Breaking the Rules

For my new art journal piece, it seems I've broken a very important rule in composition - the rule of three. I've never taken a formal art class, but even I've heard of rule of three. That just means that you repeat a pattern three times which always produce something pleasing to the eye. Even in decorating, I've read in magazines or heard decorators on HGTV talk about placing a grouping of three objects to create a vingnette. It's not clear to me why I chose 4 heard on each page. And not only that, I created only two varieties of hearts. Another even number. Who knew I was such a rebel?

In this piece, I also broke away from my normal methods. For example, when I create a background with an ink spray, I normally spray directly onto my paper, mixing and layering my colors. But for this, I decided to spray on a non-porous surface (freezer paper, wax side up), and rub my paper on it.

I usually don't like to have white spaces in my art journal, but I'm experimenting, getting out of my comfort zone.

Next, I used my heart cookie cutter and used it to stamp with acrylic ink.

The reason I used acrylic ink and not my inkpad was because I wanted to blur the black lines with water before it had a chance to dry.  These inks take a while to dry so even after stamping 8 hearts, they were still wet enough to that when I spritz the pages with water, the ink ran.

This is a first for me too.  I usually work with clean crisp lines. I loved how the inks bloomed!  I then gessoed inside the hearts.  Once that dried, I added color with inktense pencils.

My next set of hearts came from mixing light molding paste with PearlEX shimmery pigment powder.  Using a Heidi Swap stencil, I added 3-D hearts. The last step was to add shadows and the quote by Degas.  I love this quote because it gives artists power to influence and convey ideas with images. My friend Suzala said in a comment that (I'm paraphrasing her) as artists, we participate in the realities we create and I love that.

Have a great Monday!