Chase the wind... Digi Art Journal Page

Good Morning! :)

A little while a go I approached Not Just Cards Challenges with regards to their DT and Guest DT call and asked if I could have a go as a Guest Designer, I've been wanting to push myself to do something like this for awhile, so I gathered some courage and sent the email off. You cannot belieeeeve how thrilled I was when Zoe said yes. :)

Here's what I created:

And here was the image I was given for this week: 

This digi by is Aurora Wings and can be found here on Etsy.

As someone fairly new to the world of digis, my mouth dropped when I saw her... the picture is stunning, my mind was just wondering how in the world am I going to be able to do this piece justice?! It looks so complicated. But, I love a challenge, and I was determined to get her into my art journal... somehow! Where there's a will and all that :)

I've recently been having great fun with my art journal, messing around with paints, pens and... gel medium. Can you see where I'm going with this?

I figured, heck, why should digis always be clean and simple and put on cards. If I was using a rubber stamp image it would get some pretty heavy handed treatment! Soooooo, that is what I did.


Firstly, I rendered her hair and skin only, using letraset pens. (I wanted some of the background colour to come through.

I created my background on my Art Journal Page using Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean and Picket Fence Distress Paint. The Picket Fence was used to shade the area where her face would be and was put through The Crafters Workshop Tiny Circles stencil.

Using gel medium I transferred the image to my journal, but I split the image in half, having the butterflies and flowers on the other side of the page.

Once she was in I applied another layer of gel medium over the top and set about fixing any mistakes that I wasn't happy with.

Now the really fun part... I broke out my Faber Castell Big Brush Pitt Markers and started shading the flowers, building up the intensity of colours. I also went back over the hair in some places to concentrate the shadows with a dark brown, and add some more colour with the sepia tint.

I added some shading with blue around the face to ground the image.

Then it's a case of repeating with the other side. Once all this was done I went back over with the stencil and Salty Ocean Distress Paint, careful to avoid the image.

I didn't want to do too much else to the page as the picture is very detailed. So all that was left was some wording. It took me awhile to get inspiration for a title, but after watching Brave for over the hundredth time, the words from the song in there hit me. It was a pure lightbulb moment and seemed a perfect fit. :)

(By the way the watching of Brave is down to my two and half year old, I swear he's in love!)

My trusty white gel pen was next and the page took a hit with that too, just finish it off.

The only thing that I feel that has really nagged at me is the hairline, but heyho, this is an art journal and there's no such thing as a perfect art journal, right? ;)

So there you have it, and if you have stayed with my ramblings for so long then a huge pat on the back is in order! :)

Don't forget to enter your crafty creations in the Not Just Cards Challenges, the theme is always Anything Goes, and really it can be anything you've created, not restricted at all, which is very refreshing!

Hehe, hope you all have a lovely day.
Hugs
Georgie xx