Welcome to Week 11 of the 2017 AJA!  Hard to believe we’re here as it feels like just a short time ago that Bonnie and I were creating out covers, but time waits for no art journaler.

Your Week 11 prompt?  Use a silhouette.  Simple, but the options are mostly endless.  As you’ll see, I chose a traditional profile, but you could use an entire figure.  Or you can elect to use a silhouette that isn’t a head or body.   I chose to make my traditional profile black, the traditional color of a silhouette.  That’s about as traditional as this gets however…

This is the silhouette I’m working with.  I like the open area and plan to use it… somehow.  I’ve cut it out and will trace around it, but before I do that I want to get the background in place.

I’ve used the Pebeo Iridescent Acrylics in a lot of ways, but till now had now applied them to a background with my fingers.

A little on my fingers, smudged and smooshed around.

Finished with the paint, but it needs something else.

So I got out one of my Lindy’s Starburst Sprays and spritzed some on the background.  The silhouette is there only to keep the center of the page mostly color-free.

The background is still not making me happy.  I grabbed a cap and dunked it in pink paint to add the circles.  Still not doing it for me…

So I used a larger cap and black to add more circles.  I also thinned some of the paint and spattered it to create the small black droplets.

One of my favorite stencils in our 9″ x 12″ Dotted Grid.  It’s simple, but I like the effect I get with black paint, so I added some of both sizes of the dots.  Still feeling like something is missing.

So I used some of the Pebeo decoMarkers to embellish the dots.  Getting better, I think.

Time to get the silhouette on the page.  I used a hard leaded pencil (Mars Lumograph 5H) and traced around the cutout.

And painted it black.

To delineate the shape inside of the silhouette I used a white Pebeo decoMarker and dotted the perimeter.

I was still not liking the background so added the border.  Ick.  Not at all what I had in mind and now I really am not happy with it, but this is a bridge too far and there’s no way to go back.  Added the white dots in the squares in the hopes that would help me like it more.  Nope.  (note to self: quit while you’re ahead)

I added the stitching around the perimeter of the silhouette, which I like.  Not that it makes up for that damn border!