Book of Dreams: Week 8~Part 1

First of all, thank you very much for your kind words of support after my car accident. Your comments mean so much. We're all doing really well. Thank you!! So, we've made it to Week 8 of the Book of Dreams Challenge. Hope you've enjoyed it! I am posting Part One for this week now, since I only have one technique to show. Unfortunately with the accident I've had to put it on the back burner. As I get time to work more on this weeks theme, I will post more techniques and inspiration. I have planned for the theme this week to be focusing on bringing many elements together that we've been working on and using FOUND OBJECTS in your art. Whatever that means to you, found on a walk outside, found in your stash of supplies, a found treasure at a garage sale..

The technique I'd like to show you is fusing together lots of elements (or scraps) that you may have from your Book of Dreams, or other projects. You can use paper, images, fabric, fibers, anything you'd like. I started out just laying out a bunch of elements and deciding what I wanted to include and what I didn't. Next, I cut a piece of fabric a bit bigger than the size of a page of my book. I placed it onto a piece of parchment paper. I then covered it with molding paste (or modeling paste) in a thin layer. When this dries it will stiffen up the fabric background so that it can be adhered to a page of your BOD book. You don't want too thick of a layer or it will cover up all of your fabric. I used modeling paste which stays pretty white, I believe that molding paste actually dries semi-translucent.Next I started adding my elements. I put a bit of gesso down in some areas, which will give you a very whitewashed look. I then did one layer of elements, i.e. images, fabric and placed them on top of the gessoed areas. For those of you that invested in Gel Medium for your Book of Dreams, here is another use for it! Put a layer of gel medium over the element. It will dry clear, and helps it all adhered together. You can then continue to add more layers, using gel medium as the adhesive and sealer (layer under and over element). When finished, let entire piece dry for 1/2 hour to an hour. Place a towel down on your ironing board, a piece of parchment paper under AND over the layout and iron on high (no steam setting). It will begin to steam as you iron, that's ok. That's the moisture coming off while you fuse the layers together.After you have fused the elements together, the fabric will be fairly stiff. You could adhere this to a page in your BOD, or adhere it to cardstock and place it in the book, or think of another creative way of attaching it to your BOD:) I think I may leave this left page as is since it compliments the dreamy, almost frosty feel of the right side. This is the same technique I used for the Funky Buddha page in my post below. I used different brushes for each stage on that one and the same brush for all on this one. You will see that this has a bit more "foggy" or whitewashed look from the gesso residue on the brush. Each will give you a different look and feel.
I will try to post more for this week. Have fun. Incorporate found objects and scraps into your Book of Dreams and see where it takes you!