Collaborative Project – StencilGirl Products and reSketch journal

In this StencilGirl Product’s collaborative, we each received a reSketch journal and chose one color, plus black and white, to use throughout the entire journal. I chose to work with Golden’s Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide. Additionally, I played with transparent and opaque combinations of bone black/carbon black and titanium white/zinc white. The transparent colors can be tricky to obtain depth, but if you work opaque neutrals into them they almost “glow”.

The front and back cover of my journal is birch bark. I picked it off a fallen tree in Michigan last summer, it stencils beautifully. I used Roxanne Evans Stouts, “Find Joy”, S617 , also her bees/dragonflies, Ocean Glider, Hawk of the Mountain, which you can find on Stencilgirlproducts.com It’s impossible to name all the stencils I used on this project, but to name a few; the faces and hand were created using several of Pam Carriker’s stencils, the silhouette faces were Seth Apter’s Stencil Club set 12-2017, Carol Wiebe’s Sacred Feminine, Carolyn Dube’s Venetian Buildings, Cecilia Swatton’s Heron and cats.

StencilGirl – Dos Amigos Pescado S562

Nosey Neighbors

Cat Stencil by Cecilia Swatton – StencilGirl s183

We had several months to finish this project and in the beginning, I was flowing right through it and with months to spare I was more than 3/4 way done; it was effortless and great playtime! Then I hit a creative wall, SMACK! I began to question why I ever got involved. The voices of defeat and self doubt were screaming loudly. I was frustrated and I sooooo tired of Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide! I snidely asked myself, “Why did you pick that stupid color anyways?”

Myself also said “you don’t even have a blog so only a couple of your favorite pics will show on the main post so why struggle to finish it?” For awhile I found comfort with that theory, until one night I spotted it tossed aside on my art table under a pile of papers and stencils. As I paged through it, I was pleasantly surprised with the flow of the pages and the uniformity of the color; That is until I reached the ones I had struggled with. The ones that had crushed my vision of completion and left me frustrated and joyless. I still hated them.

I considered gluing them together so they wouldn’t show, or perhaps gob on the gesso and start over, pretend they never existed, HA! However, I knew in my heart that goes against my long term mantra of “It doesn’t need to be right or good… it’s just authentically me, in that moment”. With a little patience, I did morph them into better pages. Not favorite pages, just better pages.

A few days later, I received a notification of a new YouTube post and thought “OMG! I can link the entire journal via YouTube!!!! So next morning, I took the journal outside in the sunshine and snapped pics of every page and made it into a slideshow. I will admit, even the pages I didn’t like blended nicely. They did not stick out like gross mishaps as my previous voices said they would. I was excited to share the link, but the journey doesn’t stop there.

In the project’s private Facebook group I stated, “I am done, but don’t have a blog…” The statement left me flat and a little disappointed so I said to myself, “Toss one up for this project, you can fancy it up later!” Voila, Welcome to my Blog!!!!!

My point is, stop worrying if what you are doing is great, or perfect, or right. Be authentically you in the moment and just do it. Now go grab your StencilGirl stencils, some paint and make it an Art Day!

WAIT – We can’t let you leave without saying THANK YOU for stopping by and for sharing in our color journal story. And, as a special Thank You, we also have a GIVEAWAY!

We are giving away a random selection of resketch journals AND a $25 StencilGirl® gift certificate to ONE LUCKY PERSON!

Make sure to comment below to let us know you’ve visited and let us know what color your journal would be. Visit each artist(s) blog for more chances to win! (comments due no later than April 28th midnight EST). We will pick ONE winner on April 29th, 2019 so watch this space to see if you are a winner!

Hippity HOP over to these blogs:

StencilGirlTalk where it all begins

Marsha Valk https://marshavalk.com/?p=86081&fbclid=IwAR0CqGl9B07VfjTpDyObaXtvy5jjUAId_-3KOr7L7QwI1L_gli4fiDzAAh8

Erin Serviss DeCoste

Anna Friesen

Tina Walker

Josefine Fourage

Jenny Petricek

Cynthia Silveri

Amie Ruth – See her pieces on the StencilGirl Talk Post

Michele Kosciolek