Wicked Black Background

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day.
The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them.
Most people don't see any."
~ Orson Scott Card

above, very wet paint

dry paint, still shiny

20x12" art journal spread from altered book project "tekenfilm"

Here's how to create this art journal background with black gesso:

Ingredients

• A piece of watercolor or bristol paper or an old hardback book
• Black gesso (i.e. store brand)
• Fluid acrylic paint (i.e. Golden Fluid Acrylics)
• Paint brush or chopstick
• Old credit card

Play-by-Play

1. Paint most of the page with any color of fluid acrylic paint. I used turquoise. Neatness irrelevant.

2. Let the acrylic paint dry completely, so that touching it makes no mark, to ensure the next layer doesn't blend with the first.

3. Paint the page with black gesso, a decent layer, smoothing with a credit card.

4. Let the gesso sit for up to 5 minutes.

5. Drip one color of fluid acrylic paint randomly on the page. I used magenta.

6. With the back of a paint brush or a chopstick, draw swirls, twirls, symbols, zig-zags and doodles, even tiny secret messages, in the paint.

7. When you like the look, leave the page open and allow it to fully dry overnight.

8. Wow! A wickedly mysterious art journal background.

This is my art for DAY 18 of National Non-Stop Journaling Month, NaNoJouMo. Check out the other pages in the on-going 'tekenfilm" book project, an altered illustrated children's book morphing into an art journal!

More black gesso goodness:

• Happiness Instructions
• black.magenta
• black.periwinkle
• Black Gesso & Neocolors
• Black Gesso & Stamps
• Journal Lettering II
• Line Practice

Comments

[Terri @ Pringle Hill]

LOVE it! I love the drama of the black gesso. Hugs, Terri xoxo