Love is not limited by language.

Being an artist, I am not always in love with what I create. Sometimes I go into something with great intentions and amazing visions of what a spread might look like but find the reality of what happens on the page to be someone lacklustre and disappointing. Sometimes, it looks perfectly fine, it's a love WIP (Work In Progress); however, the energy just isn't there for whatever reason. I will sometimes find myself foolishly thinking to myself, oh I'm just not feeling it right now, Future Samm will finish it. Maybe the passion for it will hit me in the future enough to finish it off. It's never the case in my own experience. If I'm not feeling a journal spread enough to finish it in the past, I'm certainly not going to feel it enough to finish it in the future!

That was this page for me. She also has a brother page to the right there that I will be covering over and doing something that gives me joy, that I feel energy with, that arouses my creative passion. These guys just weren't doing it for me. Again, it's not that I didn't like them. They are fine. There is a lot of interest in the pages but perhaps what is lacking is any kind of meaning. Being an art therapist I think I am always seeking meaning in some way. Even if that meaning is nothing more than the enjoyment of putting mediums down on a page! So I thought I'd use this page for another Art Journal Journey page using this month's theme of LANGUAGE so kindly provided by the lovely Elle from Empire of the Cat.

So she got covered up!! I did some white gesso first but I was wanting a dark background. I've been going through a phase lately, my three last canvas' all began on black. So I brayered some black and ripped up another page from the Indian book I have cause I just love the look of that language.

One thing I really love about a dark background is putting really bright colours on top. All the better to help them pop, m'dear! I discovered these neon paints a few years ago and I absolutely adore them! They are Mont Marte fluro paints. I use them sparingly because who has copious amounts of money to spend on copious amounts of paint, amiright? Still, they have lasted me quite a while and gone a long way, which is great. I am getting close to needing to replace them. For some reason the lids are actually super weak, which is why you can see alfoil on the top of them, to stop the paints drying out cause the lids all cracked, so buyer beware.

To add more to the language theme I thought I'd use one of my word stencils on this one. I can't really make out the words in this stencil, but there are words there! I often use impasto paint for stuff like this but I thought I'd just go with plain white paint to pop off the darker background. I think it came out good.

This time, I actually thought I would do some kind of face and quote but turns out doing a face was not on the books today, Surprise!

Because I already knew the quote I was going to be writing, I ended up doing hearts with my Ceramcoat Sunset Blush. I like these paints because they are matte and they are easy to write over the top of, which I did in my trusty posca pen.

I like to mix up the lettering. Sometimes I like it all the same but still other times I like to mix it up with capitals, small letters, cursive, block letters, whatever I feel called to do. So I put down the initial lettering on the Ceramcoat but of course, you can barely see the hearts and bubbles amongst the mess of the glorious background.

So I got out my neocolor II watercolor crayons and added a bit of colour to the hearts going right over the top of the writing. I put the writing down first because 1) it gives me a guide for later, 2) it's easier to write over the Ceramcoat than it is the Neocolor and 3) when I go over it later, even if the posca is really just wiping away the Neocolor, the black ink from the first layer is still there anyway!

I thought I'd do some close-ups of the awesome layers. I love layers. Do you? How could you not? I mean being an illustrator at heart I also love completely smooth, solid, colour. I love a flat surface and crisp lines but I am also a mixed media lover and with that comes layers. Lots of textured, colourful, juicy layers! Layers you can't really see in photos on a blog. So here are some close-ups of the texture and the colours.

To finish it off, I went over the letters and defined them a bit more, I went around the outside of the bubbles and hearts with some deeper shadows, added some of my favourite Sakura gel pens to the lettering, which you can't really see here because photos never do the glittery goodness justice then the last thing I did was added some dots and shook off my while posca all over the top of it to add a bit of messy mcmess! And it is done. Another spread about Language.

In Joy!

Here is the first spread from my Art Journal Journey.

As this is another mixed media piece I decided I could also use it for the Creative Artiste Mixed Media challenge! Mediums use are: gesso, neon acrylic paint, matte acrylic paint, posca pens - black, pink and white, neocolor II watercolour crayon - black, purple and pink, Sakura gelly roll pen - pink and torn up bits of a book. I also used a stencil, while not a medium but a tool, it should be included in this list.

I've also been filling up a Sketchbook from the Sketchbook project and you can see those here:

* Elbow deep in Mundanity

* A movie I can watch a billion times

* By Jove, I think I did it!

* More from the Sketchbook Project

* More still from the Sketchbook Project

* Still more from the Sketchbook Project

* It's almost done

* B-deeba deeba, that's all folks!

You can watch a flip-through of the whole thing on my YouTube channel over HERE.