Everybody Hurts (Sometimes) - WOIW PAIN

The Word of Inspiration Wednesday challenge over at the Kraafter's Kommunity this week was to create something using the word PAIN for inspiration.

At first, I found this word a bit hard to relate to as it is not something I want to celebrate in any way or give too much thought to. I look at pain as a fact of life - we all go through it at certain points in our lives, whether physical or emotional. An important thing to remember, is that pain is only temporary. Nobody hurts all the time - pain gets better as the body and the soul heals. This thought reminded me of the song by REM back in the 1990's, Everybody Hurts (Sometimes) and thus my journal page was born.

I started a new journal for this project and I'm planning to collect all my WIW entries in it. I may be restricting myself a little bit here in terms of format, but I like the idea of keeping these projects together in the same place. It's a cheap journal with recycled brown kraft paper with lots of pages, so I can feel free to create without having to worry about ruining a "proper" journal. I still have issue with that! I'm going to use this journal to LEARN rather than try to create something perfect or absolutely awesome.

Here's my first page:

I started out by applying a layer of white gesso to strengthen the craft paper. Next, I spread acrylic paints for the background by using my fingers.  I can't seem to be able to get away from the dark blue/purple theme. I won't fight it for now - I'll just let it happen. I had the same thing with orange a few months ago, so I know my preference will change over time.

The image I used was printed off the internet. It's a painting by Leonardo daVinci. (I first saw one of the WOYWW deskers use a da Vinci image on a card, which gave me the idea originally.)  I figured it was safe to use as Leo's not gonna get onto me for copyright infringement, is he? Thank you, Sir - you so would have enjoyed social media in the 21 century! Just imagine the comments! Great painting, Leo, how did you do that?

I cut the image into a heart shape (I can just about hear some art historians cringe at this! to be honest, I'm cringing myself a little bit now that I put it into words!) and stuck it down with gel medium. I outlined it with white gesso using my fingers.  When the gesso was dry I partially removed it with a wet baby wipe to distress it a little. This kind of blended the image into the background. I did some texture stamping on the background with black archival ink, then I stamped the title onto Gelli prints. Although from a distance it may just look like regular red paper, it's got some texture to it. I attached the word strips with gel medium and shaded the edges with a black Faber-Castell brush pen. You can do this on non-porous surfaces - just quickly smudge the ink with your fingers before it dries. It really alters the look of the attached elements and makes them pop from the background. I finished off with some white texture stenciling using my trusted polyfilla instead of texture paste and sprinkled some white gesso all over the page, masking off the image.

It's far from perfect, but I quite like it. Here are some close-up shots:

I intentionally made the stamping a bit rough and careless (yeah, everyone would say that!)

The image was printed on regular printer paper using a laser jet 

Polyfilla applied through a piece of sequin waste used as a stencil

I can prop my journal up and flip the pages as if it was a desk calendar

Finally, I'd like to dedicate this REM song to those of you who are in pain at the moment, whether physical or emotional. Just remember, it will not last forever. It WILL get better. We all hurt at one point or another. Just hold on...