cover the whole page first with a good coat, then start laying pieces down randomly, overlapping edges. Do this quickly without much thought. This part is a lot of fun and very relaxing. A perfect art project for weekday evenings when you're just too tired to do anything that requires a lot of thought! As you lay the pieces down, apply another coat of adhesive over the top of each piece. I'm using a 1" chip brush to do this. Once you've used a brush in this mixture, don't use it in paint again. Even though you clean up with soap and water, the brush is never quite the same again. The hard part is waiting for your pages to dry. I let mine dry overnight before painting them. I choose an inexpensive craft acrylic paint and mixed it with a lot of gloss medium (you can find both in the art section of Hobby Lobby). Both products are kind of pricy, but they go a long way, so it's a good investment. The gloss medium says it keeps the acrylic paint wet longer to allow for blending, but I'm using it as a glaze over the top of the papers. I brushed a thin, almost watercolor looking coat over the whole page. You can immediately wipe some off with a paper towel if you get it heavier than you want. I wanted a translucent effect that toned the papers down, but that didn't completely cover them up. After letting this dry (about an hour) I went back and added the peach color in the same way. My third coat was a little more paint and I just worked around the edge to make a boarder. I'll go back and add some vintage collage images around the edge and do my journal entry in the middle eventually, but right now I want to complete all my pages and bind the journal before I do much writing. I did do a page with a whimsical tree and have written a quote on that page, but for the most part the writing will come later. I'll add the tree tomorrow, so stay tuned for the next entry!