Here we are, 4 months into the 2017 version of the AJA.  Where does the time go??

If you have fallen behind, don’t stress.  Jump back in this week, next, or whenever your schedule permits.

The beauty of what Bonnie and I have created is that you don’t have to participate every week and if you miss one or two, there’s nothing that says you MUST make up the pages.  This isn’t school, it’s fun, so work at your own pace.  We all lead busy lives.

Our prompt this week is “hand”, as in use one of yours on your page.  Trace it (my option), photograph it, sketch it.  Just get that shape on the page and let her rip!

Because I’m a literal kinda girl, my traced hand is right there, front and center.   What you do with the shape is your challenge.  It could be in the background, you could use a hand shape multiple times, or the fingers could be perches for something to sit on.

Here’s my left hand traced on a piece of Global Art Materials hot press watercolor paper that I’d used Dylusions Ink Sprays to color..  I inked it with a PITT Pen so you could see the shape.  That ended up being a problem because I missed trimming some of it away when I cut out the shape, but you’ll see my workaround that ended up resolving a couple of issues.

I wanted pattern on the hand and decided to ghost it on using our 6″ x 9″ This & That #4 Stencil – which happens to be on sale at this moment in time.  (the sale ends at 11:59 pm EDT on Wednesday April 26, 2017)

Misting water through the stencil, waiting about 30-45 seconds, then pressing paper towel on the shape lifted the color and this is what I ended up with.  Just what I had in mind and I’m happy with the results.  Up next is adding stuff to it; writing and doodles.

A reminder not to let the Inner Critic (that bitch) mess with you.  I penciled in the letters first, then use a Superfine PITT Pen in black to line them.

I penciled in the frond shapes too, then used my trusty PITT Pen to line them.

Let the doodling commence…

It was right about this point where the black traced outline that I’d missed cutting away began to seriously piss me off.  During the tooth gnashing portion of my creative adventure I realized that if I added a narrow black border it would camouflage the black outline and would make the edges of the shape much more obvious, all the better to make it stand out from whatever background I ended up putting it on.  I used a black Pebeo decoMarker and in a couple of minutes this is what I had.  I much prefer it.

Doodles complete.

This is a cast off page I’d cut from an Accordion Book I worked on a couple of years ago.  It’s been floating around my studio and I decided enough was enough and that I was going to use it as the actual page background.  That the green color I previously applied was a complement (as in a complimentary color — I love you Color Wheel) to the pink and orange of the hand was just a bonus.

Trimmed to my new working size of 5″ x 8″.  I switched from my previous 8″ x 10″ format in Week 15.  I’m so pressed for time I decided working a little smaller would help and so far it seems to have.

For the sake of continuity I used the same 6″ x 9″ This & That #4 Stencil to add shapes to the background.

Then I used our Background Noise – Circles stamp and Black StazOn Ink to add more shapes. It’s still not looking quite the way I want…

So it’s time to add more color, using a Gelly Roll Metallic Pen.

Better, but it’s still is not quite what I saw in my mind’s eye.

Here’s the finished page with the hand glued in place.  I like everything about this one but feel something is off, just a tiny bit.  I considered a couple of options, but given the mess I made of the border on my Week 15 Silhouette page, I went with the ‘discretion is the better part of valor’ idea and left it alone.