Ledger Art journal Page {with Eclectica³ Ellen Vargo stamps by Designer Ellen Vargo}

Hi everyone! Ellen here. 

Happy 4th of July to all my US friends!  I'm excited to be back here on the PA blog to share another project.  Today we'll be creating an art journal page in my ledger journal, using fresco paints, stamps and stencils.

I found an old ledger on eBay and have loved creating pages in it.  The writing on the ledger pages gives you a jump-start on your backgrounds.  That card on the page should give you a clue as to our first step... yep, we're going to be doing the scraped-paint technique...

I chose these colors of fresco paints:  Nougat, Honey Dew, Chartreuse and Haystack.
With each color, I put a small dot in various places on the page and then scraped the paint up/down or side-to-side, drying between layers, until I was happy with it.

Then I stamped my swirly circle from EEV01 and the scratchy circle from EEV02 over the background, using two of the same paint colors we used for the background.

EEV01

EEV02

And then I used Chalk paint with Lin Brown's circles stencil to randomly apply some circles all over the page.

One more step to our background.... I used the script stamp from Backgrounds 2 and pale ochre archival ink.

Ink and dog Backgrounds 2

And, finally, here's how our page looks after scraping the paint, stamping the circles, adding the stenciling, and a little more script stamping...

Now it's time to work on our focal images.  I chose one of JOFY's flower stencils and used the cat-tail image across the page.  

NOTE: In the picture below, you'll see that I added some blue painter's tape to the corner of the stencil.  This extends the edge of the stencil so you decrease the risk of getting that hard edge when stenciling - very very helpful!  You can also use painters tape to mask off other areas of the stencil you don't want to use - I used that technique as well when doing the stems.

I stenciled the image at different heights, and extended some of the stems by lining up the stencil underneath the first image to continue stenciling.  I used chutney paint for the top of the cat-tail, with a little bit of caramel at the bottom, and then used french roast paint for the stems.

You can see that the stems all end at "approximately" the same spot, but no worries, we're going to cover that up with some collage to give the cattails a "ground".  

Next I added some more stenciling using my good friend Patti Parrish's "dangle" stencil - she has her own line of stencils with iStencil if you want to check them out.  

I used french roast paint (same as the stems) to apply the stenciled image at both the top and bottom of the page - I just LOVE this stencil!

I wanted something more at the base of the cattails, so I used my "fringe" stamp from EEV05 with fern green archival ink.  (Not sure I'm in love with this, but I wanted to try it...)

EEV05

Now it's time to choose a quote.  I chose this one from Lin Brown's ELB05.

ELB05

I used antique linen distress ink to "age" some white card and then stamped the quote with jet black archival ink.

I cut the words in the quote stamp apart, glued them to the page, and then outlined with a black fine-line pen.  I also added some highlights to the cattails with a white gel pen, some shading to the border using gathered twigs distress ink, and a shadow to the dictionary page "ground" using a brown Stabilo ALL pencil.... and.... drumroll..... here's our finished page!

Hope you enjoyed following along!  I'll be back again next month with another project to share. Take care 'til next time!

~ ellen.

A huge thanks to Ellen from all at PaperArtsy HQ, what a fantastic page, We love the way the layers build up gently, a perfect backdrop for the bolder,stencilled, focal image. The way you have done two bottom borders is really cool and different. 

If you would like to join in our weekly challenge with any of this week's guests who have blogged since Sunday night, then join in to link up your creativity HERE you will go in the draw to win PA stamps of your choice! You need to link your entry by17:00 (London time) Sunday 6th July 2014