Mixed-media crumpled tissue HEART

Follow your HeART, Believe in your DrEAMS & CrEATE.....

I remember in my school days we used to make card-board Science models or Papier Mache Art-projects. And to give strength and stability to our projects, we used to layer it with newspapers and tissues. Obliviously sticking it with PVA glue mixed with water. And once dry, it used to be really super-duper strong. But what I used to hate was the creases or the crinkles coming in my super smooth finish models, while applying tissue paper. And if you try to smoothen it too much, then you’ll end up spoiling it even more, as the wet tissue will lump-up.  Sob! Sob!

Who would have thought that the things I perceived as mistakes in my childhood, would be turned around and used as techniques in creating textures, in my ART today.

So from Sob! Sob! – to- Lol! Lol!

For my ART- JOURNALING nowadays, I’m using Bilt’s matrix premium notebook, it's in B5 size, and has natural, ruled, 75 gsm paper, though I could have done better with higher gsm but I absolutely love the natural off-white color of the paper.

As the title suggests, this is a crumpled tissue Art-Journal page. 

                                                                             

So I have taken 3-4 tissues (normal facial tissues, that comes out of a box or any old tissue paper will do, even the ones from shoe boxes.) Another reason to hoard all the junk ;)                                           Anyway ----- I had crumpled all the tissues nicely, so they have lots and lots of creases.                        The More the Merrier!!!

Then I applied the PVA glue mixed with water (2:1 ratio) on my journal page, and glued the tissue, creasing them even more, so that I’ll have this beautiful texture to play around with.

Let it DRY overnight, though drying time may vary. In summers it will dry within 3-4 hrs. But in Winters, it can take up to 24 hrs. And if you are as impatient as I am, I’m pretty sure you’ll end up picking up your heat-gun/hair dryer to fasten up the drying process. Be careful! As heat-gun can burn tissue easily. I almost did. But, do make sure that you blow hot air on both the sides of your journal page for proper drying.

When it was completely dry, I painted over it in shades of Yellow and Orange acrylic colors. I used Pebeo’s high viscosity acrylic, so I needed to dilute it a bit, but not too much, as I like the dry brushing kind of effect.

I love the bit of white peeping underneath the yellows.

Once the base coloring was done it was time for my big HEART.

                                                                                                         

Well it’s season of hearts!!!!

As it's 2 page spread, I drew my heart in such a manner, that a bit of it is on the 2^nd page as well.       Really like the holes punched on the page, it adds another dimension to it. For coloring my heart, again I have used my Pebeo’s acrylics but this time I didn’t dilute it at all, as I wanted to see through all the layers of color. From Yellows – to – Oranges-to – Reds – to Maroons –to- Black. It’s a dry- brushing technique that I have used on my heart. Started with the lightest color in the center and ended with the darkest color at the edges of the heart. Reducing the area of each dark shade applied towards the edge. Hmmmm ! Not bad !

 

Hearts done, I started fooling around with my GELATOS (wonderful gift from my sis-in-law). Very lightly I rubbed the orange and red gelatos over the parts of my textured journal page. It highlighted all the beautiful creases and folds. 

O ! I love it ! 

Next time I am definitely gonna do the same bit with contrasting color gelatos. That will be AWESOME !!!!!

I so very much wanted to stamp some flourishes. But as luck would have it, my permanent Archival Ink was running dry (that reminds me, I need to add reinker in my art supply list) And I guess the tissue texture too, is too strong to take the stamped impression properly. Though I was not hoping for the perfect image but still better than what I got on my sample piece. So, after a few trials-n-errors I ended up doing freehand drawing of flourishes with 0.5 tipped permanent marker.    

                                               

Huff ! Huff !!  

Trust me, it was not easy to have free flowing curves on textured background.

Almost done. Just need to add a sentiment and my page would be complete.                            

Earlier I made a tag,but somehow it was not going with the layout, so again I ended up writing the sentiment as well. Though I have used 0.1 and 0.3 calligraphy pens to write the sentiment, but because of the background texture it doesn’t look like much of calligraphy.    
                                                             

But I’m happy with the overall composition.                      

                                                                              

What say !!!!                     

Do let me know, what you guys think about it. Your feedback means a lot.
Thanks a lot....do drop in again n see what all I'm doing in coming months....

Linking it to...
1. More Mixed Media Challenge - "Red"

2. Lulupu's   Challenge #58: Hearts And Arrows