Series 5 / Class 2 - Backgrounds : Don't let the blank white page scare you

Now we'll look at putting something on our pages that we can create our art on top of. I'll start with the handouts first since I listed some fun options to try step by step and then I'll give you some of my finished pages you can print out and play with.

Here are some close-ups on the results:

Option 1: Turning Your Background into Your Background ~ writing, without pause, till the page is full, then turning the page 90 degrees, filling it again, and turning and filling and turning and filling. When you've done four layers of writing, without stopping, you will certainly have got *something* off your mind. But you (and nobody else) will be able to read it. If it was negative venting, this is good, you'll cover it over with art and you will have gone some distance towards healing it. If it was positive, that's good, too. Maybe leave some part of it visible as you work on top of it to remind you of it later. I'll show you two examples below. On the first one, you can see the difference as I add the layers. I covered the page completely on the first pass, then only 3/4 of the page the second time, then only half the page the third time, and finally only a quarter of the page the last pass:

On the next example, I covered the whole page all over and you can see what an interesting pattern it makes for a background. I wrote with a very dark brown pencil crayon so I wouldn't get sharp edges. At some point in a future class, we'll paint and/or collage on top of the page and the background will be just that - a background:

Feel free to print this out to use as a background for your own use. What I wrote about is how I tend to procrastinate, no matter how organized I am, and wondering about the meaning of life. You know ~ basic human questions. :) 

 The second option is to cut up squares of text pages (I use old Readers' Digest books) and alternate the direction of the text over the whole page, which forms a kind of subtle basketweave. After I've covered the whole page with text squares, I paint over everything with a thin layer of gesso, which not only softens and unites the page, it also gives you a nice "toothy" texture to draw and paint on top of. The first example shows you the before and after of the gesso treatment:

On the next page, you can see how painting over the whole page makes it quite subtle:

Print this out as background for your pages if you like. It won't have the exact "feel" of a gessoed page, but it makes a good background all the same.

Options 3 and 4 (Scraping and Stencilling) are the same methods we used last class to work on our covers. Feel free to go back and review those steps if you like and create a whole page using them.

Option 5 is the first of an approach I call "Divide and Conquer". In the first example, I divide the page up into 16 sections and then choose a colour palette (usually 3-5 colours in a limited range next to each other) and make each square a different colour. On the page below I've used 4 different mediums to show you how they vary:

Option 6 and 7 are variations of Divide and Conquer. I've created a page below using watercolour paints, magazine images, lined papers and washi tape. Feel free to print it out and use it your journal!

The last option is a quick and easy way to make clouds. Cut a piece of cardstock in the shape of clouds and then using a makeup sponge, use the cutout as a stencil with either a rubber stamp ink pad or very light application of acrylic paint. By making your stencil wider than your page, and flipping it over, you can create the randomness of clouds while using only one stencil:

Again, feel free to print this out to use in your own journals :) 

One more post to go for this class ... stay tuned!