Altered Book: Millefleur Colors

"With the first gleam of morning rays, the garden is a prism of a thousand hues refracted in tiny dots of crystal dew, a dazzling quilt of millefleur colors covering the sleeping flower beds."
~ Duane Michals

It started with a simple pale frame of yellow acrylic over gesso. But I didn't have anything to write, so the idea was to use a clear pen to draw details and paint over with watercolors. The clear pen would act as a mask. Using a clear Sakura glaze pen, I drew suns, blotting with turquoise watercolors. But... acrylics do not absorb watercolor paint... so the effect was only visible at the edges, where there was just gesso. I added more suns with glaze pens. At this point it looked gaudy...

You have to keep going, add layers, move on. The layers you don't care for... they don't matter! I added yellow and violet acrylic paint with a paper towell. Next random images were collaged, I printed a quote on scrap cardstock in white Sakura glaze pen, and edged the collaged images with the same pen. Used a ruler to make borders with neocolor II wax crayons and outlined the quote blocks with gellyrolls. The scanner had problems. The yellow-green is really lime and the purple is really magenta. In the end, I like the chaos, the layers... making limeade out of limes.

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