As a Tree

Hey lookie...I made a tree!  It's the little things in life that make me happy...like having a thought in the middle of the day and seeing it work out perfectly in the evening.  That doesn't happen often but it's pure joy when it does and makes all the other not so perfect times fade into the background.

The idea for today's tree actually came from a Donna Downey online class I took a few months ago where she used her fingers to paint some flowers.  I figured if Donna could make flowers I could make leaves, right?  Here's how I created these art journal pages.

I started by slapping some Distress Paints onto two of my art journal pages.  I used water to wet down the pages, before applying the paint, and then used my fingers to move the paint around (the journal pages absorb the water quickly so you don't get quite as much movement from the paint as you would on a smaller surface, like a tag).  Once the paint was dry there was a tree shape on the left page...see it?  I drew a rough outline so I'd know where to put the tree and then got busy with more paint!

 I painted the tree trunk first, using Golden paint as a base and then adding a few swipes of other colors (yellow/white) to give the tree a bit more texture.  (Links to all products at the bottom of my post).

To create the leaves I put four different colors into a plastic cup (three greens and a yellow), then I dipped my finger tips into the paint and starting putting paint down on the pages.  I just kept dabbing with my finger tips until I was happy with the look of the leaves.  Love it!  I then added a few tiny circles, using a stencil and more acrylic paint.  (The paint ran a bit too much through the stencil...but I can live with that...just add another layer!)

I used White Linen ink spray with the Blazonry stencil, you can just barely see the design in the background, and then the Chevron stencil with more yellow paint.  During Dina Wakley's class, taken a few weeks ago, she recommended staying in the same color family when adding colors and that's what I did with this page.  It was the perfect recommendation and really helped me keep this page from getting too crazy as there were already enough colors in the background.

 At this point...I needed black!  So I used a Wendy Vecchi stencil and Black Soot Distress Ink to add the words and numbers.  Love this stencil!

 I added a sentiment, using letter stickers, and a Grow tag (stamp from a Wendy Vecchi set, link below) with the date.  Using the half a tag for a date is totally a Donna Downey thing but I adore it so Donna...don't hate me because I've stolen your idea...it's fabulous and I love it!

 Oh yeah...and then I needed splats of colors...but of course!  The deep orange is watered down acrylic paint that I picked up with a brush and flicked all over both pages.  Love that splatter!!  And that, my friends, is how an idea turned into reality!!  Enjoy!!  Links below!

Products used on this project:

Dylusions Art Journal
Adirondack Paints (Terra Cotta, Willow, Lettuce)
Distress Paints (Salty Ocean, Spiced Maralade, Peeled Paint)
Golden Paints (Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Green Gold)
Distress Ink (Gathered Twigs, Black Soot)
Chevron Stencil
Tiny Circles Stencil
Blazonry Stencil
Classic Words Stencil
Dylusions Ink Spray (White Linen)
Original Art Stamp Set