Halloween Journal pages

I couldn't let October go past without recording Halloween in my visual journal, so here is a double spread to mark the occasion.

You might remember that my journal is in fact an old book called the 'Roadmender' and to get started I pasted in some tissue wrap using matte medium.

I painted on DecoArt media acrylics and before it dried properly I rubbed over with a babywipe to remove the intensity of the colour but still leave enough on to create a darkish background. See how you can still see the book text underneath?

I dried with a heatgun and then finger painted over some contrasting colours,smudging them to create interest.

Next I dipped the pages in watery picket fence distress paint, let it move around the page and heat dried......

.... and then randomly stamped some cobwebs using black archival ink and stencilled the arrows using gesso and a piece of sponge.

 Now to introduce some further colour - I applied water soluble wax pastel over the arrows, dabbed with water and coloured over with chalk pastel pencils.

Taking a sketch and wash pencil I added shadow around them and darkened the edges more with woodless charcoal pencils, this created more interest and focus.

Onto filling up the pages and die-cuts seemed my best option to create the atmosphere and give me the bold images I wanted. Once adhered I set about using white and black charcoal and aquatone pencils to shade and colour until I was happy with the balance and depth to the pages.

I stamped 'beware' and used black modelling paste and a stencil for the 'halloween' and then added more texture with silver embossing paste and the dot fade stencil.

Did you notice the lights are on in the house?

 Having used Ranger, DecoArt, Studio 490 and Derwent products and had fun painting, daubing, rubbing, colouring and texturing the pages I am pretty pleased with the results. This is #37 in my Visual Journal, there is very little room left in the book and the pages are bulging but it is the first ever one I have completely filled so I am feeling rather proud of myself too.

Thanks for stopping by on this wet and miserable day here in Surrey, have a gresat weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx