Today’s page began as something completely different.  I had an idea and started to work on it, and initially it was great.  Until it wasn’t, which was more than a little problematic.  The plan was that this week would be one half of the spread and next week I would take the idea further on the second page.

You’ll often hear me say that most pages gone awry are recoverable as there isn’t much a thick layer of gesso can’t cure.  When faced with the mess that my original idea was, I actually heeded my own advice and got out the jar of Dina’s White Gesso and a Palette Knife.

And one very thick coat later, and a couple of hours of dry time, I was ready to move on.  See all of that texture?  I’m going to highlight it in a moment…

I am often asked about what I do with the Art Cards I create.  One option is to use them as part of a larger project and that’s what I decided on as my fallback plan for today.  Once that coat of White Gesso was dry I used Dina’s Black Gesso to add a layer of color.  I knew it would dry very matte which is what I wanted, though I could have used Black Marble Dylusions Paint or Dina’s Black Media Paint.  I didn’t want complete coverage and applied the gesso with my fingers, much like I did with last week’s warm colored background.

I wanted to capture the texture left by the White Gesso, plus leave some white space to break up the starkness of the black.  I also wanted to add something else… though I wasn’t entirely sure what, but since I hadn’t put away the Finnabair Art Alchemy Paints I’d been playing with, I reached for one…

Which ended up being the Aqua Rose Opal Magic.  This style of paint gives the best results on a dark background, with the secondary color becoming very evident.  With the background already very busy because of the texture from the White Gesso, I decided to just spatter the color on.

So I got out my #4 Fan Brush, thinned the paint with some water, and spattered in the usual way: hold the brush in your dominant hand and tap it on an extended finger from the other hand.

When I tested this method on a piece of scratch paper I could see the color on the black was shimmering as aqua and where the drops landed on white paper, they were pink.  There wasn’t enough white background left, so I mostly ended up with aqua dots.  Which was fine too!

Out came a couple of Art Cards I’d made when playing with the new Bloobel Designs stamps.  Because there was so much texture on the page I knew trying to use wet glue to adhere them was going to be an exercise in frustration, so instead I reached for Scor Tape…

And covered the back with it.  Remove the lining paper to expose the adhesive and put ’em where you want.

I decided on a diagonal layout which left the black squares at the top left and bottom right.  What to put there was the next question.  Some doodles was the initial idea…

Which I liked, but knew I didn’t want to fill the entire space with them. Since the Art Cards had Bloobel images on them it seemed to make sense to use others in those two open spaces.

So I stamped, colored, and cut out two of the Quirky Birdies.  And added some Stickles for good measure.  Because glitter is a good thing and the birds practically demanded it.  I didn’t want them to appear to be floating, so I cut a few pieces of Deli Paper that was mounted to watercolor paper to give the birds something to perch on.  I doodled on the pieces too, which will be a bit more obvious in the next images.

Tags can be used the same way, so if you’re wondering what to do with them and the Art Cards you create… this is one option!