Mardi Party Animals Art Journal Layout

Hello, it’s the second Wednesday of the month, and that means a new challenge over at Words 2 Craft By.  Check out the inspiration from my talented teammates and play along!  This month’s words of inspiration are:

“It has been said that a Scotchman has not seen the world until he has seen Edinburgh; and I think that I may say that an American has not seen the United States until he has seen Mardi-Gras in New Orleans.”    ─ Mark Twain 

I guess that means I’ve never seen the United States, but here’s my interpretation anyway:

Originally, I had envisioned a night-time scene at Mardi Gras with my characters in front of a crowd.  I think this would have worked if I had the mini sets of the Crazy birds, cats & dogs, but I don’t.  I went ahead and made my night-time background with sidewalk, but it ended up looking like the Northern Lights with a dirt road because I used some TH Grit Paste (which is awesome).  I knew I just wasn’t going to be happy with that, so I ripped it out.  This  was the first time I used my art journal and it was right in the middle, so then the strings were showing…oops, what a mess.  I used multi-matte medium to flatten them, and started over.  I added some patterned paper and applied gesso, hoping some of the pattern would show through, but not so much.  I could have just applied this over what I did originally…duh.  The end result looks like wallpaper that’s peeling (oh well). 

I used texture paste with my TH Gothic stencil and lined them up as best as I could over the 2 pages, and let it dry overnight.  It didn’t look too bad but I didn’t think it through completely as far as color.  I wanted Mardi Gras colors, so I started out using  watered-down Wilted Violet distress ink, and applied to about half of the first page. 

I colored part of the next section with Mowed Lawn and just didn’t like it (forgot to take a pic).  I worked and worked and worked to get that color up, and then reapplied Wilted Violet to the remaining stenciled area.  Of course, I was left with an area that didn’t look as good, so that’s where I placed my balloons (colored with Mowed Lawn).  I added some fine Gold embossing powder (Ranger) here and there to my background, then inked around the edges with my Pitt Big Brush marker (Nougat) – shown in final photo, not below. 

Next, I worked on my sidewalk, using a scrap of watercolor paper and Antique Linen and Pumice Stone distress inks, spritzed with water and wiped off color, etc., and adhered that to my layout.

I used various distress inks to color my characters and their props, all of which (with one exception) came from the Crazy Things rubber stamps set.  I added an extra set of eyes for dimension, and covered in Glossy Accents.

I used a rubber stamp from my Julie Nutting “Bootiful” doll set for the masks, stamping them with black Stazon on TH gold Metallic Kraft-core paper, and used a punch for the holes in the mask.  I added some Ranger green foil to the balloons for extra shine.

For my sentiment, I used the TH thinlit set, Alphanumeric (1″), except for the first letter of each word.  For those, I used “Curlie Girlie” from Sizzix Sizzlits.  My layout needed something else, so I made confetti out of a few letters from the TH dies, using metallic cardstock.

 

I think that sums it up.  Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave comments!

Playing along with the following challenges:

http://cardsundmore-challengeblog.blogspot.com/2017/01/challenge-177-pets-and-other-furry.html

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/

http://sirstampalotchallenge.blogspot.com/2017/02/february-animal-magic.html

http://abitmoretimetocraft.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/a-bit-more-time-to-craft-challenge-37.html

http://creativeartistemixedmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/welcome-to-creative-artistes-challenge.html