Mini Art Journal - A new way of seeing things

This is an ATC I made a while ago when I wanted to test the drop/tear stamp from Designs by Ryn (from water effects sheet) in combination with an eye stamp (by stampabilities). The other stamps are from Tim Holtz Grunge rays and the travel quote stamp from Technique Tuesday. I thought it made a striking card esp. with the bold colors and the rays coming from the eye. I was super pleased with the outcome, even if it was a first try. So I set it aside on my desk and moved on to other things and then the most annoying thing happened... When I wanted to write down the materials I used for this card and I couldn't find it anymore! I went through my desk and papers over a bunch of different times and could not find it anywhere! What a bummer!! But thankfully I still have the picture of it. Then I thought, wouldn't it be great to have a journal where I could test out my ATC format idea's on without risk of loosing them again? And so, the mini Art Journal was born!

I have this moleskine sized journal with sturdy watercolor pages in them which I thought would be great for this project. It's bigger than the ATC format of course, but still small enough for projects on that scale. I stamped the eye and drops first with memento Black and made a mask for them. Stamped the Tim holz Grunge rays with Staz on Black Cherry and the checked stamp with Staz-on Saddle Brown. The background color is Distress stains Wild Honey, diluted with water and adhered with a brush, creating a gradient from top to bottom.

Then I took off the mask to work on the eye & drops. As you can see I placed all the drops closer to the eye. It already has a striking result like this due to the bold background! As you can see the mask was not cut tightly around the image (I wanted to avoid bleed through in the image by color seeping in though the sides) but you can easily fix that. I used Tombow light ocher and a water brush to blend the colors in. And then I I got some more Tombow dual brush pens to color and accentuate the eye and drops.

And this is the end result. I added more lashes and gave it a bit of 'smudged eyeliner" look. I had found a left over piece of water colored paper and stamped the quote on it with Staz-on Pumpkin. I just love these drop stamps from Designs by Ryn! They are so realistic and very easy to place. Not sure how I feel about starting yet another ART journal though, but I like that I have a place to collect my small scale ideas in.

Hopefully at some point I'll find the original ATC again... Or I'll just make others, now that I have the visual ideas in the journal ;) 

Have you ever lost something you created? 

I think it means that I need to do a bit of spring cleaning on my desk, haha!

Also with this post I am entering the fortnight challenge at De Stempelwinkel's challenge blog for challenge 8 'Sunshine Yellow' - wish me luck :) 

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a creative weekend.

namasté