Wow!  What a busy weekend I’ve had.  We got up early Saturday morning to go to Girl2’s soccer game.  Then we spent the day at Rose State College for Global Oklahoma.  We came home just in time to watch a close, but disheartening OU football game.  We got our art on in our journals.  My li’l pumpkin made a really cool background that looks sort of marble.  She was just scribbling in watercolors, but we’re going to figure out how to do it on purpose.  Then, after the girls got back from (or would have been back from, if they’d gone) church, Girl2 and I spent some time trying to figure out how to make spray foam pumpkins to carve!

I’ll try to post about all of that throughout the week.  For today, I’m just going to post this week’s art journal entry, “Rainy Daze.”

First, I gessoed the pages to give them a nice thick texture.  Then I broke out some new toys!  I bought some *La Cheapay spray bottles at Wal*Mart.  I put in about a tsp of acrylic poster paint and filled them the rest of the way with tap water.  I mixed up yellow and blue to give a background effect similar to that of a “rainshine” day.  At this point, I got excited about the effect and ease of the spray bottles that I forgot to take pictures of the next few steps.  I painted large circles of gesso in the upper left and lower right corners and used a dry brush technique to try and blend the edges with the background.  Then I used white acrylic poster paint to make a smaller circle inside and used the same technique so that it would spotlight the pages.

Then I began using watercolor crayons to draw my window with the cups to catch rain water, and the 100 year old wallpaper that surrounds it.  I painted a leafy bush from outside and a closeup of one of the leaves.  I have no idea what kind of plant it is, but it’s a lot like trumpet creeper in that if you don’t trim it back, it will take over your entire house.  Once I had those painted, I decided to mix up a black spray bottle to darken the borders of the page.  I LOVE this effect.

I keep those little cards I get in the mail advertising specials, inviting me to political meetings, advising me to pay my water bill, and I use them to mix paints.  After I have one used up, I throw it into the recycling bin.  I really like to use those little paper party plates.  After someone has used one to carry around her snacks and left it on my table, I can simply wipe it down and reuse it for paint mixing.  As it is, we haven’t entertained in a VERY long time so I don’t have any.

I mixed up some various blues all from the acrylic poster paint set.  Then I painted a water droplet.  I am EXTREMELY proud of my water droplet.  I have never before attempted to paint one with acrylic paints and I am very pleased with the results!

Once I had that done, I added my text entry and *wallah!

It won't stop raining! My 100 year old house is not standing up well to the rain. The plants are quite happy: Plenty of rain, plenty of sun, & I can't MOW!

*Because I like to make fun of France.