Being An Explorer

I’ve been an explorer the last couple months.

Playing around with different ideas, techniques and products in my art journal has proven to be quite the adventure!

With no need to make things picture perfect, or to even make sense, the art journal is perfect for exploring new materials and old, in new and different ways.

I got some pastels for Christmas and have been using them on every page. They are so much fun! And they give some effects that I couldn’t get otherwise.

I ended up loving one of the pages in my journal so much that I decided to make a full size picture based off of it. It is the butterfly in a forest picture. The pastels allowed me to add a misty/fogginess look to it which makes it look more mysterious for the butterflies to fly through as they explore. I also used some iridescent glaze on the trees in the foreground to help them pop out from the background more. The iridescent glaze doesn’t show up very much in the photo but it is quite amazing in real life!

Here is the finished collaged painting: